Finding itself in a difficult financial situation, Atari SA filed bankruptcy for Atari, Inc., Atari Interactive and Humongous, Inc. However, their availability was greatly limited by a legal conflict concerning their development. Mistic Software developed ports of the first installments of each Junior Adventure series, except Putt-Putt, taking advantage of the Wii Remote's point-and-click functionality. In March 2008, Majesco Entertainment agreed to publish Wii ports of several Humongous titles. Following this merger, Infogrames Entertainment's company name was changed to Atari SA, who would go on to publish numerous more Backyard Sports titles. In April 2008, Infogrames would purchase and merge with Atari, Inc. Post-closure asset handling (2006–present) to exclusively distribute the company's games in North America through March 2006, which was later extended through March 2007. Infogrames expected to sell Humongous, Inc. As part of the deal, the assets were transferred to a new Infogrames subsidiary (Humongous, Inc.), while the employees of Humongous Entertainment were laid off. sold the Humongous Entertainment business to Infogrames for shares worth US$10.3 million. On August 22, 2005, facing financial struggles, Atari, Inc. purchased Hasbro Interactive-which owned the rights to the Atari brand-the company was renamed Atari, Inc. laid off 82 personnel, over 40% of staff from Humongous Entertainment. The founders soon left Humongous, alongside many other key employees, and formed a new studio, Hulabee Entertainment, in 2001. The co-founders tried to buy Humongous Entertainment back from Infogrames, Inc., using external funding, but the day of the planned purchase was the day of the dot-com collapse, wherefore the funding was pulled. In 2000, Humongous Entertainment released a One-Stop Fun Shop activity center game for each Junior Adventure series, with the exception of Spy Fox. In November 1999, GT Interactive was acquired by Infogrames and renamed to Infogrames, Inc. Backyard Sports would go on to become the company's longest-running series. The same year, Humongous released their first " Backyard Sports" title, Backyard Baseball. series, Blue's Clues, making it the first and only time that Humongous has developed games based on a licensed character as opposed to its original characters. In November 1997, Humongous Entertainment signed a five-year worldwide deal with Nickelodeon to develop games based on the Nick Jr. On July 11, 1996, Humongous Entertainment was purchased by GT Interactive for US$76 million. Acquisitions, decline, dissolution (1996–2006) This was followed by two expansion packs in 1998, as well as a variation called Total Annihilation: Kingdoms plus an expansion pack in 1999. In 1995, Gilbert and Day established a company division, Cavedog Entertainment, in Seattle, set to develop games of alternative genres, and released Total Annihilation, a real-time strategy (RTS) game, in 1997. The company became the third largest children's educational-software company. Despite all four series being developed and released in parallel, characters from one series do not cross over with ones in another (except for Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear's Activity Pack, where Putt-Putt and Fatty Bear combined their Fun Packs) and instead appear as cameos or Easter eggs in any of the three other series. It became known for creating four point-and-click adventure game series intended for young children, branded collectively as "Junior Adventures", with the four series being the Putt-Putt series, the Freddi Fish series, the Pajama Sam series and the Spy Fox series. The name Humongous Entertainment was suggested by Gilbert's ex- LucasArts colleague, Tim Schafer. Humongous Entertainment was formed by Shelley Day and Ron Gilbert in March 1992, then based in Woodinville, Washington. Tommo re-released some of its games into digital distribution channels in conjunction with Night Dive Studios. Infogrames held the assets under a new subsidiary, Humongous, Inc., until its bankruptcy in 2013, in which the assets were sold to Tommo. GT sold the Humongous business to its parent company, Infogrames (later renamed Atari SA), in August 2005 and laid off the studio's employees. By October 2000, sales of Humongous games had surpassed 16 million copies. Humongous Entertainment was acquired by GT Interactive (later renamed Infogrames, Inc., then Atari, Inc.) in July 1996. Founded in 1992, the company is best known for developing multiple edutainment franchises, most prominently Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam and Spy Fox, which, combined, sold over 15 million copies and earned more than 400 awards of excellence. was an American video game developer based in Bothell, Washington.
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