Paulina Bozek quits Atari

Atari has confirmed to Develop that Paulina Bozek, the ex-Sony designer responsible for the SingStar series, has now departed from the company.

Her eighteen-month spell at Atari comes to an end as both Phil Harrison and David Gardner resign from their seat on the board of directors.

Bozek was hired by Atari during the company’s revival and rebrand that took place in the latter-stages of the last decade.

She, a BAFTA-winning director of the SingStar franchise, was hired in 2009 to head up new London-based online studio.

Her capture by Atari signified an exciting time for the company – the group had also poached SCE WWS president Phil Harrison from Sony, and hired EA vet David Gardner as CEO.

But the new breed had their plans dashed when it was revealed that Atari’s European operation would, for the most part, be entirely taken over by Namco Bandai.

That in turn saw Harrison withdraw from his post as president, while Gardner resigned as CEO soon afterwards.

Today it was announced that both had left their seat on the board of directors, with former founder Nolan Bushnell rejoining the outfit.

It was uncertain how many were working at Atari London Studio when Bozek headed up the group. The studio had released only one project since Bozek stood in as development director.

“We recently launched a Facebook application called Atari Photo Sauce in October,” she said in a recent interview with Develop.

“It’s a social creative app that lets you decorate photos with funny stickers, accessories and speech bubbles and ‘Photo Sauce’ your friends.”