Atari was once known as the king of video game home console systems. But after several terrible missteps that saw the company sacrificing quality as they seemingly chased the almighty buck, Atari was dethroned rather unceremoniously back in the 80s/90s. The company has struggled over the years to keep itself afloat while it attempted to regain some iota of relevancy. In recent times they have carved out a piece of the online gambling industry with their own Atari Casino, replete with games bearing nostalgic titles like Space Invaders, Centipede, etc.
There are many online gambling companies out there, bettson is one of those examples, but now Atari is looking to jump on another bandwagon that is gaining speed – cryptocurrencies. The gaming company is creating their own crypto coin with a name that I can only imagine took many meetings and endless brainstorming sessions to come up with – Atari Token.
This new digital currency will act as the building block for a new platform being created. “The company is developing a decentralized platform giving access to any form of digital entertainment, that is to say, a very wide offer ranging from video games to movies and music,” Atari announced. “This platform, under development, will operate using a cryptocurrency, the Atari Token.”
Now one would assume they were simply creating a new content-rich platform that ran exclusively on their own crypto coin in an effort to make the coin worth something. That would be risky, especially if the platform wound up being unremarkable in an already oversaturated market.
Instead, it seems Atari is taking their love of online gambling and fusing it with the ongoing crypto craze. They intend to further develop their partnership with Pariplay to create an online casino platform that accepts cryptocurrencies such as the Atari Token and their other planned coin, the Pong Token.
“Blockchain technology is poised to take a very important place in our environment and to transform, if not revolutionize, the current economic ecosystem, especially in the areas of the video game industry and online transactions,” CEO Fred Chesnais said. “Given our technological strengths with the development studios, and the global reputation of the Atari brand, we have the opportunity to position ourselves attractively in this sector.”
Now, Atari isn’t exactly in the position to make any moves deemed too risky, as they’re not the financial juggernaut they once were. Chesnais acknowledged their plan to “take strategic positions with a limited cash risk.”
With the popularity of both cryptocurrencies and online gambling and casinos, I’d say this is a risk worth taking.
