Infogrames Entertainment SA (IESA)

Infogrames Entertainment SA (IESA) was an international French holding company headquartered in Villeurbanne, Lyon, France. It was the owner of Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York City, U.S and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet using the proceeds from an introductory computer book. Through its subsidiaries, Infogrames produced, published and distributed interactive games for all major video game consoles and computer game platforms. The founders wanted to christen the company Zboub Système (which can be approximatively translated by Dick System), but were dissuaded by their legal counsel. According to Bonnell in a TV interview, they then used a mix-and-match computer program to suggest other names, one of which was "Infogramme": a portmanteau of the French words "informatique" (information technology) and "programme" (a computer program).

Source: Wikipedia Infogrames Entertainment, SA available under the CC-BY-SA License.

Admin Note:

• In 1996 Infogrames Entertainment bought Ocean Software and renamed it Infogrames UK.
• In 1997 Infogrames Entertainment bought Philips Media BV.
  • On December 15, 1998 Infogrames Entertainment SA acquired majority shareholding in OziSoft Pty Ltd. and renamed them Infogrames Australia Pty Ltd.
• In 1999 Infogrames Entertainment bought Gremlin Interactive (1994-1999) and renamed it Infogrames Sheffield House.
• In December 1999 Infogrames Entertainment bought 70% of GT Interactive Software, made them a subsidiary, and renamed them Infogrames, Inc.
• Humongous Entertainment, Legend Entertainment, and Reflections Interactive were included with the GT acquisition.
• In 2000 Infogrames Entertainment bought Paradigm Entertainment and Den-o-Tech Int. (DTI), later renamed to Infogrames DTI.
• In January 2001 Infogrames Entertainment bought Hasbro Interactive, Inc. and renamed them Infogrames Interactive, Inc.
• In 2002 Infogrames Entertainment acquired ABS Multimedia, Arcadia and Swiss Gamecity GmbH.
• In 2002 Infogrames Entertainment acquired Eden Games and Shiny Entertainment.
• In 2003 Infogrames Entertainment bought Accolade, Inc..
• In 2003 Infogrames Entertainment bought Beam Software and renamed it Infogrames Melbourne House Pty Ltd..
• In 2008 Infogrames Entertainment was bought out and renamed to Atari, Inc..