On Friday, October 5, French game publisher Infogrames Entertainment revealed its plans to improve its financial fortunes. The most important element of this plan is Infogrames' decision to oust the majority of the board of directors for Atari, its North American publishing subsidiary.

Much of Infogrames' plans involve the typical sorts of things publishers do to bring in more revenue and lower costs. Infogrames plans to focus on its established brands (such as the Alone in the Dark and Dungeons & Dragons games). The company plans to re-evaluate its finances and streamline its distribution network. Infogrames is also coming down hard on Atari, removing five members of the Atari Board of Directors.

Infogrames, as the majority shareholder in Atari, has the right to demand changes to Atari’s Board, and has required the removal of James Ackerly, Ronald C. Bernard, Michael G. Corrigan, Denis Guyennot and Ann E. Kronen from the Atari Board of Directors. Evence Charles Coppee, Jean-Michel Perbet and Thomas Schmider will remain on the board and will be joined by new directors who have yet to be nominated.

Once the new Atari Board of Directors is in place, the Board has been directed to appoint a Chief Restructuring Officer to oversee Atari’s turnaround. Also, Infogrames expects to aggressively work with Atari to fix the Atari business.

The average gamer can expect two things to come from this shakeup: North American gamers should prepare themselves for changes in Atari’s upcoming game line-up. In some European countries, gamers can expect to see Infogrames use the Atari name more often.

In Germany, Infogrames has fully changed its name to Atari in 2003, interestingly celebrating "35 years of Atari" on their website at the moment -- as if their company had anything to do with Nolan Bushnell's arcade games pioneer from the 70es.