Atari to acquire Nightdive, deal expected to be completed in April

1 minute ago, DNSKILL5 said:

Close, but not quite. You’re thinking of Hover Tank 3D. Catacomb 3D you play as a mage in a fantasy setting. 

I was hoping no one caught that before I edited it... I feel a shame :(

Just now, Individualised said:

I was hoping no one caught that before I edited it... I feel a shame :(

I figured it was just a brain fart lol

Can't help but be (a lil bit) pessimistic due to "Atari"s nature with their latest products/bullshit, hope I'm wrong though, really love Nightdive for taking the time to release worthy remasters of Good Old Games! (Pun totally intended.)

Well, I'm glad the Nightdive people at least have an optimistic view on the deal. Best of luck to you guys.

I can understand and appreciate @segfault (and anybody else's) skepticism. Corporations do have a tendency of buggering things up. But we know these guys, know they are smart, and can be confident they have taken every precaution possible to ensure that this is in the best interests of their business. It is, on paper, a good pairing. Nightdive resurrects nostalgic old games, and even though the company is not the same entity it was back in the day (seriously how many times did the brand change hands?), the name Atari alone conjures up a lot of nostalgic memories for a lot of gamers.

10 hours ago, Quasar said:

If anything, this should make at least the next 5-ish years more of a lock-in.

This is the best part of the news imo. If I understand correctly, this sounds like 5 years of job security doing the work that you all are, I assume, passionate about. If that is the case, this is a win bottom line. Our boys are eating.

Out of personal curiosity and respecting any NDA/speculation stuff: Does this acquisition bring down any of those barriers that prevented further iteration on the Blood port? IIRC I think I recall hearing Nightdive couldn’t continue on the port due to some red tape or something businessy regarding Atari(?)

Regardless, stoked for you guys, heard Nightdive picked up the RE4 modder and that is a pretty G move. 

1 minute ago, kwc said:

Does this acquisition bring down any of those barriers that prevented further iteration on the Blood port?

As far as technicals go, probably. I'd imagine there shouldn't be a problem getting the app transferred back to Nightdive with everything being under the same ownership anyways.

Interview: https://www.vg247.com/nightdive-studios-output-and-future-projects-will-not-be-effected-by-atari-acquisition

I'm aware that it's been all-change at Atari's leadership, and their recent output with Atari 50 and Akka Arrh has marked a noted change in their strategy towards "make good stuff without embarrassing yourself". That being said, the scars of their terrible previous leadership run deep and I'm still irrationally annoyed at the new MobyGames redesign. Also, unrelated to Atari, but the "nothing will change it can only get better" side of things mostly just reminds me of the past few increasingly-depleted iterations of the once-great gaming site GiantBomb as it's been handballed around from corporate owner to corporate owner, each taking a spiritual toll.

So, yeah, I have to still harbor a bit of skepticism. That being said, I'd love for said skepticism to be proven wrong, and for me to be exposed as a fat, grumpy idiot! That's the best kind of humility.

I was sceptical when I heard Atari because while I knew they're still alive I hadn't heard anything from them in terms of game output in ages, and I know they've been very liberal with letting people use their name. Good to hear that the brand seems to be in good hands. Hope this brings great new opportunities to Nightdive.

Does this mean anything for the System Shock remake?

5 hours ago, Spooner5020 said:

Does this mean anything for the System Shock remake?

Probably not. It's basically done past the final beta-stage bug hunt.

Be interesting to see if Night Dive tries anything like that ever again, though, what with the whole new-ownership thing and the whole blowing-the-original-deadline-by-five-years thing. But that's a whole different team from the one we mostly focus on here, so I'm not gonna give them guff over it...

On 3/23/2023 at 2:49 PM, Gez said:

It's actually surprising that it's not Embracer Group. Or Microsoft.

Thank Christ it's not fucking Embracer. The less games Willits gets involved with, the better.

I heard a vague mention of how "Atari" recently went broke and got bought out again, and it's now headed by someone else, so maybe they're not as rotten as I've been seeing and hearing over the past couple of years.

On 3/23/2023 at 2:55 PM, PsychEyeball said:

Even better. We'll get a Blood 2 rerelease. With everything fixed and working as it should be.

