Atari has brought back the Infogrames brand as a publishing label

Atari has revived the Infogrames brand, and will use it for a new publishing label.

The brand, which hasn’t seen active use for around two decades, will specialise in acquiring and publishing games that “fall outside the core portfolio of IP associated with the Atari brand”.

“For decades, Infogrames built a reputation as a publisher and developer of amazing and eclectic games, and we are excited to bring it back,” Atari CEO and chairman Wade Rosen said in a statement.

Infogrames may eventually turn to some of the legacy titles published by its previous incarnation, but for now its first acquisition is Totally Reliable Delivery Service. The 2019 game, its trademarks and its underlying property have been acquired from tinyBuild and now belong to Infogrames.

“With Totally Reliable Delivery Service, Infogrames is starting off with a strong IP that has a loyal and enthusiastic player base,” Infogrames manager Geoffroy Châteauvieux said. “The Infogrames team will be able to expand upon the strong work of tinyBuild, and re-energize this high-potential franchise.”

Atari also says that Infogrames will be “consistent with Atari’s approach” in that it will see game preservation as “a core component of its mission”.

Infogrames (short for Informatique Programmes) was set up in France in 1983 and initially specialised in developing and publishing home computer games, many of which were exclusive to France, before also branching out to consoles in the ’90s.

Titles associated with Infogrames in the past included Alone in the Dark, Asterix, V-Rally, Heart of Darkness and numerous games based on Tintin, The Smurfs and Looney Tunes.

Throughout the late ’90s, Infogrames started acquiring other companies including Ocean, Gremlin Interactive, DMA Design (which was then sold to Take-Two and became Rockstar), Accolade, Beam Software, GT Interactive, Hasbro Interactive, MicroProse and Atari.

In 2003 it then rebranded its subsidiaries from Infogrames names to Atari ones, effectively retiring the Infogrames brand.