Atari CEO interview — How Rollercoaster Tycoon revival saved the company

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
November 25, 2018
Updated June 18, 2025
10 min

When Frederic Chesnais took over the legendary Atari company in 2013, the new owners had about $34 million (€30 million) in debt and about $1 million in revenue. The Atari brand wasn’t much more than a T-shirt and nostalgia licensing entity.

Now, Atari has no debt and $20 million in revenue — and it is profitable, Chesnais said. It is also planning to go back into the hardware business with the 2019 launch of the Atari VCS home console. And Atari is making games again — from original titles like Days of Doom to classic remakes, such as Tempest 4000.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.