Harrison and Gardner resign from Atari board
Update: Paulina Bozek also leaves publisher, as original founder Nolan Bushnell rejoins the iconic brand
Phil Harrison and David Gardner - once charged with completely reinventing the Atari brand - have resigned from the company's board of directors.
The pair originally joined the publisher in 2008 with the intention of spearheading new digital initiatives built around the iconic brand name, but the process proved too slow for a company saddled with debt.
Namco Bandai took control of the company in Europe a year later, pushing then president Harrison out to a non-executive director role. US boss Jeff Lapin took David Gardner's CEO role last year.
The other high-profile signing from Gardner's tenure at the company was Paulina Bozek, the ex-Sony designer responsible for the SingStar series. She was originally charged with heading a new Hammersmith development studio focused on digital and social gaming, but output was been minimal with only the release of Facebook application Photo Sauce to its credit.
Bozek has since confirmed via Twitter that she is no longer with Atari and is now working on a "cool new project".
Replacing Gardner and Harrison are two new board members - Pong creator and former Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and Tom Virden, who has previously held senior positions with Lastminute.com and Netscape.
"We are very pleased to welcome Mr. Bushnell and Mr. Virden as new members of the board of directors of Atari," offered Frank Dangeard, chairman of the board. "We are convinced that their deep industry, technology and online business knowledge will be a substantial addition to the strategic insight of our board".