Talk:Atari Interactive

Merge proposal with Atari Interactive page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To merge Hasbro Interactive into Atari Interactive with re-organization as proposed by User:IceWelder in February 22. Klbrain (talk) 06:12, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

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I propose for the Hasbro Interactive and Atari Interactive pages to be merged into a single page, because the company formerly known as Hasbro Interactive, Inc. was renamed to Infogrames Interactive, Inc. and later Atari Interactive, Inc.. The Atari Interactive, Inc. subsidiary that was once held by Hasbro and Infogrames was a different business who merged with Infogrames Interactive during the parent company's rebrand as Atari in 2003. Also, the Atari Interactive mentioned above was a subsidiary of Atari Corporation and had nothing to do with Hasbro nor Infogrames, as it was closed when JT Storage purchased Atari Corporation.

Another reason why I am requesting the merger of both pages was because of the successful merger of the GT Interactive page into Atari, Inc. (publisher) many years ago, as both are the same company/business as well.

Luigitehplumber (talk) 18:48, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Opposed Atari Interactive covers the history of this name in use by multiple division/subsidiaries over a complex series of acquisitions. Originally a division of Atari Corporate, it was sold/merged with JTS. JTS then sold assets to Hasbro's HIAC XI Corporation, under Hasbro Interactive. HIAC XI was renamed Atari Interactive, the second iteration, still a subsidiary of Hasbro Interactive. Hasbro then sold Hasbro Interactive and all subsidiaries to Infogrames SA (Now Atari SA), who put it under Infogrames, Inc. Infogrames, Inc renamed Hasbro Interactive to Infogrames Interactive, with Atari Interactive (HIAC XI) still under it. A couple years later, Infogrames SA completely reorganized internally, and renaming itself to Atari SA. Infogrames, Inc. became Atari , Inc and Infogrames Interactive (previously Hasbro Interactive) became Atari Interactive, essentially a third iteration of the name's use. It's unclear what happened to HIAC XI (known as Atari Interactive previously) during that reorg, but presumably was dissolved. Atari Interactive remains an active company under Atari, Inc, but it is not, strictly speaking, the subsidiary HIAC XI that had the name previously. This isn't a great article structure, by any stretch, but they should not be merged as the exact history of mergers and reorgs isn't clear and "Hasbro Interactive = The Current Atari Interactive" is not demonstrated. Secondly, the fact that GT Interactively was merged years ago is immaterial to this discussion. GT Interactive was merged to Atari, Inc. (publisher), formerly Infogrames, Inc, which was formerly GT Interactive. That was the parent company and a whole separate topic. -- ferret (talk) 19:00, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry if I’m confusing, but I sorta know all of this already. I’m trying to explain that the current Atari Interactive is what was formerly Infogrames Interactive/Hasbro Interactive, and that the Atari Interactive company (the HIAC XI holding company) that Hasbro held continued to operate as a subsidiary of the renamed company. Some titles like Atari Anniversary Edition list down both Infogrames Interactive and Atari Interactive, and that was released in July 2001, two years before the rebranding. Luigitehplumber (talk) 20:45, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not saying it for your benefit alone, but for all participants. Either way, the fact that HIAC XI survived the original purchase by Infogrames just furthers my oppose. -- ferret (talk)

  Can I see the source you got it from? Luigitehplumber (talk) 03:15, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

  You're the one who said they did with an example of a game having both companies attached to it. -- ferret (talk) 06:50, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: The "Atari Interactive" article currently conflates the older entity (a subsidiary of Hasbro Interactive) and the current one (formerly known as Hasbro Interactive). The older one, the one originally known as HIAC XI, was established with the asset sale from JTS to Hasbro. Infogrames/Atari SA bought Hasbro Interactive whole and renamed it Infogrames Interactive, then Atari Interactive. The older Atari Interactive was merged into the new one in 2003 as part of the latter rebrand. As such, the content pertaining to the current Atari Interactive should be in the same article as Hasbro Interactive, which is currently not the case. This merged article should be called "Atari Interactive". Additionally, I do not find that Hasbro Interactive's former subsidiary is notable, and neither is the former Atari Corporation division. We also do not need a separate brand article just for "Atari Interactive"; Atari already serves this purpose for the whole "Atari" name and "Atari Interactive" (as a brand name only) is not particularly notable either.

