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Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration - Digital Eclipse talks importance of game preservation

We spoke with Digital Eclipse about game preservation in light of the Atari 50 release.

Donovan Erskine

December 6, 2022 10:30 AM

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Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration launched last month to commemorate the massive 50-year milestone for one of the industry’s most influential companies. It features several of the most notable games from throughout Atari’s history, as well as insightful interviews with developers and facts about the company’s past. We got to chat with some of the folks at Digital Eclipse that helped bring the Anniversary Celebration to life.

Shacknews head of video Greg Burke speaks with several members of the Digital Eclipse team in a new interview to discuss Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. In the video, the developers discuss their roles within the project. Editorial Director Chris Kohler spoke about how the studio wanted to do something unique with The Anniversary Celebration. “We’re really trying to avoid calling it a collection… because we really wanted to do something that was different, even from the other products that we’ve made,” he explained. “Rather than say, ‘hey here’s a list of video games you can play…’”

Digital Eclipse also discusses how this project sets itself apart from previous collections by having a narrative throughline for players to experience. “In this collection, we wanted to focus on telling this narrative, historic aspect of Atari’s last 50 years,” said Stephen Frost. He went on to say that the list of games featured continued to grow and change as they decided what the overarching story of the collection would be.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration was released in November for PC and consoles. While our interview with Digital Eclipse is filled with insight to the project’s creation, the game itself is stuffed with everything you could want to know about Atari’s rich history. For more intriguing interviews, be sure to subscribe to the Shacknews and GamerHubTV YouTube channels.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_