IMO the only way to fix Blood 2 is to throw it in a landfill and start over, not doing any of the things it did.

Which would be cool, but I'm not expecting that to happen.

On 3/23/2023 at 5:51 PM, Quasar said:

The most important thing to note is that the Atari company has dramatically shifted direction since around this time last year. The crypto stuff is either already discontinued or is on the way out and was separated into a different division than any of the games stuff a while back. The guy who was previously CEO and was in charge of that stuff is no longer part of the organization at all. Controversial projects like the VCS and the speaker hats pre-dated the current leadership or originated before it was in full effect. The hotels were already shut down a while back.

That's somewhat reassuring to hear, maybe there's hope yet.

Quote

The guy at Atari leading this acquisition was previously the main investor in Nightdive. So from his POV he's expecting the company to continue doing what it has been doing, just with more resources at hand. Part of the buyout deal is even predicated on this continuing.

Oh, that actually sounds pretty good then.

Quote

There will not be any restrictions on what gets worked on, other than who in terms of game companies is willing to work with Nightdive, as always. The obvious hope is that having a publicly traded company behind the brand opens some doors that weren't previously budging.

Huh, maybe that could be good. Wouldn't mind a polished up port of Syndicate Wars and G-Police, but I don't expect the rights holders of those to play ball.

Quote

In the short term, literally nothing should change. Long-term is as always "who knows" when it comes to business. Anything could have happened to NDS without a buyout; tomorrow is never guaranteed. If anything, this should make at least the next 5-ish years more of a lock-in.

Alright. Hoping ZeniMax/Microsoft gets them to do the final bit of polish on the Doom 64 port at some point. Also that they'll fine tune Fresh Supply at some point.

How was it now, did ROTT get bounced over to 3DRealms/Apogee?

2 minutes ago, ChopBlock223 said:

Hoping ZeniMax/Microsoft gets them to do the final bit of polish on the Doom 64 port at some point.

There's nothing else left to do with Doom64.

On 3/24/2023 at 2:01 PM, Kinsie said:

I'm not gonna give them guff over it...

Give them what?..

17 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

Wouldn't mind a polished up port of Syndicate Wars and G-Police, but I don't expect the rights holders of those to play ball.

Syndicate is owned by EA. Their approach to their back-catalogue can be politely described as inconsistent and contradictory (delistings for some, source code releases for others!) but stranger things have happened.

G-Police is under the purview of Sony, and their approach to their back catalog is actively, explicitly begrudging. Expect nothing, probably get less.

17 hours ago, ChopBlock223 said:

How was it now, did ROTT get bounced over to 3DRealms/Apogee?

I'm pretty sure Night Dive and New Blood are still tag-teaming the ROTT remaster for Apogee, on account of having literally just done a PAX panel talking about it together yesterday. I hope we get a release date soon, I'm jonesing to do a proper playthrough and the mouse support in pre-existing source ports drives me fuckin' batty.

On 3/25/2023 at 10:18 PM, Edward850 said:

There's nothing else left to do with Doom64.

Setting aside Fast Monsters as an unlockable option or something, I don't think that update you guys did last year ever reached consoles. May or may not be up to the console people. I could play on PC, but I've found I've just grown really attached to playing it on a big TV.

16 hours ago, Kinsie said:

Syndicate is owned by EA. Their approach to their back-catalogue can be politely described as inconsistent and contradictory (delistings for some, source code releases for others!) but stranger things have happened.

I guess I'll have more luck hoping for progress to be made on that one port made by decompiling Syndicate Wars.

G-Police was a chore to run even on Windows XP, I remember trying to get it to function maybe a decade back, and the only way to do so was to install the game and run it from the installer after it finished, then after I was done playing, the game would never launch again, thus, I had to uninstall the game so I could install it again and run it from the installer. God knows why.

Crimson Skies would be another one that could badly use some sort of porting to new systems, I know one of the lead devs has been interested in resurrecting that IP for many years, but Microsoft seem uncaring. So many classics abandoned.

