Bankruptcy will leave Atari in space

After decades of trying to get past the pong paddle and faster developing gaming companies, the very nostalgic Atari, Inc filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 20th. in hopes to hang on to the video gaming world.

Many of us weren’t alive when Atari started exploding in on the video game scene, but I do remember the first time I saw an Atari 2600. I was really young, but I remember my cousin playing Asteroids. I was at least a few years away from getting my first Nintendo, and too young to comprehend what the hell he was doing, but I do remember being so utterly mesmerized that I lost track of time completely.

Atari is best known for two things: the Atari 2600—the wildly successful video game console released in October 1977—the same year as the original Star Wars. And for taking one of the greatest video games in history of the arcade and putting it on a console: Pac-Man.

But the achievement of the Atari 2600, Pong, Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Space Invaders was short lived and the last 30 years have been low scoring and swampy for Atari. Just last year they started to convert some of their famous old school games onto an Atari Collection App for smartphones.Atari said in a written statement that they want to "secure independent capital for future growth, primarily in the areas of digital and mobile games."

Finally, in regards to their chapter 11 bankruptcy, Atari is expected to“effectuate a sale of all, or substantially all, of their assets.” They will be seeking buyers for the Atari logo and the company's games catalog.

While Atari’s future is on shaky ground with an unsure hopefully bright horizon, I am still sure that I like playing retro video games, so excuse me while I go eat some unidentified white discs with my oversized chomping mouth.