Ray Kassar
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Ray Kassar | |
---|---|
Born | Brooklyn, New York | January 2, 1928
Died | December 10, 2017 | (aged 89)
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Executive |
Known for | President of Atari Inc. |
Raymond Edward Kassar (January 2, 1928 – December 10, 2017) was
Career
Ray Kassar began working for
Ray Kassar was hired in February 1978 as president of Atari's consumer division by
In November 1978, when Atari Inc. co-founder Nolan Bushnell was fired after a dispute with Warner over the future of Atari Inc., Kassar became CEO. Kassar's twenty-five years at Burlington Industries had given him a taste for order, organization, and efficiency and his efforts to revamp Atari along similar lines provoked substantial animosity. Atari Inc. began to promote games all year around instead of just at the Christmas season. Kassar became unaffectionately known to many at Atari Inc. as the "sock king" and the "towel czar" (due to his previous years in the textile industry) after he once referred to Atari programmers as "high-strung prima donnas" in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News in 1979.
During the Kassar years, Atari Inc.'s sales grew from $75 million in 1977 to over $2.2 billion just three years later. Though Atari enjoyed some of its greatest success during this period, the stifling atmosphere and lack of
One of the most notable turnovers was when four programmers were unsatisfied with their paychecks. They felt they were making a very paltry salary for someone who actually designed the games that made the company millions of dollars. They wanted a small commission, but when they asked Kassar about that,
In 1981, the highly popular and successful game Yars' Revenge was released for the Atari 2600. Howard Scott Warshaw, the game's designer, got the names "Yar" and "Razak" by jokingly spelling "Ray Kassar" backwards. Warshaw claimed that the game was "Ray's revenge on Activision".
In 1982, Kassar donated a sum of money to Brown University, his alma mater. In recognition, the university named a university building the "Edward W. Kassar House" after his father. The Kassar House is currently home to the university's mathematics department.
Contrary to popular belief, Kassar was not responsible for the deal to make the
In July 1983, Kassar was fired due to continuing massive losses at Atari. In December 1982, Kassar had sold 5,000 shares of
Upon Ray Kassar's resignation, James J. Morgan, formerly of Philip Morris, replaced him as CEO of Atari Inc. in September 1983.
He was a collector and private investor and sat on the Board of the American Hospital of Paris Foundation.
From December 2, 2000 until February 11, 2001 a series of photographs culled from Kassar's significant personal collection were on display at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The exhibition, entitled "Painterly Photographs: The Raymond E. Kassar Collection", presented 33 works made for exhibition from 1900 to 1910, featuring some of the most important camera artists of the time, including Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Heinrich Kuehn, George Seeley and Clarence H. White. Portions of the collection have been lent on only two other occasions, in 1994 to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and in 2012 to the Neue Galerie New York.
References
- ISSN 0199-6649.
- ^ Keith, Phipps (2005-02-02). "Interview—Howard Scott Warshaw". A.V. Club. Retrieved 2009-12-10.
- ^ a b Kent, The Ultimate History of Video Games, p. 237.
- ^ Ross, Nancy (September 27, 1983). "Former Atari Chief Charged On Stock Sale". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
- ISBN 0-7615-3643-4
- High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, by Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson (2003) ISBN 0-07-223172-6