As soon as you connect your Steam account, we know exactly how many of our games you own because we have a publisher ID that's pinging the API against your library. We can reward people right out of the gate for just playing Atari games.
A legacy worth reviving
The Atari Club dates back to the 1970s. Members paid $1 to join, got a subscription to Atari Age magazine, access to the exclusive Clubhouse Store, and could earn embroidered patches by submitting high-score photographs. There were summer camps where kids learned to program games. It was a cultural institution in the early gaming world and one of the earliest brand loyalty programs in the video game industry.
When it came time to bring the Club back, the team at Atari had a clear vision. Brian, Head of Growth, Marketing and E-Commerce at Atari, told us they specifically avoided building a standard points-for-purchases program. "We really wanted to create something that created mutually beneficial scenarios for us and the customers, where they are really getting something valuable from a community or a value aspect." he said. "The program needed to be about the community of Atari fans first, transactions second".
The modern Atari Club, powered by Rivo on Shopify, takes that original spirit and rebuilds it as a quest-based digital loyalty program with badges, exclusive hardware redemptions, and cross-platform integrations spanning Steam, Discord, Twitch, and MobyGames.
Badges, quests, and a nod to the old days
The digital badge system is a direct nod to the embroidered patches that made the original Atari Club iconic. Members complete themed quests to earn badges displayed on their profile, each one echoing the "Atarian — Certified Game Player" and "Video-Game Masters" traditions from the 1980s. Atari literally invented the concept of gaming achievement badges in the early '80s, two decades before Xbox Achievements existed.
Brian described them as "a nod to the old days of Atari Club where you'd literally get embroidered patches." The team plans to bring that full circle with real embroidered versions of the digital badges for members who complete certain quests.
The quests go well beyond "buy something and earn points." Brian walked us through his own profile, showing off badges earned from Discord activations, uploading gameplay screenshots, participating in live events, and checking in at convention booths. At San Diego Comic-Con, fans come to the Atari booth, scan a QR code, and earn a badge and points. In some cases there are exclusive products at the booth, like the Atari Club Statement Tee and Atari Club Exclusive Hat, that you can only get by proving you're a Club member.
One of the more interesting decisions the team made was to deliberately avoid a tiered VIP structure. Most loyalty programs lean into Bronze/Silver/Gold progression. Brian explained their reasoning: Atari's audience is incredibly diverse. They have modern gamers playing Mortal Kombat, retro gamers firing up Pac-Man on an old CRT, mobile players, and people who just love the apparel. "Creating tiers with all those different audiences just didn't really make sense," he told us. Instead, Atari focused on building communities of quests where every type of fan can find something that resonates with how they interact with the brand.
The real business value for us is we now know what platforms you connect to. If we know what Twitch streams you're watching, we know what games you own. We can now personalize the website and create email segments based on all of this behavior. This is the true value of Rivo for Atari.
Extending loyalty across Steam, Xbox, Steam, Twitch and beyond
The Atari Club integrations hub lets members link their gaming profiles from across the internet, and all of it flows back to Atari Club as the central hub.
The Steam integration alone is a masterclass in creating mutual value between a brand and its community. It rewards fans for behavior they're already doing while simultaneously feeding Steam's recommendation algorithm in Atari's favor. As soon as a member connects their Steam account, Atari knows exactly how many games they own because they have a publisher ID pinging the API against the member's library. Members get rewarded for games owned and hours played. The roadmap includes pre-order and wishlist actions that influence the Steam algorithm, potentially surfacing Atari on the Steam homepage.
The platform connections extend to console gaming as well. Members can link their Xbox, Steam and Twitch accounts and earn points for playing Atari titles through Rivo's API. This means loyalty engagement isn't limited to PC or web – console players are recognized and rewarded for the time they spend with Atari games across any platform.
Twitch is fully connected through the Rivo API. Following Atari earns points. Watching streams earns points. The roadmap includes bot commands in chat that trigger Club-exclusive rewards during live streams.
