Atari already told their investors that they are going to continue to support Cryptic in there development of the Neverwinter Nights game. So unless you are saying that Atari lied to their investor, which would get them in a whole heap of trouble, Cryptic is still making the Neverwinter game.
Last hing I heard was that NWNO is releasing this year and I don't think Atari would give up a possible success like that without a fight.
Of course, Neverwinter and Daggerdale are both Forgotten realms, there might be a possibility that the D&D license gets splitted up after the campaign worlds, it would probably maximize the income of the D&D IP to do like that. Just a thought and it could open up for a Dragonlance or Ravenloft game as well (CCP have the right to Ravenloft since the merged with White wolf BTW, would be interesting to see them make a game like that).
Maybe EA will come along and pick up cryptic when it hits "the bargain bin" lol.
Interesting. How long do you suppose that EA would put up with Jack Emmert?
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Atari already told their investors that they are going to continue to support Cryptic in there development of the Neverwinter Nights game. So unless you are saying that Atari lied to their investor, which would get them in a whole heap of trouble, Cryptic is still making the Neverwinter game.
Last hing I heard was that NWNO is releasing this year and I don't think Atari would give up a possible success like that without a fight.
Of course, Neverwinter and Daggerdale are both Forgotten realms, there might be a possibility that the D&D license gets splitted up after the campaign worlds, it would probably maximize the income of the D&D IP to do like that. Just a thought and it could open up for a Dragonlance or Ravenloft game as well (CCP have the right to Ravenloft since the merged with White wolf BTW, would be interesting to see them make a game like that).
Don't forget another option: Hasbro's lawsuit could still go through, and Atari could lose all rights to publish D&D computer games. I wonder what that would mean for NWN or Daggerdale if they were released when that happened? Given that they are not supposed to be MMOs, I am guessing that Atari would probably just take the money that was theirs, and cease support. Daggerdale could handle that I guess, since its business model is a single-player game with a DLC business model. I am not sure if NWN could survive or not though; from the way Jack Emmert was originally talking about it, it sounded like it was going to be somewhat dependent on being able to log on to Cryptic's/Atari's servers.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Long enogth to Download a clip of D. Trump press play to let him know he's fired.
Ouch. I am trying to decide if that too harsh, even for Emmert. Nah.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Atari got smart and realized that Cryptic was a terrible company with no clue how to build good games.
Kudos to them though for toughing it out long enough to give both MMOs time to turn things around.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
"further expansion into casual online and mobile games"
Still shaking my head on this one.. This is where companies are going to start looking for their gold mines.. We R DOOMED...
Yes, looking for profit from mobile where piracy is rampant and DRM basically nonexistant, and where you are competing with other games ranging from $1 to $5......... yes your development costs are down but so is your turnover massively and generally when turnover goes down so does profit. Not to mention the headaches of having to accomodate so much different phone hardware, Phone OS's and distribution platforms.
Remember when consoles came out and developers said "its hard to develop for PC because there is so much piracy and so many different hardware configurations" ? Ironic really that they are about to take on board a new platform with smaller profit margins but even bigger headaches than what they claim drove them away from PC as a platform (not to mention PC was generally limited to one OS only) yes there is a much bigger user base but I think if someone sits down with actual programmers as well as the number monkeys you will soon see this kind of shift is a setting up for a big fall.
They better hope like hell that all 3 COD titles this year sell like Black Ops or better. Personally I think at least one of those titles will run afoul of the BF3 launch and the last COS game released this year is likely to suffer from the negative effects of oversaturating the market.
Thought I would let you know that COD is owned by Activision.
Atari's big games are:
The Witcher, D&D, Neverwinter, and Test Drive
Woops thanks for the correction. I guess they both start with A and thats how I got totally mixed up.
The D&D licence is a tangled web right now. Hasbro want the licence back from Atari who do not want to give it up, Atari essentially want the MMO part of their licence back from Turbine and Turbine were suing Atari accusing them of undermarketting D&D Online to deliberately cause it to fail so they could recover that licence.