Given the above, I would support a merge as long as:

1. The active Atari Interactive and the former Hasbro Interactive are merged and become the "Atari Interactive" article, with the former Atari Interactive subsidiary and their renaming histories covered as part of that.
2. The content about the Atari Corporation division is moved to that company's article.
3. The general name history is covered at Atari.
4. The new "Atari Interactive" article contains a hatnote pointing to #2 and #3.

IceWelder [✉] 11:50, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

This is a better proposal, since it addresses the notability concerns that were not brought up before. -- ferret (talk) 18:49, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

That’s what I’ve been trying to say to avoid the confusion of the different Atari Interactive companies... At least IceWelder explained it better. We'll need to see what other users would prefer other than us three. Luigitehplumber (talk) 19:28, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

So, it's been about a week since this was last edited... so what have thought should happen with the pages then? Luigitehplumber (talk) 21:11, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

With no other opposition, I think you can just go ahead with the merger as described. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 18:10, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. The distinct history of Hasbro Interactive before their purchase of the Atari assets, the fact that Infogrames received licenses to Hasbro IPs as part of their purchase, and that Hasbro bought out those licenses to regain control of those properties in the video game realm would be relegated to a lost footnote following a merge. As the Hasbro Interactive article already notes, for a brief period the company was the third-largest games publisher in the North American market. It's independently notable from the Atari-asset holding company that remains, which a separate legal entity. oknazevad (talk) 15:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Support Changed my mind.

Let's be honest, the Atari Corp division is not independently notable, because it wasn't a real division, just an announced label intended for publishing PC games when it became apparent the Jaguar was a failure but never actually did as they suddenly accepted the JTS merger offer a mere 6 weeks later. No games were ever released by that division/label, and the fact that it would have been called Atari Interactive is almost insignificant trivia. Coverage belongs entirely at the Atari Corp article, and doesn't even need to be mentioned at all in the combined article on the ex-Hasbro Interactive article. I'd even say that we should not even use the name in the games to discuss the planned PC versions that were either never released or released by entirely different publishers. That is to say, the sentence should read that "a PC port was planned but never released" where applicable.

As for the Hasbro/Infogrames subsidiary that still exists and is the actual legal holder of the Atari trademark, the fact that Hasbro created a subsidiary of said subsidiary to hold those trademarks and used that name as a label is not worthy of a separate article, just some explanation in the article. Creating a subsidiary to hold acquired IP is pretty standard corporate practice (for example, it's how the WWF acquired the rights to WCW in 2001). That said subsidiary of a subsidiary was folded into its parent subsidiary later as part of the rename is just administrivia of import only to the company's lawyers who had to clear the rebrand. None of that demands separate articles, and frankly renders separate Hasbro Interactive and Atari Interactive articles unneeded. Just as long as the combined article makes clear that Hasbro later ended their licenses and the company no liver has anything to do with Hasbro. oknazevad (talk) 23:00, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Oknazevad, IceWelder, and LTPHarry: it might be better if one you, who know the topic better than most, does this restructure as agreed. Klbrain (talk) 06:12, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Alright then. I’ll start merging the pages together as planned and then someone who’s more skilled at merging two different pages together would do that. I was suggesting the Atari Interactive page becomes the redirect, while the Hasbro Interactive page becomes the location. Luigitehplumber (talk) 11:38, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's the best title choice. While it's true the company's time as a Hasbro subsidiary was the period where it was most independently notable in the sense that it was when it was a significant publisher in its own right and had a fairly distinctive identity, unlike now where it just exists on paper to hold trademarks for its parent company, that was a relatively short period and a couple of decades ago. If we keep WP:COMMONNAME in mind, the current common name is Atari Interactive. oknazevad (talk) 12:52, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Additionally, the close states that it should be organized per IceWelder's comment, which was to put the article under the Atari Interactive name. In other words, the merge should have been performed in the other direction. I'll take care of that. oknazevad (talk) 14:25, 18 June 2023 (UTC)