Atari has announced a partnership with Thunderful Group. As part of this partnership, shares worth approximately €4.5 million have been issued, which are being acquired by Atari, making the company an 82 percent owner of Thunderful Group’s shares and votes. 333,333,334 new ordinary shares were issued as part of this agreement.
It is worth noting that the transaction hasn’t gone all the way through as of yet, and is pending approval by Thunderful’s shareholders. An extraordinary general meeting (EGM) for this approval will be held on August 28. However, the transaction has been supported by the Thunderful Group board of directors unanimously, as well as from two of its largest shareholders: Owe Bergsten and Brjann Sigurgeirsson.
“This transaction marks another important milestone in Atari’s development with the expansion of its publishing and development capabilities in the European region,” said chairman and CEO of Atari Wade Rosen in the press release announcing the agreement. “Thunderful is recognized for publishing and developing critically acclaimed games, and with the announced transformation plan, as well as the quality and commitment of Thunderful’s teams, we are confident that Thunderful will be returning to a profitable growth path while helping to further develop Atari operations in Europe.”
This agreement comes a year after a tumultuous year for Thunderful Group, which included the company laying off around 20 percent of its workforce. The round of lay-offs resulted in around 100 employees losing their jobs, and the company attributed it to “over-investments” made by the company that “have proven unsustainable given the current industry climate, which has resulted in the Group being particularly affected by challenging market conditions.”
At the time, the company had stated that it would “focus its efforts on the strategic assets with the best long-term prospects”.
“To ensure and strengthen the viability of the Group, we have found no alternative other than to reduce costs and focus the business on areas with the best future growth and profitability prospects,” said thunderful CEO Martin Walfisz in a statement at the time. “To ensure and strengthen the viability of the Group, we have found no alternative other than to reduce costs and focus the business on areas with the best future growth and profitability prospects.”
The round of lay-offs was followed up by indie publisher Headup splitting away from Thunderful Group. Headup, known for publishing smaller indie games like Bridge Constructor, White Shadows and Industria, among many others, was sold to Microcuts Holdings – a company that was established by Headup founder Dieter Schoeller specifically for the transaction. While Headup had originally been acquired by Thunderful for €11 million, the publisher’s departure from the group was priced at €500,000.
Atari, on the other hand, has been seeing something of an upswing, with the company having acquired the rights to more than a hundred ‘80s and ‘90s games back in 2023, as well as Nightdive Studios. Just last year, Atari had also acquired the rights for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. This came just a couple of years after Atari had said that it would be focusing its efforts on premium console and PC games.