To me the only decent D&D game that has come out from Atari was NWN1 (Bioware) and I guess NWN2 (Obsidian with Bioware's help, although it kinda flopped by comparrison to the original) D&D Online was ok but I hate the setting which severely limited what they could accomplish (if they didnt want to use Faerun so they could be different then they should have used Darksun IMHO) I played it for about 6 months before I had my fill, I went back to it for a few days when it went F2P but ti just had no lasting appeal.
With Bioware locked into deals with EA I am not really expecting a decent D&D games out of Atari any time soon.
"further expansion into casual online and mobile games"
Still shaking my head on this one.. This is where companies are going to start looking for their gold mines.. We R DOOMED...
Yes, looking for profit from mobile where piracy is rampant and DRM basically nonexistant, and where you are competing with other games ranging from $1 to $5......... yes your development costs are down but so is your turnover massively and generally when turnover goes down so does profit. Not to mention the headaches of having to accomodate so much different phone hardware, Phone OS's and distribution platforms.
Remember when consoles came out and developers said "its hard to develop for PC because there is so much piracy and so many different hardware configurations" ? Ironic really that they are about to take on board a new platform with smaller profit margins but even bigger headaches than what they claim drove them away from PC as a platform (not to mention PC was generally limited to one OS only) yes there is a much bigger user base but I think if someone sits down with actual programmers as well as the number monkeys you will soon see this kind of shift is a setting up for a big fall.
They better hope like hell that all 3 COD titles this year sell like Black Ops or better. Personally I think at least one of those titles will run afoul of the BF3 launch and the last COS game released this year is likely to suffer from the negative effects of oversaturating the market.
Thought I would let you know that COD is owned by Activision.
Atari's big games are:
The Witcher, D&D, Neverwinter, and Test Drive
Woops thanks for the correction. I guess they both start with A and thats how I got totally mixed up.
The D&D licence is a tangled web right now. Hasbro want the licence back from Atari who do not want to give it up, Atari essentially want the MMO part of their licence back from Turbine and Turbine were suing Atari accusing them of undermarketting D&D Online to deliberately cause it to fail so they could recover that licence.
To me the only decent D&D game that has come out from Atari was NWN1 (Bioware) and I guess NWN2 (Obsidian with Bioware's help, although it kinda flopped by comparrison to the original) D&D Online was ok but I hate the setting which severely limited what they could accomplish (if they didnt want to use Faerun so they could be different then they should have used Darksun IMHO) I played it for about 6 months before I had my fill, I went back to it for a few days when it went F2P but ti just had no lasting appeal.
With Bioware locked into deals with EA I am not really expecting a decent D&D games out of Atari any time soon.
Actually the D&D franchise has been an historically profitable license for computer games.
SSI and the Gold boxes
Made Bioware who they are with Baldur's Gate and the infinity Engine series.
These aren't single titles but series' that are bankable product.
Only recently has it been less than platinum, and that is mostly owed to bad management or bad developers.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Yeah I can't remember exaclty when the D&D IP games started getting worse but I think it started around the later NWN1 expansions maybe. The main problem that I saw was they took the gameplay too far away from it's roots and tried to dumb down the game for consoles and players... But maybe that's just me being an elitist PC gamer.
------------------------- "Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
"further expansion into casual online and mobile games"
Still shaking my head on this one.. This is where companies are going to start looking for their gold mines.. We R DOOMED...
Yes, looking for profit from mobile where piracy is rampant and DRM basically nonexistant, and where you are competing with other games ranging from $1 to $5......... yes your development costs are down but so is your turnover massively and generally when turnover goes down so does profit. Not to mention the headaches of having to accomodate so much different phone hardware, Phone OS's and distribution platforms.
Remember when consoles came out and developers said "its hard to develop for PC because there is so much piracy and so many different hardware configurations" ? Ironic really that they are about to take on board a new platform with smaller profit margins but even bigger headaches than what they claim drove them away from PC as a platform (not to mention PC was generally limited to one OS only) yes there is a much bigger user base but I think if someone sits down with actual programmers as well as the number monkeys you will soon see this kind of shift is a setting up for a big fall.
They better hope like hell that all 3 COD titles this year sell like Black Ops or better. Personally I think at least one of those titles will run afoul of the BF3 launch and the last COS game released this year is likely to suffer from the negative effects of oversaturating the market.
