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HARRISON STEPS DOWN AS ATARI PRESIDENT PHIL HARRISON HAS LEFT his post as president of Atari, moving to the role of non-executive director of the Group. The surprise move comes after Develop’s sister magazine MCV revealed that Atari’s European publishing operations would, for the most part, be entirely taken over by Namco Bandai in the next few weeks. That looked as thought it would leave Harrison and Infogrames CEO David Gardner at the heart of a new, online content-driven Atari: a vision Harrison had espoused at the beginning of his tenure at the company, and the impetus behind the publisher’s purchase of US MMO developer Cryptic. However, Harrison has now left his post – leaving question marks hanging over the hierarchy of the new company. In a statement, Atari said: “Because of a shift of business operations to the US, Phil Harrison will move from the role of President to that of nonexecutive director of the group. As all Board members, he will continue to assist, support and guide the company’s strategy.” www.atari.com
UNITED KINGDOM
UNITED STATES
ELSPA APPROACHES THE FINAL FRONTIER
THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL ENTERS THE GAME
Cambridge-based independent Frontier Developments has joined ELSPA, the UK’s trade body for the games industry. The company, which recently dipped its toe into self-publishing with the WiiWare title LostWinds, is joining the organisation to tackle the issues of piracy, age ratings and the issue of pre-owned games. “We think it’s vital that these issues are addressed swiftly, and ELSPA is the body through which we will try to achieve this,” said founder David Braben. www.frontier.co.uk
The latest media giant to dip its toes into the games space is The Discovery Channel, which has inked deals for three branded games. UK studio Slitherine is working on Discovery Channel Trivia Video Game for nextgeneration consoles and PCs, while two other games – based on two of the channel’s more popular shows, Deadliest Catch and Cash Cab – are being developed by Hands-On Mobile and Capcom respectively. It also worked on Sony Japan Studio’s Afrika. dsc.discovery.com
Top 10 Developers Chart – May 2009 # 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
COMPANY Nintendo Yuke’s EA Canada Raven Software Capcom Game Freak EA Redwood Shores Treyarch Amaze Entertainment Level 5
Chart Supplied By: DEVELOPMAG.COM
COUNTRY Japan Japan Canada USA Japan Japan USA USA USA Japan ChartTrack charttrack.co.uk
PRODUCT Wii Fit UFC 2009: Undisputed FIFA 09 X-Men Origins: Wolverine Resident Evil 5 Pokemon Platinum The Godfather II Call of Duty: World at War X-Men Origins: Wolverine Professor Layton ELSPA elspa.com
“The smartest and dumbest thing I ever did was to sell my company to EA. We could have stayed in business just on Medal of Honor alone.” Movie director supremo Steven Spielberg ruminates on his selling of Dreamworks Interactive to EA in a Reuters interview
“Getting to the end screen of Super Mario Bros. 2 was more important than anything in the history of time.” J. J. Abrams – the man behind Lost, the Star Trek reboot, and most importantly Alias – admits his secret 1989 obsession
“You can get lost in the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, but we’re using it just to shoot people and run over old ladies. We could be doing so much more.” Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro wants games to mean more. Shame his Hellboy 2 game involvement lacked that.
“I played video games throughout my childhood. One of my favorites was Super Mario. I wouldn’t sleep until I finished it.” Much like JJ Abrams, Christian Bale also had a little Mario addiction. Better to lose sleep over that than the Terminator: Salvation game, we guess JUNE 2009 | 11