A few months after the end of Infocom, Bates and Mike Verdu (the head of Paragon Systems, which had since been acquired by American Systems Corp) founded Legend Entertainment to produce games in the Infocom tradition. The company was backed by ASC, and located in their facility in Chantilly, Virginia. Games designed by Bates for Legend included "Timequest", "Eric the Unready", and "John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles". He also contributed design and writing to other company games, including the "Gateway" series and the company's final game "". In 1998 Legend was acquired by GT Interactive Software, which itself was acquired by Infogrames, later renamed as Atari. In 2004, Legend was closed. Bates then went on to do independent consulting until 2011 when he was hired by Mike Verdu, now at Zynga, to be Chief Creative Officer for External Developers, a job Bates held until early 2014, at which point he returned to independent consulting.