[img align=right width=225]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/5591257414803e11b6edd7cynical_atari.jpg[/img]There are many big developers out there. Such Behemoths as Activision, Nintendo, and the evil empire we know as EA. Love or hate, these behemoths tend shape the future of the gaming world, for better or worse. On the other end of the spectrum, we’ll have the fallen angels, where certain companies have just fallen out of favor. Such is the story for Atari. No, not the old Atari that was cool and caused the video game collapse in the 80s, but the current, sad, sorry Atari that was originally Infogrames / Hasbro Interactive. What went wrong, and what the hell are you doing?

Atari, you have some decent franchises. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the Rollercoaster Tycoon series. Chris Sawyer was a genius, and the fact that the first game was the number one seller the year it came out proved it. Too bad then that you took the series and combined it with shit in Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. A sequel, nah, that was a castration. You tried to make better with the third game in the series, but while it was fun it was a resource hog that slowed to a crawl when your park became too large. Good job destroying that franchise.

Recently, you almost lost your license for Dragonball Games. For you, that certainly would have sucked, as your Budokai games are actually pretty fun. They are perhaps the only gems that are not tarnished in your crown by pieces of shit like My Horse and Me. Is that even proper English? I believe that it should be “My Horse and I”. Great job promoting the further castration of the English Language, in a world where the internet is destroying the written language you’re doing your part by influencing little girls who are too small to use the internet. In time, they’ll join the rest of us on the internet, creating some hideous MySpace page with the welcome statement “Like O My Gawd I am liek so Happy that u r here!” What a sick sad world it is. Thankfully, the economy has collapsed, so these bubblegum girls aren’t going to be able to hide in McMansions anymore. Thank God, perhaps they’ll learn what their poor English will get them in terms of a job. Do you think “Would you like Fries with that?” is hard for them to learn? I don’t think so, but I digress.

Atari, you’re a lost cause. Try as you might, but you’ll never be a behemoth in the gaming world. It’s funny though, because you do try. You took Phil Harrison from Sony. What the hell? You’re supposed to go out in a blaze of glory, taking the Infogrames stock price with you! But you must not realize that, or perhaps you do, and you just want to ruin poor ol’ Phil. Phil seems to be such a nice guy though, it isn’t as though he’s the one known for “RIIIIIIIDGGEEEE RAAACCER!” No, that’d be Kaz Hirai. What? You say you wanted that guy? I am sure that with enough money you can get him. I am sure Sony wouldn’t mind to have Phil back, and we’d be happy to see you go down in flames without him.

It’s time for you to smell the roses, Atari. Your time is over, and it’s time for new companies to grow out of your decomposed remains.

It is noted that a lot of thought came about regarding the structure of the English language from just writing this article. We really wish our resident grammar Nazi, known to the RFG Community as Arrrhaloymnn was around to give his perspective. There’s nothing quite like a native Dutch Speaker giving a native English speaker his perspective on English grammar. Oh well.

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