Atomic Games, Inc. was an American

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

, specializing in

wargames ''WarGames'' is a 1983 American science fiction techno-thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film, which stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Ally Sheedy, follows Dav ...

. The company was founded by Keith Zabalaoui in 1989, and is best known for developing the ''

Close Combat Close combat means a violent physical confrontation between two or more opponents at short range.''MCRP 3-02B: Close Combat'', Washington, D.C.: Department Of The Navy, Headquarters United States Marine Corps, 12 February 1999Matthews, Phil, CQB ...

'' series of

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

wargames, as well as the ''

V for Victory ''V for Victory'', or ''V4V'' for short, is a series of turn-based strategy games set during World War II. They were the first releases for Atomic Games who went on to have a long career in the wargame industry. Like earlier computer adaptions ...

'' series. In December 2000, due to the cancellation of a project titled ''

Hammer's Slammers ''Hammer's Slammers'' is a 1979 collection of military science fiction short stories by author David Drake. It follows the career of a future mercenary tank regiment called ''Hammer's Slammers'' after their leader, Colonel Alois Hammer. This coll ...

'', Atomic Games laid off its entire staff, only keeping three executives. Atomic Games was acquired by

Destineer Destineer, Inc. was an American umbrella company covering a holding company, a video game publisher, and a video game developer that was based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. The company was founded by Peter Tamte, former executive vice-president of ...

on May 6, 2005, while collaborating on ''Close Combat: Red Phoenix'' and '' Close Combat: First to Fight''. Atomic Games was developing a

third-person shooter Third-person shooter (TPS) is a subgenre of 3D shooter games in which the gameplay consists primarily of shooting. It is closely related to first-person shooters, but with the player character visible on-screen during play. While 2D shoot 'em ...

, ''

Six Days in Fallujah ''Six Days in Fallujah'' is a Tactical shooter, tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Highwire Games and published by Victura. Set in the Second Battle of Fallujah of the Iraq War over the span of six days in November 2004, the g ...

'', in cooperation with

Konami , is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...

, until the latter decided to withdraw from the project in August 2009, causing significant layoffs at Atomic Games. The company went on to finish the game, but never released it. Atomic Games released the game called ''

Breach Breach, Breached, or The Breach may refer to: Places * Breach, Kent, United Kingdom * Breach, West Sussex, United Kingdom * ''The Breach'', Great South Bay in the State of New York People * Breach (DJ), an Electronic/House music act * Miroslava ...

'', which is a multiplayer-only downloadable first-person shooter. Destineer also owne
Bold Games
and

MacSoft MacSoft was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1993 by Peter Tamte as subsidiary of WizardWorks, specializing in the production of video game ports from Microsoft Windows to Macintosh operating systems, as well as producti ...

, who also went down with Destineer

With Avalon Hill

Atomic Games was signed to Avalon Hill in 1993 by the company's Jim Rose, and began developing ''Beyond Squad Leader'' and the ''World at War'' series for its new publisher. Rose, hired to lead Avalon Hill's computer game division in December 1992, had been tasked with reviving this section of the business in the face of flagging board game sales. The two companies' first collaboration, ''Operation Crusader'', reused the engine of the ''

'' series. ''

PC Gamer US ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games mag ...

'' wargame columnist

William R. Trotter William R. (Bill) Trotter (July 15, 1943 - February 28, 2018) was an American author and historian. Writings Trotter's work covered a variety of genres and markets. His first published work was "Sibelius and the Tides of Taste" for '' High Fide ...

named it one of the top-five wargames of 1994. Atomic and Avalon experienced creative friction during the development of their projects together. ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' columnist Alan Emrich wrote in 1995, "To say there was no love lost between ..Jim Rose and Atomic's Keith Zabalaoui would be a gracious understatement." By June 1995, Rose had left Avalon Hill to found

TalonSoft TalonSoft, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher based in Baltimore. History TalonSoft was founded in March 1995, by video game producers Jim Rose and John Davidson. On December 24, 1998, Take-Two Interactive announced that ...

, and ''Beyond Squad Leader'' had entered alpha testing.

References

External links

* Defunct companies based in Minneapolis Video game companies established in 1989 Video game companies disestablished in 2011 Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Wargame companies {{US-videogame-company-stub