Atari gaming is moving away from free-to-play and mobile games

In another shakeup of their business strategy, Atari is shifting its gaming division away from free-to-play and mobile titles, GamesIndustry.biz reports. 

Throughout Atari’s nearly 50 years of history they’ve been on all kinds of business ventures, from being kings of the arcades, pioneers of home console gaming, to peddlers of microtransaction riddled mobile games. 

In their 49th year, it’s apparently time for a change, as Atari gaming is leaving behind their mobile gaming ventures, and even exiting its frankly bizarre Atari Casino business, with the focus switching to bigger budget experiences in its place. 

“Our intent with any gaming experience is to provide accessible and joyful moments of meaningful play,” Atari’s newly appointed CEO Wade J. Rosen said in a statement. “That’s the core of Atari and what binds our history with our future. To that end, we feel that premium gaming is better representative of this type of gaming experience and the Atari DNA.”

As part of this move, many of Atari gaming’s free-to-play games will be shut down or sold off, GamesIndustry.biz reports, revealing that “Roller Coaster Tycoon Stories, Crystal Castles, Castles & Catapults, Ninja Golf, and Atari Combat: Tank Fury,” are all on the chopping block. 

Atari gaming’s new aims are to “build a strong pipeline of premium games on all platforms,” with the first of these premium games set to arrive sometime within this fiscal year, which ends on March 31st, 2022. 

These new titles that should be available for all platforms, will also be available on the Atari VCS, which is their own PC-based console system that launched late last year.