Champions Online was kinda lacking, and still have no people. hell there hardly anybody PvPing anymore even after it gone free. In my opinion, I think the only way this company to see the light is when they get acquired by a good reputation company like Valve (if only they get into mmo's), but if they want to play like the devil, then go to Activision.
I'm one of the rare losers out there who enjoy cryptic's games. As a father (soon to be of 2) and a student AND someone who holds down a full time job, their emphasis on the casual gamer appeals to me. That being said , I feel the same way about Turbine (or Time Warner, WB or whatever). I think it would be a natural partnership. Especially sine the boys at Turbine already have some experience with a CORPG D&D title and with Cryptic soon to produce NW.
If Turbine got their hands on Neverwinter then I would never touch the game. They compleely butchered D&D with DDO, associating D&D with that title is an insult to all D&D players.
Would love to see BW doing Neverwinter but I don't see that happening as Atari holds the D&D franchise or the current holders in the comp gaming industry.
Had such hopes for Neverwinter but not with this news....might as well as forget about it I suppose. Also /faceepalm at Cryptic for having "Rouge" on their studio's whiteboard. Knew that was a baaaad sign.
atari will put a price tag on cryptic so high that it wont be financially viable to purchase it. lets face it the cryptic games are not very good at all.. sure im expecting the fans to start screaming praises and trolling me but truth is cryptic games have been crap since city of heroes. its that whole architecture forge yuor own missions thing..
its like a huge welcome come exploit the crap out of this game and wipe your feet after mats. but first reach max level in just one day..
im not suprised atari want shot of it, and if i know atari they will whack a massive price tag on it and cryptic will just vanish into the dust. which isnt a bad thing.
maybe some one with a bit of ingenuity and imagination will pick the licences up for startrek and actually make a good startrek mmo. some where along the lines of what perpetual was trying to create.
ive never really concider cryptic to be a good developer, never really enjoyed there games and all there games are so damn similatr one would think they was just the same game but edited.
take that stupid map/mission creator they used for sto, all it did was copy the missions and maps, then the dev team did a little editing and they had a new area a new planet and a new mission that just happened to mimic all the other areas planets maps and missions. so much so they was practically identical. give or take a few cosmetic diffrences.
nah i say let cryptic sink into the darkness and maybe some one else will pick up the startrek licence and do something worthwhile. lets just prey blizzard or EA dont get their hands on it.
and for the record atari should go back to makeing consoles and games. i really enjoyed my atari 2700 it was the best console for its day.. i think i got that number right.or was it atari2000, nah 2700 looks right.
With Cryptics strategy of pumping out quickly developed, unfinished, content light games id rather no one buys them and they just fade away.
Yep, I'd have to say the same. Going 1 for 3 in my eyes and I don't think the last two really qualified for AAA status. At this point, anything saddled with the name "Cryptic" is something I would pass on. I think Emmert needs to retire or change careers at this point. He peaked early.
I don't want to be the first to say it (but I will) I think they'll just break up Cryptic and buy the contracts of the developers working for it (or transfer those contracts into Atari). Imagine this situation?
Merchant: FOR SALE SECOND HAND CAR!!!!
Consumer: What's wrong with it?
Merchant: EVERYTHING ITS AWFUL AND IS THE REASON I'M LATE FOR WORK EVERY DAY, IT'S A HORRIBLE CAR
Consumer: So.... how much would it cost to fix it?
Merchant: WAY MORE THAN I'M SELLING IT FOR. EVEN AFTER YOU FIX IT, IT'LL JUST BREAK ITSELF.
Consumer: Um.....
At best that car can be sold for scrap.... which is what will probably end up happening to Cryptic.
Cryptic's most valuable asset is their IPs. Atari could sell off Star Trek Online, Champion's Online, and Neverwinter Nights Online easily.... however selling the company that makes them, not so easy. There aren't going to be a lot of companies that will want to buy a development team that Atari feels is responsible for a very gross profits dip.
I think if you ask "who will buy these games" you'll be able to bring up a bigger list of companies. Right now, NO ONE will buy Cryptic. The ones that want it can't afford it, and those that can afford it, don't want it.
hahaha loved the little screen play, brilliant stuff you should do more of other crappy games, this one really tickled me lol
"We know they have two games which failed to perform to expectations, but for all intents and purposes appear profitable."
According to Atari's financial report, no they weren't that profitable; Cryptic had a loss of -€5.3 million for the fiscal year running April 1, 2010 - March 31, 2011. At current conversion rates, that is -$7,583,248.98. The only reason Cryptic didn't do as bad in the 2010-2011 fiscal year as they did in the previous fiscal year (-€12.6 million or -$18,027,168.12) was due to STO having launched when the 2010-2011 fiscal year started.
