ANDREAS DEPTOLLA,
PRESIDENT, ATARI EUROPE July saw Andreas Deptolla appointed as the new President of Atari Europe. Matt Broughton asks the questions…
Matt: Firstly, could you tell us a little about your industry background and how you came to arrive at Atari in 2023? Andreas: My first encounter with the industry was when I first joined the Board of Directors of games publisher Apogee, on which I still am a member. It is a great privilege to work with Scott Miller and the whole team at Apogee, make connections and essentially learn about the industry there. Three years ago, I joined the Atari executive leadership team as CTO, and this came to be through my 15-year partnership with Wade Rosen - CEO of Atari. Wade and I have previously started and managed companies together from which we have been able to make successful exits. When I joined Atari, we were only about 20 employees altogether, and now we are over 300 employees globally. It’s a phenomenal brand and is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
M: You’ve been in your new role since July; can you tell us how this differs from your previous responsibilities at Atari? A: The real turning point for me came as we were expanding our business in Europe, and we needed to look into how we manage the studios locally here. So that’s how we came up with the concept to focus on different regions while still operating as one global company: Ethan Zoubek is president of Atari in North America, and myself here in Europe. I am still involved in the strategic aspect of the business, and a lot of what we do is to try to set the organisation up for success, so that work has not changed!
M: What have been your first points of focus since becoming President? A: We began by asking ourselves, how do we set up the organisation for success? With that came the work of further established central functions like IT, HR, Finance and legal to be able to support our growing organisation. When stepping into this role, we primarily started to focus on three
things: Evaluating the back catalogue and road map for the European studios, cultural alignment, and ensuring the studios are working on the most suitable IPs. We have a vast portfolio of internal and acquired IPs, licensing agreements and work-for-hire projects, so one important aspect is about finding the right fit between the IP and the right studio that match their unique capabilities.
M: You’re tasked with continuing to grow Atari’s European presence. Where are your initial efforts going to be focussed to meet that goal? A: I touch on it a bit on the question above, and one initial effort is to make sure every employee has the right project to work on. Having operations
in the UK, Sweden and Germany have opened many more doors when it comes to connecting with IP and license holders. We noticed that a lot while at Gamescom at the end of August. As a business we are more recognisable and interesting, making them actually approach us rather than the other way around. So that is something we are actively monitoring and trying to optimize.
M: What are the biggest challenges for you in this mission, and how will you approach them? A: One thing that we are working very actively on is to reconnect with old fans of Atari, as well as have a new generation of players discover us. We aim to build stronger partnerships with IP owners, and license
holders whose properties are particularly relevant to European audiences, broadening our portfolio alongside our established lineup of global brands. In parallel, we will continue to unlock the value of our IP portfolio by creating games that resonate with players across Europe.
M: Atari acquired the Thunderful Group earlier this year; how will that contribute to your efforts in Europe? A: Acquiring Thunderful was an important step to us strengthening our foothold here in Europe. It was an attractive acquisition as it included an active pipeline, back catalogue and a pool of talented developers at Coatsink, Storyteller Games and Early Morning Studios. Already we’ve begun to see some interesting synergy effects through cross-collaboration within the Atari ecosystem. For instance, we very recently brought together our mobile studios Early Morning Studios and Hipster Whale and some of the European teams are already collaborating with Nightdive and Digital Eclipse on projects.
M: What should we get excited about from Atari for the rest of this year and into 2027? A: We have some upcoming launches - SiN Reloaded in just a few weeks, Godzilla: DAMM and Barbie Rewind in November. We just got back from Gamescom where we had two large announcements - One being Roller Coaster Tycoon: Wonderworks, and the other being an Atari x Activision collection of Atari 2600 cartridges. The reception has been great; many players seem to be very excited! In addition to our core business, we have announced an interesting partnership with Universal, with the intent to adapt 10 Atari IPs to the big screen. So, our near-term launches support projects like that which needs a bit more time to be executed.
September/October 2026 MCV/DEVELOP | 43
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