Atari (open in new tab) CEO Wade Rosen has made a bid to take control of the company after reporting a "liquidity shortage and need for additional financing" in its recent semi-annual financial report.

In a press release, Atari stated that the "friendly offer" was initiated to "enhance the ability of the managing shareholders to acquire control and support the company's development ambitions." As part of this, Atari's CEO stated that the company "intends to further increase its interest in Atari's capital to support the development of the company's transformation strategy."

Prior to this, the company has had a difficult few years. Reporting its semi-annual results (opens in new tab), the company said that "consolidated net income showed a loss of €5.4 million, compared to a loss of €3.5 million in the first half of 21/22."

Broadly speaking, Atari attributed its woes to the "uncertain macro environment" regarding video games and blockchain. The biggest of its problems was the failure of its hardware business in the form of a new VCS (open in new tab) console, which Atari discontinued after a sharp drop in sales, with hardware sales falling by over 90%, from €2.3 million to €200,000.

However, gaming revenues increased slightly by 10% with the launch of RollerCoaster Tycoon (open in new tab) and Gravitar, for which Atari agreed to a 10-year license extension with RCT creator Chris Sawyer: the launch of Recharged.

Atari's blockchain efforts also fared well on paper, with revenue increasing from €400,000 to €700,000. However, the company has a large amount of digital assets of questionable value. These include 259 million ATRI tokens from a blockchain project that Atari terminated in April of this year. In the digital asset holdings section of the report, Atari said it "does not expect any revenue generated from these ATRI tokens and does not expect any impact on its consolidated financial statements." The report explains that Atari is considering pursuing new tokens, but first "intends to thoroughly review the various structuring options available."

In addition to this, the company also owns "972 parcels of land in the sandbox metaverse." According to Atari, "it is difficult to assign a gross value to these assets. It doesn't take a genius to understand why it is difficult to assign a value to land in a very nebulous virtual environment with only a small user base.

Rosen is a successful businessman who controls Irata LLC, which is leading Atari's bid, joined Atari as CEO in April 2021 and currently owns 30% of the company. Rosen appears to understand Atari's historical importance in the gaming industry, and Atari's current problems are likely an opportunity to determine Atari's future direction.