Thought I would let you know that COD is owned by Activision.
Atari's big games are:
The Witcher, D&D, Neverwinter, and Test Drive
Woops thanks for the correction. I guess they both start with A and thats how I got totally mixed up.
The D&D licence is a tangled web right now. Hasbro want the licence back from Atari who do not want to give it up, Atari essentially want the MMO part of their licence back from Turbine and Turbine were suing Atari accusing them of undermarketting D&D Online to deliberately cause it to fail so they could recover that licence.
To me the only decent D&D game that has come out from Atari was NWN1 (Bioware) and I guess NWN2 (Obsidian with Bioware's help, although it kinda flopped by comparrison to the original) D&D Online was ok but I hate the setting which severely limited what they could accomplish (if they didnt want to use Faerun so they could be different then they should have used Darksun IMHO) I played it for about 6 months before I had my fill, I went back to it for a few days when it went F2P but ti just had no lasting appeal.
With Bioware locked into deals with EA I am not really expecting a decent D&D games out of Atari any time soon.
Actually the D&D franchise has been an historically profitable license for computer games.
SSI and the Gold boxes
Made Bioware who they are with Baldur's Gate and the infinity Engine series.
These aren't single titles but series' that are bankable product.
Only recently has it been less than platinum, and that is mostly owed to bad management or bad developers.
I was talking about Atari's contribution to D&D games lately.
Baldurs gate series was published by interplay (thanks to development by bioware & black isle) & planescape was also published by interplay. BG was released 12 years ago and BG2 was close to 11 years ago. Gold box (which I still have, ahh curse of the azure bonds...) and the Darksun games (highly underrated) were published by SSI/Interplay from memory and are quite ancient now. I actually still have BG2 installed on my PC.
The current planned titles coming out using the D&D liscence are action games which are less than appealing IMHO. Interestingly enough Wizards/Hasbro have already adpted the PnP rules to an MMO friendly version (much the the disgust of many longtime PnP players) within the 4th edition release.
If ever there was a time for a Forgotten Realms based D&D MMO now is probably the time, failing that Darksun was relaunched in the last few years and is a very interesting setting also.
Free-to-play will be the death of many a gaming company. Atari's problems are mismanagement. STO is a good game (now) as is Champions Online. Problem is, CO is f2p and is not making any money. Plus, it cost a bit of cash to convert CO to the f2p model. Cryptic will land on its feet but Atari may flounder even more if they keep taking on the "less is more" attitude.
Free-to-play will be the death of many a gaming company. Atari's problems are mismanagement. STO is a good game (now) as is Champions Online. Problem is, CO is f2p and is not making any money. Plus, it cost a bit of cash to convert CO to the f2p model. Cryptic will land on its feet but Atari may flounder even more if they keep taking on the "less is more" attitude.
You do realise the reason CO went to F2P is because it had very few subscribers left right ? So it was making no money and in danger of being shut down long before it went F2P why ? because the game is uninspired.
The warning signs were all there for CO during closed Beta but nothing changed before launch and then once it went F2P the cash shop had its prices set far too high.
But I think they were referring to Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale. Its a XBLA, PSN, Windows game coming out on the 24th. I believe they will pull the game from Cryptic.
Atari already told their investors that they are going to continue to support Cryptic in there development of the Neverwinter Nights game. So unless you are saying that Atari lied to their investor, which would get them in a whole heap of trouble, Cryptic is still making the Neverwinter game.
I would be interested to see exactly what Atari said about this.
In the business sense - "support" could mean a lot of things. It could mean that they will issue the sub-licence to Cryptic at this time for 'free'.
But Atari could put conditions on that which will permit them to recover the licence at any time - and really - what choice would Cryptic have but to agree?
As for whether ATARI would do that and whether they would 'lie' - well the Turbine vs ATARI case gave more than enough provable evidence that ATARI has done this in the past.
Free-to-play will be the death of many a gaming company. Atari's problems are mismanagement. STO is a good game (now) as is Champions Online. Problem is, CO is f2p and is not making any money. Plus, it cost a bit of cash to convert CO to the f2p model. Cryptic will land on its feet but Atari may flounder even more if they keep taking on the "less is more" attitude.