Discord serves as the community backbone, with roughly 25,000 members. Atari consolidated previously separate Discord servers under the unified Atari Club server in early 2025. Activity on Discord feeds directly into the loyalty ecosystem.
Then there's MobyGames, often called the "IMDb of video games," which Atari acquired in 2022. It covers 300,000+ games dating back to 1948. Members who link their MobyGames profiles get rewarded for contributing to the database: reviewing games, scoring games, adding credits.
The real business value is data that lives in Shopify
Every one of these integrations feeds data into Shopify metafields through Rivo. The personalization possibilities are significant: if a member logs in and Atari knows they own 30 Steam games, the site can surface merchandise related to the games they play. If someone plays a ton of first-person shooters but doesn't own many Atari titles, Atari can surface their FPS catalog on the homepage. And because all of this data lives natively in Shopify metafields, the team can use Shopify Flow to trigger automations and build email segments through Klaviyo without any additional infrastructure.
Loyalty-exclusive hardware you can buy with points
The Woodgrain Super Pocket Atari Edition is manufactured by HyperMegaTech! (makers of Evercade). This limited-edition handheld features a woodgrain-effect front panel and orange rear buttons, a direct visual homage to the original Atari 2600. Only 2,600 numbered units were produced worldwide (the number itself a reference to the console). It comes loaded with 50 pre-installed Atari games and an Evercade cartridge slot for 500+ more. You can only get it through Atari Club — members redeem their points directly on the product page using Rivo JS, turning loyalty currency into a tangible collectible. This approach turns loyalty points from a discount mechanism into a collecting opportunity.
The community builds the product
One of the Atari Club's standout features is "Club Made," a community co-creation initiative where members vote on actual product design decisions. The community has participated in designing the "Fuji Patch," choosing the name, art style, and action cards for a Centipede card game, and voting on platform integrations (VCS console integration won with 50% of votes). Products are brought to market via Kickstarter with tiered financial goals.
The numbers behind the program
Within the first 10 months of launching on Rivo, the Atari Club is already producing measurable retention lift across every key metric.
Atari Club members who redeem rewards carry a lifetime value of $456, more than 3x the $144 LTV of non-members. They also purchase nearly 4x more frequently, averaging 4 orders per year compared to 1.1 for non-members. Member AOV sits at $150, a 17% lift over the $129 non-member average.
The repeat purchase rate tells the most compelling story: 75.5% of reward redeemers come back and buy again, compared to just 9.4% of non-members, an 8x difference driven by the quest-based engagement model and loyalty-exclusive product rewards.
The rewards catalog reflects how engaged this community is. The free Atari Club Tee, a 500-point reward, has been redeemed over 1,000 times since launch. The $20 off coupon has seen nearly 500 redemptions. And the newly launched Woodgrain Super Pocket, available exclusively through Atari Club points, started collecting redemptions within its first week. Combined, the program has driven over 1,700 reward redemptions in under a year.
Building on Rivo's API
When we asked Brian about the technical experience, he told us the Rivo API "has been first class" and that the only API issues he's run into are with the other platforms he's integrating with. "Everything on the Rivo technical side is working really well," he said. His next step is taking all of the actions flowing through the system and using Shopify Flow to trigger automations based on metafield changes.
For a program this custom, with cross-platform OAuth flows, real-time API syncing every three hours, and deeply nested metafield structures, the fact that Rivo's API is the part that just works says a lot about the platform's developer experience.
Why it matters
The retro gaming market is valued at $3.8 billion and growing at 10% CAGR, significantly outpacing the broader gaming console market's 3-5% growth. 75% of consumers are more likely to purchase when advertising evokes nostalgia, and nostalgic campaigns see 60-70% higher engagement rates. 68% of Gen Z report positive feelings toward nostalgic branding for eras they didn't personally experience. The Atari Club sits right at the intersection of authentic heritage and modern retention strategy.
