Atari's CEO Departs, Company Restructures

In October, Atari's French parent Infogrames removed five members of Atari's Board of Directors and demanded that Atari appoint a Chief Restructuring Officer. Later that month, Atari named a CRO and four new board members.

Today, Atari's CEO David Pierce "resigned." Curtis Solsvig III, the Chief Restructuring Officer, will take on Pierce's role while Atari searches for a new CEO.

As some of its first steps toward financial health, Atari plans to restructure and downsize to focus entirely on publishing and distributing games from certain partners (primarily games from Infogrames). Atari will no longer do production and quality assurance work for Infogrames. Also, Atari has licensed its [b]Test Drive[/b] franchise to Infogrames under a six-year agreement. In return, Infogrames will pay Atari a $5 million advance royalty. Given that the two companies are related, this is mostly a creative way of moving cash into Atari to help it continue operations.