Founder Albert Yarusso has introduced that AtariAge, a storefront and group hub, can be offered to Atari themselves. Albert will stay as an worker of Atari to proceed working the positioning and retailer.

It’s not one thing I’d count on to see occur from the Atari because it was just some years in the past. Nonetheless, for the reason that present CEO Wade Rosen took the helm, they’ve been making an enormous push at reconnecting with the previous glory of the corporate. They’ve even gone so far as publishing new video games for the Atari 2600, which is one thing that AtariAge has been doing for a very long time now with their homebrew scene.

Presently, it appears like the whole lot goes to stay the identical by way of the discussion board and storefront. Atari isn’t going to all of a sudden personal everyone’s homebrew tasks. Some homebrew builders are at the moment trying to port their work over to the Atari VCS, and the announcement goes additional to say that “There’s additionally the potential of unique homebrew video games being launched in bodily type below the Atari label in the event that they do nicely within the AtariAge Retailer.”

Extra importantly, nonetheless, Yarusso says that this variation will permit them to revive some type of normalcy to their life after spending so a few years maintaining issues going.

Neighborhood-slash-database

This isn’t the primary community-slash-database that Atari has purchased in recent times. In 2022, Atari bought MobyGames, which nonetheless stays essentially the most complete community-built database on the web. They’ve since revamped the positioning, and as a longtime MobyGames user-slash-community member, I believe it appears to be like and capabilities fairly nicely.

Furthermore, the corporate has been quite aggressive in constructing again up its publishing arm and tapping into its present IPs via licensing and copy. Whereas they nonetheless have a toe dipped into blockchain applied sciences, that’s seeming an increasing number of like a side-project in comparison with tapping into their historical past. I’ve by no means been an amazing fan of Atari and haven’t any actual reference to the Atari 2600 console, however I can’t assist however be intrigued by the corporate’s actions as of late.

Yarusso has been clear in saying that nothing will change at AtariAge within the quick time period. Some customers are understandably involved regardless of reassurances. Like Atari normally, there’s purpose to be optimistic, however nonetheless quite a bit to be confirmed.