"I'm a Strong Believer in Blockchain; This is Just the Beginning:" Atari CEO Fred Chesnias

In this week’s episode I interview Fred Chesnias, the CEO of Atari. The video game company now has a token and plans to release a wallet and even an exchange. The token is an erc20, which Atari hopes will get used across any game, not just their own. With the token, users will be able to buy Atari NFTs, which include wearables to make a fashion statement in the metaverse. Fred believes blockchain and crypto can be a way to make it out of poverty, even leveraging video games themselves, reselling avatars and in-game items.

Beyond blockchains he also talks about business; Chesnias was able to take Atari out of deep financial stress and turn it around. He gives advice to founders and business owners going through difficult times. One of the three main lessons he learned was to oversimplify. Listen to find out what else!

🎙Listen to the interview in this week’s podcast episode here:

You’re a free signup, which means you get only part of the transcript below. Subscribe to never miss out on any content ($100/yr, $10/mo). Click here to pay with DAI (100/yr).

🙌 Together with Zerion, a simple interface to access and use decentralized finance, Neutrino, an algorithmic price-stable protocol that enables the creation of stablecoins tied to real-world assets, Value DeFi Protocol, a suite of DeFi products including the Value Liquid AMM, which allows anyone to create trading pools with flexible ratio pairs, andCartesi, an optimistic roll-ups solution that aims to revolutionize smart contracts by allowing developers to code with mainstream software stacks, has just launched CTSI Reserve Mining.

CR: I'm very excited for this episode. Here we are with Fred Chesnias. He's the CEO of Atari, the famous video game company, which you wouldn't normally associate with anything crypto, but they have recently launched a token. So I'm really excited to learn all about that and the company's strategy into crypto. But first, Fred, welcome to The Defiant podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today.

FC: Thanks for having me. Thank you.

CR: First, I would love to talk about your background before we get into the Atari token. How long have you been at the company and if you just can give an overview on where Atari is at right now?

Rebooting Atari

FC: So initially, I'm more an investor, a banker, and a lawyer, so more somebody who invests. I’m not a tech guy. In 2000, I joined a company, Infogrames. We were doing video games and Infogrames had just bought the Atari brand from Hasbro. We named the company Atari. It was our company. Basically, we were just a team of managers. In 2006/2007, a hedge fund became the largest shareholder so we all left.

The company was renamed Atari throughout the world at the time, and the hedge fund finally had some issues, some troubles. So the hedge fund went into liquidation in 2012-2013. They called me and I was able to come back in 2013. I engineered the turnaround. Atari was in bankruptcy, I became the largest shareholder, and we've been rebooting the company since then. But at the time, the situation was pretty desperate, because they had like 1 million euros of revenue, and more than 30 million euros of debt.

I came back early 2013. So today the company does games. Right now we have no more debt, we’re doing a road-to-revenue in the range of 24-25 million euros. We're profitable, no more debt. We’re doing very simple things. We do games, that's really the DNA of the company. We do games online, but we've stopped doing boxes; we use partners when we have boxes to sell.

The second thing that we're doing: We are launching a new hardware product. It's a mini-computer. It is not a console. It is a mini-computer with some console environment. It's called the Atari Video Computer System, VCS. We've been working on this project for quite some time, very happy about it. The first feedback is great. It is a computer. It is not a console. On the computer, you will have some blockchain related activities, some content, some games on the blockchain. So second activity: Video Computer System, hardware.

Then the third business is mainly licensing, brand licensing. We have Atari Hotels. We have toys that we do with partners. So this is basically the rest of the business, which is t-shirts, toys, and things that we like to do, but with partners. As far as blockchain is concerned, it's a combination, a couple of things. But it's basically on the one end, I'm a strong believer in blockchain. I really support the technology. I believe it is here to stay. I believe that this is just the beginning.

“I'm a strong believer in blockchain. I really support the technology. I believe it is here to stay. I believe that this is just the beginning.”

At the same time, it blends very well with the Atari brand because I think the brand really means evolution. I don't want to say revolution because it will be too big, but evolution, entertainment, and technology, so something new that combines entertainment gameplay, game features, interactive gaming, and technology. This is really what I think the brand is about. So if someone wants to think about doing something new that combines a good brand and entertainment and some technology features, for me, it’s Atari. This is nothing else. Based on that we decided to launch blockchain initiatives--I can come back, of course, during the course of the broadcast. But this is what we're doing today: software, hardware, brand licensing. And then the blockchain is really across the board. I think it's a user opportunity because it's here to stay, definitely.

“[Blockchain] blends very well with the Atari brand because I think the brand really means evolution, entertainment, and technology”

CR: So interesting. Before we get into more specifics on the blockchain side of the business, I'm really interested to hear more about how you were able to turn around the company from having such a huge pile of debt and little revenue into being profitable at the moment? I don't expect you to dig into every single thing, but what were the key aspects that helped you turn it around?

[ … ]

Paid subscribers have access to the full transcript. Subscribe now so you don’t miss any of The Defiant content. Subscribers reading this post: Head to posts marked with the little lock to see the full content.

The Defiant is a daily newsletter focusing on decentralized finance, a new financial system that’s being built on top of open blockchains. The space is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing tech and money. Sign up to learn more and keep up on the latest, most interesting developments. Subscribers get full access at $10/month or $100/year, while free signups get only part of the content.

Subscribe now

About the founder and editor: Camila Russo is the author of The Infinite Machine, the first book on the history of Ethereum, and was previously a Bloomberg News markets reporter based in New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires. She has extensively covered crypto and finance, and now is diving into DeFi, the intersection of the two.