Nah.. I am inclined to believe that companies using the P2P method have a much larger failure rate, because people are becoming a little more cautious with throwing 60 out for a box and continuing a 15 a month payment schedule for a game that does not have lasting appeal.. The thing about F2P games is that it does not restrict the users spending, therefore instead of telling 1000 gamers to spend 15 bucks a month, they allow individual gamers to simply "get what they want" and this could benefit those who simply want to try the game out and not have to commit..
I have so many coasters (Cd's of mmo's I have no intention of ever playing again) of games I bought at full price.. 3 of them are now F2P and actually have sustained populations.
I am now going to go out on a limb and say that if SoE bit the bullet and made Vanguard F2P, it would be one of the most popular F2P titles for a long time.. And if they were to do the shop right, it would generate lots of money for them...
Free-to-play will be the death of many a gaming company. Atari's problems are mismanagement. STO is a good game (now) as is Champions Online. Problem is, CO is f2p and is not making any money. Plus, it cost a bit of cash to convert CO to the f2p model. Cryptic will land on its feet but Atari may flounder even more if they keep taking on the "less is more" attitude.
Nah.. I am inclined to believe that companies using the P2P method have a much larger failure rate, because people are becoming a little more cautious with throwing 60 out for a box and continuing a 15 a month payment schedule for a game that does not have lasting appeal.. The thing about F2P games is that it does not restrict the users spending, therefore instead of telling 1000 gamers to spend 15 bucks a month, they allow individual gamers to simply "get what they want" and this could benefit those who simply want to try the game out and not have to commit..
I have so many coasters (Cd's of mmo's I have no intention of ever playing again) of games I bought at full price.. 3 of them are now F2P and actually have sustained populations.
I am now going to go out on a limb and say that if SoE bit the bullet and made Vanguard F2P, it would be one of the most popular F2P titles for a long time.. And if they were to do the shop right, it would generate lots of money for them...
A F2P Vanguard game would put it in direct competition with EQ2 Extended. Everquest is the IP that SOE takes care of and puts their energy. I don't think SOE cares about Vanguard but since it's still collecting money even with the low population, they keep it around. Basically, Vanguard is still profitable even if it's just thousands of dollars. Once it goes red on the accounting books, it's gone.
That was the right decision by Atari, Cryptic is a pretty sub-par MMORPG studio, if you can even call them that seeing as their games are more MORPG rather than MMORPGs.
This probably has more to do with share prices than anything else. Strategic ditching of unprofitable subsidiaries is often used to shore up share prices by effectively removing them from revenue forecasts. Be interesting to see how long Atari will support them if 'until sold' happens to be longer than they anticipate.
Anyone want to explain exactly what it means to "divest itself" of Cryptic? I read that without Cryptics numbers included in their report that Atari actually showed a small profit. Does this mean that Cryptic is now its own company and has to figure out what to do about its annual multi-million dollar loss?
Cryptic has always been its own company since it's development of City of Heroes back in the day.
As for the Divesting of Cryptic, I am thinking INvest = supporting the company with $. DIvest = no longer supporting the company with $.
Anyone want to explain exactly what it means to "divest itself" of Cryptic? I read that without Cryptics numbers included in their report that Atari actually showed a small profit. Does this mean that Cryptic is now its own company and has to figure out what to do about its annual multi-million dollar loss?
Cryptic has always been its own company since it's development of City of Heroes back in the day.
That is incorrect; Atari bought Cryptic Studios, it was not a partnership. Basically what Atari is doing here is seperating their Cryptic division from the rest of their corporation, so that the individual piece (Cryptic Studios) may be purchased by someone else. For the time being Atari will continue to run Cryptic, including continuing development on the NWN game and collecting revenue from CO and STO, until such time as someone negotiates a purchase of Cryptic. If it takes too long to find a buyer, it could be possible that Atari would just shut it down.
For a more in-depth explanation of disvestment, here is the wiki link for it: Link
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
This probably has more to do with share prices than anything else. Strategic ditching of unprofitable subsidiaries is often used to shore up share prices by effectively removing them from revenue forecasts. Be interesting to see how long Atari will support them if 'until sold' happens to be longer than they anticipate.
