Ex-Atari CEO charged with insider trading
Months after his resignation as CEO of Atari, Ray Kassar is hit with charges of insider trading by the Securities & Exchange Commission. At issue, according to the SEC, is the sudden sale of 5,000 shares in Atari’s parent company, Warner Communications, 23 minutes before a statement was issued indicating that Atari would not meet shareholders’ expectations in the fourth quarters of 1982. Other Atari executives are also charged with similar last-minute sell-offs.
Atari in the dumps
In what is perhaps the most tangible event of the entire video game industry crash in 1983, Atari dumps 14 truckloads of unsold game cartridges and other parts in the Alamagordo, New Mexico city dump, with security guards standing by to keep curious onlookers from grabbing any “souvenirs” before concrete is poured over them. The unsold merchandise is stock left over from the closure of Atari’s cartridge assembly plant in El Paso, Texas. Second-quarter earnings report reveal that Atari has lost over $300,000,000 since the beginning of 1983.