16 hours ago, Kinsie said:

I'm pretty sure Night Dive and New Blood are still tag-teaming the ROTT remaster for Apogee, on account of having literally just done a PAX panel talking about it together yesterday.

Oh, nice.

16 hours ago, Kinsie said:

I hope we get a release date soon, I'm jonesing to do a proper playthrough and the mouse support in pre-existing source ports drives me fuckin' batty.

You and me both. I pushed through with WinRottGL a couple of years back, because the game was still just so damn fun, but the way the mouse just would lock itself vertically at times was inexplicable and annoying. Sadly neglected game in terms of sourceports.

On 3/25/2023 at 10:18 PM, Edward850 said:

There's nothing else left to do with Doom64.

But wasn't it advertised to support Blast Processing and with that Ray Tracing, Mega Textures and Super Voxels?

A Magazine of the 90s said the Sprites will not pixelate, even at close Range!*

Jokes aside.

From what i have read, there is seemingly better Personal on the Leads with the current Atari.

The Rights to the Hand and also the Persons behind have changed so often until now, it is hard to make a good Separation.

Wish you good Luck with the new Parent Company, seems that the new/old Person has a better Vision for what Atari should do in the Games Sector and can strengthen your Back while doing what you do.

*It really did, took it as a Quote in my Profile :)

Atari... WHY? 

Doesn’t Atari own Hell 2 Pay and Perdition’s Gate? Hmmmmmm. . .

16 hours ago, SealSpace said:

Atari... WHY? 

Did you bother to read the thread at all? Because it very clearly explains why.

i will not rest easily until i can purchase a version of the most accurate immersive simulation of being a line cook with psychosis, PO'ed (developed by Any Channel, released in 1995) compatible with modern machines, online, at the retail store, at the retail store online. was published by the company last known as Infogrames North America. perhaps the rights exist somewhere deep within the recesses of Infogrames Atari SA. i will be waiting

18 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

Did you bother to read the thread at all? Because it very clearly explains why.

I'm just in disbelief man. 

14 minutes ago, SealSpace said:

I'm just in disbelief man. 

You're in disbelief that a group of people we know are smart carefully considered things and decided it was in the best interests of their business? Ok...

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

 

You're in disbelief that a group of people we know are smart carefully considered things and decided it was in the best interests of their business? Ok...

I'm in disbelief that it's one of the first true video game companies in existence and how of all developers, it has to be one of my favorites, Atari, doing this lol. 

Is that okay with you?

Keep in mind, i'm not actually completely sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. 

Since I like both Atari (one of the most iconic and legendary arcade classics) and Night Dive (i'm a retro-fps fag who's interested in the likes of Strife)

39 minutes ago, SealSpace said:

I'm in disbelief that it's one of the first true video game companies in existence and how of all developers, it has to be one of my favorites, Atari, doing this lol. 

 

Is that okay with you?

Maybe you should learn to communicate clearer. Your original post clearly implied some degree of negative emotion in association with this decision. Also, asking why? When the posts from Nightdive members clearly state why they made this decision suggests you either didn't read them or don't believe them. None of what you said implies disbelief, but negativity.

19 hours ago, SealSpace said:

Atari... WHY? 

People often cry "WHY?" when a close loved one is found dead or some other great loss is experienced.  Just a little over-the-top for "simple disbelief."

Anyways...

Congratulations!

Holy cow!  My dream is to be paid handsomely for working as a video game developer--and look!  They did it!

Here's my money.  Take more of it, you delightful bastards.

4 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

Maybe you should learn to communicate clearer. Your original post clearly implied some degree of negative emotion in association with this decision. Also, asking why? When the posts from Nightdive members clearly state why they made this decision suggests you either didn't read them or don't believe them. None of what you said implies disbelief, but negativity.

Yeah this got me too. I assumed that they were upset that Atari were acquiring Nightdive. I mean why say "WHY" if you're excited about it.

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

 

Maybe you should learn to communicate clearer. Your original post clearly implied some degree of negative emotion in association with this decision. Also, asking why? When the posts from Nightdive members clearly state why they made this decision suggests you either didn't read them or don't believe them. None of what you said implies disbelief, but negativity.

Or maybe just a false alarm.