Atari, Inc. is an American video gaming company based in New York City, and a subsidiary of the Atari SA holding company. It is the main entity serving the commercial Atari brand globally since 2003. The company currently publishes games based on retro Atari franchises as well as some new content, and also produces the new Atari 2600+ console. In the past it produced titles including Neverwinter Nights, Driver 3, Fahrenheit, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 and Test Drive Unlimited.

Its origins date to GT Interactive Software Corp. in 1993, which published games such as Doom II, Quake, Driver, and the first Unreal. The company was acquired by Infogrames in 1999, and later renamed to Infogrames, Inc. Two years after Infogrames's purchase of the Atari brand and assets from Hasbro Interactive, the company was rebranded to Atari, Inc., initially serving as Infogrames's US operations. In 2008 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames, now known as Atari SA, and activities were largely consolidated into Atari Inc.

GT Interactive Software Corp. was founded in February 1993 in New York as the video game publishing division of GoodTimes Home Video, a video-tape distributor owned by the Cayre family, with Ron Chaimowitz as co-founder and president. In its first year, revenue reached $10.3 million. Their first product was the retail release of Wolfenstein 3D. GT was unusual among many publishers as they allowed developers they contracted to retain their intellectual property.^{[citation needed]}

GT Interactive revenue soared 880% and reached $101 million in its second year of existence, with profits reaching $18 million. GT Interactive's partnership with id Software scored another hit with Doom II: Hell on Earth, which was released in October 1994 and sold over 2 million copies. In February 1995, GT Interactive obtained the publishing rights to games based on Mercer Mayer property, which included Little Critter and Little Monster. GT Interactive began to set up displays at Kmart and Walmart for low cost software. GT Interactive signed an exclusive software supplier agreement with Walmart that meant, according to UBS Securities analyst Michael Wallace, "All software developers have to deal with GT if they want to sell in a Walmart."

In March 1995, GT Interactive signed a $35 million deal with Midway Games to become the exclusive distributor for Midway products outside North America for four years, to end in 1998, and was later expanded to end at the end of March 2000.

In December 1995, GT Interactive debuted on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the stock symbol GTIS. Raising $140 million with its initial public offering, it was one of the biggest IPOs of the year. GT Interactive offered 10 million shares to the public at $14 each. During GT Interactive's IPO, Joseph Cayre sold more than 1.4 million shares, 9.2% of his shares, for a $20 million return. GT Interactive reported a strong revenue growth of 134% in the year to $234.4 million but, in the first sign of trouble ahead, profits increased a meager 23% to $22.6 million.

In January 1996, GT Interactive obtained the publishing rights for the highly anticipated Quake from id Software. The game was released in June of that year to huge success, selling 1.8 million copies, becoming a PC classic. In February, GT Interactive and Target signed an agreement in which GT Interactive became the primary consumer software supplier to all Target's 675 stores.

By 1996, GT Interactive began expanding by purchasing other publishers and distributors. The company purchased budget publisher WizardWorks for 2.4 million shares on June 25, which would form together as part of the company's GT Value Products division. WizardWorks' Macintosh publishing division MacSoft became a stand-alone division of GT. On 1 July, they purchased FormGen for 1 million shares and followed this up on July 11 by purchasing Humongous Entertainment for 3.5 million shares, or $76 million. Humongous formed as the first developer owned by the publisher, and their revenue had revenue had risen to $10 million in 1995, an increase of 233% over 1994's revenue of $3 million. In November, GT would gain an expanded distribution arm in Western Europe by purchasing Warner Interactive Europe (including Renegade Software) from Time Warner for $6.3 million in cash.