Atari, a stumbling gaming industry veteran, is buying Nightdive Studios, the company responsible for the upcoming System Shock remake, as well as a number of other retro revamps including Turok, Shadow Man and PowerSlave. The deal is worth $10 million (half paid in Atari stock) and is expected to close by the end of April.
It's not surprising that Nightdive would want to sell to a larger, wealthier business. What's surprising is that they haven't sold out to, say, Embracer Group, whose efforts to acquire all the AA studios in the world continue. After all, Atari's latest business ventures haven't generated much consumer enthusiasm: the Atari VCS console has been underwhelming, the NFT side project has been underwhelming, and the flagship hotel, while looking cool, isn't much of a video game. However, we must pay tribute: the recent Llamasoft game, published by Atari, looks great.
However, despite the lack of goodwill, accepting Nightdive to its roster makes sense, at least for Atari, which is heavily focused on retro-oriented games. Atari CEO Wade Rosen says this in a statement: "Night Dive's proven experience and successful track record in commercializing retro IP aligns well with Atari's strategy, and I am confident that their combined talent, technology and IP portfolio will contribute to Atari's future success." .
Nightdive chiefs Stephen Kick and Larry Cooperman certainly echoed the enthusiasm in their own prepared statement, but when Nightdive official account on Twitter broke the news, responses fluctuated between condemnation and grief. However, perhaps they will now have the money to patch up Blood. “I sold Nightdive just so we could patch Blood,” he wrote Stephen Kick on Twitter.
In addition to the above $10 million, Nightdive will receive an additional $10 million over the next three years "based on future performance." That seems pretty cheap: by comparison, Embracer Group bought Tarsier Studios (Little Nightmares) in 2019 for just $500 more. System Shock will be released on May 000th and will be published by Prime Matter.
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