Atari, the video game development company widely known as Pac-Man and Pong, announced plans for the launch of its own digital currency, which will be better known as "Atari Token".
Atari recently acquired 15% of the shares of a Gibraltar-based company, Infinity Networks Ltd, and has licensed the firm. This association, which was mentioned last December, will allow the creation of a digital entertainment platform that will use Atari Token as currency.
Drederic Chesnais, President of Atari, said in a statement:
Our goal is to take strategic positions with limited risk, to create better sources of value with assets and the Atari brand. "
In the past, Atari had announced that it would be working in a currency also called Atari Token in order to serve as a purchase currency for its products, so it is still unclear if this new cryptocurrency will also serve that purpose.
Among other announcements, the videogame company said it plans to integrate payments with cryptocurrencies through a partnership with Pariplay, which offers online games making use of products and characters originally designed by Atari as part of its catalog. In turn, the company announced last week that it also had plans to create a second digital currency with the intention of being used in an online casino project:
... Atari has a project to launch Pong Token, a second digital currency aimed at criptocasinos that operate with cryptocurrencies. The details of this release will be announced very soon. "
These announcements have generated diverse reactions among the members of the community, since while some state that this could be a very important step for the video game company, others have been very pessimistic comparing the initiative with the step taken by Kodak, which He announced that he would be launching his own digital currency soon. Originally that project was announced in January with the intention of launching an ICO by the end of that month, but the campaign was delayed and since then the managers have not announced new dates or the next steps to be carried out.
According to information published by the Bloomberg news agency, the price of Atari's shares increased significantly after the announcement of its cryptocurrency.