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:
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.
