Kassar's twenty-five years at Burlington Industries had given him a taste for order, organization, and efficiency and his efforts to revamp Atari along similar lines provoked substantial animosity.
Though Atari enjoyed some of its greatest success during this period, the stifling atmosphere and lack of royalties or recognition to the individual game designers angered employees, many of whom quit.
Howard Scott Warshaw, the game's designer, got the names "Yar" and "Razak" by jokingly spelling "Ray Kassar" backwards.
Steve Ross, CEO of Atari's parent company Warner Communications, was the one who was in talks with Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures.
"[3] Ultimately though, the decision was not Kassar's to make and it went through, and it was reported that Atari Inc. had paid US$20–25 million for the rights—an abnormally high figure for video game licensing at the time.
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Kassar and then Atari Inc. vice-president Dennis Groth of trading stock with illegal insider knowledge.
The shares that Kassar sold actually constituted only a small amount of his total holdings in the company, and the SEC later cleared him of any wrongdoing.
From December 2, 2000 until February 11, 2001 a series of photographs culled from Kassar's significant personal collection were on display at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.