This morning, Atari announced it had reached an agreement to acquire Digital Eclipse, the Californian game developer focused on the digital preservation of classic videogames. Following the acquisition of Nightdive Studios earlier this year, it's another step in Atari's retro-focused strategy.
Since its reformation in 2015, Digital Eclipse has released the following games:
- Mega Man Legacy Collection
- The Disney Afternoon Collection
- Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
- SNK 40th Anniversary Collection
- Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King
- Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection
- Blizzard Arcade Collection
- Space Jam: A New Legacy - The Game
- Disney Classic Games Collection
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection
- Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration
- The Making of Karateka
- Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
Wade Rosen, Chairman and CEO of Atari, said of the acquisition:
Digital Eclipse is the best in the world at what they do. They have a deep love and respect for the history of the games industry and are renowned for developing critically acclaimed projects based on historic franchises. Digital Eclipse, along with Nightdive, are in perfect alignment with Atari's DNA and renewed purpose. I'm personally excited to see where we can push the boundaries of retro innovation together.
For its part, Digital Eclipse addressed its fans with a dedicated blog post:
Why?
We're a small studio with big dreams. Atari is a legendary publisher with a new spirit. We loved working on Atari 50 together. We understand each other. This looked like a great way for both organizations to accomplish a lot of our future goals better and faster together.
Digital Eclipse will still have the freedom to pursue non-Atari IPs, and in fact, the developer said it already has several such unannounced projects.
To purchase the studio, Atari will pay $6.5 million at closure and up to an additional $13.5 million over the ten years based on Digital Eclipse's future performance.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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