How it started
Beginnings and growth
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.
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. That year, Harry M. Rubin became chief financial officer. 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.
Initial public offering
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.
From Wikipedia’s article on Atari, Inc., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3