atari12Atari Inc. is entering the fast-growing social casino gaming arena.

In its first partnership since cutting a deal to emerge out of bankruptcy, Atari is teaming up with Seattle-based gaming company FlowPlay to develop Atari Casino, a social casino gaming platform.

Atari Inc., which has plans to break off from its parent company Atari S.A., will feature some of its well known brands like Centipede, Asteroids and Missile Command in the new casino.

FlowPlay, started by former Real Networks GM Derrick Morton in 2006, will power the back-end infrastructure, analytics, payment systems and in-game advertising integrations for Atari Casino.

FlowPlay CEO Derrick Morton.
FlowPlay CEO Derrick Morton.

“We see partnering with FlowPlay and entering the social casino market as a natural progression for us,” Atari Inc. CEO Fred Chesnais told GeekWire. “As we move beyond gaming, taking advantage of such a rapidly growing industry that aligns well with our core business is important.”

Atari Casino will look and feel similar to FlowPlay’s Vegas World, a free-to-play MMORPG (massive multiplayer online roleplaying game) that includes a virtual world with slots, blackjack, poker, swimming pools and dance clubs, but instead branded with some of Atari’s popular titles.

The partnership was born at the Casual Connect show in Amsterdam, where Atari saw a demo of FlowPlay’s products and liked what it saw. Morton said that the deal will help extend his company’s reach worldwide.

“While our first party social casino business is growing at double digits for the past several months, we know that to really scale, we need to have several products in the channel,” he said. “Working with companies like Atari to build new products using our platform allows us to reach more consumers and ultimately build a bigger business with less risk.”

Atari has extended its brand to physical casinos, but this is the company’s first foray into online social gaming. Atari Casino will be available this fall on online on Facebook, in addition to iOS and Android devices.

FlowPlay, which has raised $7.2 million over the past eight years from Intel Capital and ASI, employs 45 and has been profitable since 2011. It also runs a popular game called ourWorld, which is similar to Vegas World but without the casino aspect.

Related: Xbox film crew’s excavation of Atari ‘ET’ graveyard gets tangled in red tapeAtari relaunches classic games on web, in HTML5 with multitouch support

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