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Atari has revealed plans to team up with Twin Galaxies to launch a new gaming competition featuring five of its iconic titles.
The Atari World Championships, according to this announcement, will kick off with an open online tournament, which will leverage "Twin Galaxies’ 40-plus years of experience in competitive gaming and record authentication" to ensure "only the best advance."
That will then lead on to a live, in-person Grand Finals competition, where a winner will eventually be decided.
Twin Galaxies, as an organisation, dates back to 1981, when its original founder, Walter Day, started recording arcade scores in local arcades and, as its website states, quickly became "a cornerstone in the world of competitive gaming." Over the years, however, its significance in the gaming space has definitely waned, due to a decline in interest in arcade score-chasing in favour of other activities like speedrunning and competitive eSports, and high-profile cheating scandals in 2010 involving some of its early record holders, like Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell.
These incidents occurred under Day's ownership, with the company now being under new management, which includes former Monolith Productions co-founder Jace Hall and the former basketball player and eSports franchise owner Rick Fox.
“Atari and Twin Galaxies are bringing the original, retro spirit and arcade energy of competitive gaming back," commented Twin Galaxies senior executive Zachary Rozga in the press release. The World Championships model we have co-created builds a modern stage where gamers of every type can earn their place on the leaderboard, get recognised for their achievement and tell their story."
The Atari chairman and CEO, Wade Rosen, meanwhile, said he was "looking forward to working with Twin Galaxies to celebrate competition with our existing fans and bring new fans into our growing community."
Notably, the press release didn't mention which of its five games will be involved (though Pong, Asteroids, Centipede and Missile Command are mentioned in passing), and it's also not exactly clear when this competition is set to take place (besides a vague "2026" window), with the main point of the announcement seemingly being to generate hype and find brand partners for the final event.
The news comes less than a week after Atari revealed it had signed a deal to turn 10 of its classic games into movies — a decision that led to some people scratching their heads and calling that move "IP for the sake of IP."
What do you think? Is a new competition a good idea? Let us know in the comments!