The thing is though that Atari's stock has been dropping for years, before they acquired Cryptic. Of course it also continued to drop after they bought Cryptic, and dropped a good chunk when this news was released.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
What alot of haters man. Everyone seems to forget about the huge success that was CoX. I feel atari ruined cryptic, atari has always been a stupid company.
Does anyone own the Sword & Sorcery IPs? easy way to make a dnd like mmorpg, with more leniency.
Comments
Last hing I heard was that NWNO is releasing this year and I don't think Atari would give up a possible success like that without a fight.
Of course, Neverwinter and Daggerdale are both Forgotten realms, there might be a possibility that the D&D license gets splitted up after the campaign worlds, it would probably maximize the income of the D&D IP to do like that. Just a thought and it could open up for a Dragonlance or Ravenloft game as well (CCP have the right to Ravenloft since the merged with White wolf BTW, would be interesting to see them make a game like that).
Interesting. How long do you suppose that EA would put up with Jack Emmert?
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Don't forget another option: Hasbro's lawsuit could still go through, and Atari could lose all rights to publish D&D computer games. I wonder what that would mean for NWN or Daggerdale if they were released when that happened? Given that they are not supposed to be MMOs, I am guessing that Atari would probably just take the money that was theirs, and cease support. Daggerdale could handle that I guess, since its business model is a single-player game with a DLC business model. I am not sure if NWN could survive or not though; from the way Jack Emmert was originally talking about it, it sounded like it was going to be somewhat dependent on being able to log on to Cryptic's/Atari's servers.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Long enogth to Download a clip of D. Trump press play to let him know he's fired.
Atari got smart and realized that Cryptic was a terrible company with no clue how to build good games.
Ouch. I am trying to decide if that too harsh, even for Emmert. Nah.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
I would say just about long enough to let him know he is free to seek employment elsewhere
Kudos to them though for toughing it out long enough to give both MMOs time to turn things around.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Woops thanks for the correction. I guess they both start with A and thats how I got totally mixed up.
The D&D licence is a tangled web right now. Hasbro want the licence back from Atari who do not want to give it up, Atari essentially want the MMO part of their licence back from Turbine and Turbine were suing Atari accusing them of undermarketting D&D Online to deliberately cause it to fail so they could recover that licence.
To me the only decent D&D game that has come out from Atari was NWN1 (Bioware) and I guess NWN2 (Obsidian with Bioware's help, although it kinda flopped by comparrison to the original) D&D Online was ok but I hate the setting which severely limited what they could accomplish (if they didnt want to use Faerun so they could be different then they should have used Darksun IMHO) I played it for about 6 months before I had my fill, I went back to it for a few days when it went F2P but ti just had no lasting appeal.
With Bioware locked into deals with EA I am not really expecting a decent D&D games out of Atari any time soon.
Actually the D&D franchise has been an historically profitable license for computer games.
SSI and the Gold boxes
Made Bioware who they are with Baldur's Gate and the infinity Engine series.
These aren't single titles but series' that are bankable product.
Only recently has it been less than platinum, and that is mostly owed to bad management or bad developers.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Yeah I can't remember exaclty when the D&D IP games started getting worse but I think it started around the later NWN1 expansions maybe. The main problem that I saw was they took the gameplay too far away from it's roots and tried to dumb down the game for consoles and players... But maybe that's just me being an elitist PC gamer.
-------------------------
"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
I was talking about Atari's contribution to D&D games lately.
Baldurs gate series was published by interplay (thanks to development by bioware & black isle) & planescape was also published by interplay. BG was released 12 years ago and BG2 was close to 11 years ago. Gold box (which I still have, ahh curse of the azure bonds...) and the Darksun games (highly underrated) were published by SSI/Interplay from memory and are quite ancient now. I actually still have BG2 installed on my PC.
The current planned titles coming out using the D&D liscence are action games which are less than appealing IMHO. Interestingly enough Wizards/Hasbro have already adpted the PnP rules to an MMO friendly version (much the the disgust of many longtime PnP players) within the 4th edition release.
