In the room sat Phil Harrison. Across from him were the members of Infogrames that would decide his next path. “Harrison! You’re a renegade executive making too many decisions! The city has had enough of it and mayor is on my case about it!” Shouted the leading member of the Infogrames group, “Look, city officials may have taken your dog but that doesn’t give you the authority to start kidnapping the officials’ pets! That’s it, you’re out!” As amazing as I thought that sounded, it apparently was not how Phil Harrison stepped down from his position as president of Atari but alas, it has happened nonetheless.

The news of the former Sony executive turned Atari head came alongside the announcement that reigning company Infogrames took a net loss of $319.33 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009, which was an increase of $72.17 million of the previous year, reports Gamasutra. Phil Harrison will continue to remain on the company board of directors in a non-executive fashion. Jeff Lapin, who was in the past the CEO of THQ and Take-Two, has also been announced of the Chief Operating Officer of Atari.

Atari anticipates the possibility of breaking even in the second half of the fiscal year with the acquisition of Cryptic Studios and their upcoming titles, including Champions Online and Star Trek Online.