If ever there was a time for a Forgotten Realms based D&D MMO now is probably the time, failing that Darksun was relaunched in the last few years and is a very interesting setting also.
Free-to-play will be the death of many a gaming company. Atari's problems are mismanagement. STO is a good game (now) as is Champions Online. Problem is, CO is f2p and is not making any money. Plus, it cost a bit of cash to convert CO to the f2p model. Cryptic will land on its feet but Atari may flounder even more if they keep taking on the "less is more" attitude.
Let's party like it is 1863!
You do realise the reason CO went to F2P is because it had very few subscribers left right ? So it was making no money and in danger of being shut down long before it went F2P why ? because the game is uninspired.
The warning signs were all there for CO during closed Beta but nothing changed before launch and then once it went F2P the cash shop had its prices set far too high.
I would be interested to see exactly what Atari said about this.
In the business sense - "support" could mean a lot of things. It could mean that they will issue the sub-licence to Cryptic at this time for 'free'.
But Atari could put conditions on that which will permit them to recover the licence at any time - and really - what choice would Cryptic have but to agree?
As for whether ATARI would do that and whether they would 'lie' - well the Turbine vs ATARI case gave more than enough provable evidence that ATARI has done this in the past.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Nah.. I am inclined to believe that companies using the P2P method have a much larger failure rate, because people are becoming a little more cautious with throwing 60 out for a box and continuing a 15 a month payment schedule for a game that does not have lasting appeal.. The thing about F2P games is that it does not restrict the users spending, therefore instead of telling 1000 gamers to spend 15 bucks a month, they allow individual gamers to simply "get what they want" and this could benefit those who simply want to try the game out and not have to commit..
I have so many coasters (Cd's of mmo's I have no intention of ever playing again) of games I bought at full price.. 3 of them are now F2P and actually have sustained populations.
I am now going to go out on a limb and say that if SoE bit the bullet and made Vanguard F2P, it would be one of the most popular F2P titles for a long time.. And if they were to do the shop right, it would generate lots of money for them...
A F2P Vanguard game would put it in direct competition with EQ2 Extended. Everquest is the IP that SOE takes care of and puts their energy. I don't think SOE cares about Vanguard but since it's still collecting money even with the low population, they keep it around. Basically, Vanguard is still profitable even if it's just thousands of dollars. Once it goes red on the accounting books, it's gone.
That was the right decision by Atari, Cryptic is a pretty sub-par MMORPG studio, if you can even call them that seeing as their games are more MORPG rather than MMORPGs.
My gaming blog
This probably has more to do with share prices than anything else. Strategic ditching of unprofitable subsidiaries is often used to shore up share prices by effectively removing them from revenue forecasts. Be interesting to see how long Atari will support them if 'until sold' happens to be longer than they anticipate.
Cryptic has always been its own company since it's development of City of Heroes back in the day.
As for the Divesting of Cryptic, I am thinking INvest = supporting the company with $. DIvest = no longer supporting the company with $.
Work hard Play Harder
That is incorrect; Atari bought Cryptic Studios, it was not a partnership. Basically what Atari is doing here is seperating their Cryptic division from the rest of their corporation, so that the individual piece (Cryptic Studios) may be purchased by someone else. For the time being Atari will continue to run Cryptic, including continuing development on the NWN game and collecting revenue from CO and STO, until such time as someone negotiates a purchase of Cryptic. If it takes too long to find a buyer, it could be possible that Atari would just shut it down.
For a more in-depth explanation of disvestment, here is the wiki link for it: Link
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
The thing is though that Atari's stock has been dropping for years, before they acquired Cryptic. Of course it also continued to drop after they bought Cryptic, and dropped a good chunk when this news was released.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
well hopefully NWN gets a decent developer now, I liked obsidians game although the tools for helping you create mods was a lot tougher to use.
What alot of haters man. Everyone seems to forget about the huge success that was CoX. I feel atari ruined cryptic, atari has always been a stupid company.
Does anyone own the Sword & Sorcery IPs? easy way to make a dnd like mmorpg, with more leniency.
I love the popularity of hating on STO here.
I have to wonder how many of those so quick to call STO crap have actually played it within the last six months or at all since it's launched.