"I’m not here to argue the merit of said content, but the fact that a somewhat small studio (for MMO purposes) was able to churn out two AAA MMORPGs in such rapid succession speaks volumes for the development package..."
A studio as small as Cryptic should never have taken on two MMO developments that had over-lapping development schedules. They took on more than they could handle, tried to cut corners and rush the games to release, and they have been paying the price for it every since. There's a reason there was a lot of skepticism when Cryptic announced that they would be devloping a Star Trek MMO while still working on CO; they weren't big enough to pull it off. Heck even the juggernaut that is Blizzard, with all of its resources, hasn't tried to develop two MMOs at the same time.
Content does need to be talked about, though not really the quality of said content; after all one of the problems with CoH/CoV was quickly the content became repetitive. One of the major problems with both CO and STO was the amount of content. These were not sandbox games where the players are expected to make up a fair bit of the content themselves, but themepark games that both turned out to be woefully short of content to begin with. Heck STO launched with no endgame content, and a 'faction' that had only a handful of PvE missions.
"That brings me to the Wild Card: Neverwinter. This to me is the game that has a chance to make Cryptic a winning studio in the eyes of gamers once more. It’s going to be F2P from the word go, and takes significant advantage of Cryptic’s instance-oriented engine and their slant towards giving players ultimate control in character creation. It’s poised perfectly to use well everything MMO stalwarts have found wrong with the company’s two most recent releases. It could be Cryptic’s return to form, if gets the chance to see the light of day."
Just an observation here, but I noticed that the only D&D title listed in the current Atari financial report was Daggerdale. NWN, which was listed in previous reports, was not on the upcoming releases list. I know Atari has said they will continue to support Cryptic and development of NWN, but in the business world the word support does not always have the same meaning we would apply to it. I'm not saying that Cryptic isn't working on it, I'm just saying it may not be a sure thing anymore. Also don't forget that Hasbro's lawsuit to revoke Atari's D&D license is still apparently ongoing. In addition, NWN is supposed to be a OMG and not a MMO; I'm not sure of free to play is quite the right term for what they are working on.
"But who should try to snatch up the struggling developer to see to it that Neverwinter comes out and CO and STO stay afloat for their fans?"
I would say that SOE, even despite their problems, would be the best fit for purchasing Cryptic. No matter who buys it though, it's a safe bet Atari is going to want a significant chunk of money to help pay back the BlueBay credit line; from comments in their financial statements, it appears that Atari used a large portion of that money just on Cryptic (both in the initial purchase, and in funding Cryptic for the past two years). Is there any company out there that wants to have that much of an initial cost for a division that has been losing money?
"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
Yes, Cryptic lost $7.5 million dollars. In a year in which they were developing TWO AAA games, which cost at least $10 million a year to develop.
Their finished games were making at 8 figure profits.
Well, yes but CO never sold as well as expected, many potential customers stayed at CoX instead of upgrading to the new game.
STO did sell very well but it has been bleeding players since launch. The number of sold copies is nothing to complain about but it havn't been good enough to keep the players it got, like WAR and AoC.
I wouldn't count out Cryptic yet of course but both these games could have done better.
Neverwinter nights should however be a given success unless Cryptic get greedy and want to sell it as a P2P CORPG. Forgotten realms is one of the most popular IPs out there and unlike ST is it easy to convert into a computer game.
If and I say if they mess it up then I agree that it would be best if someone boght the company up and teach the crew a bit about how you make fun games. Jeff Strain and his zombie labs would be perfect, he knows how to make a game that is both cheap and still fun (he made Diablo, Warcraft 3 and Guildwars and is known as one of the best bosses in the genre).
Yes, Cryptic lost $7.5 million dollars. In a year in which they were developing TWO AAA games, which cost at least $10 million a year to develop.
Their finished games were making at 8 figure profits.
That's not quite correct: Cryptic had a loss of roughly -$18,027,168.12for the fiscal year running April 1, 2009 - March 31, 2010, the fiscal year they had two MMOs in development and launched. Cryptic had a loss of roughly -$7,583,248.98 for the fiscal year running April 1, 2010 - March 31, 2011; CO and STO were already up and running then, having both released in the previous fiscal year.
"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
That's not quite correct: Cryptic had a loss of roughly -$18,027,168.12for the fiscal year running April 1, 2009 - March 31, 2010, the fiscal year they had two MMOs in development and launched. Cryptic had a loss of roughly -$7,583,248.98 for the fiscal year running April 1, 2010 - March 31, 2011; CO and STO were already up and running then, having both released in the previous fiscal year.
I thought he meant STO and NWNO, but I thought STO was released during the time.
Ok, then it is 1 AA MMO in development then. As I said in my post, not truly impressing even if it could have been worse.
Cryptic seriously needs to fail... someone needs to send a hard and clear message to wannabe studios that the subscription + cash shop model combined with releasing games in a barely beta state and using bait and switch advertising to generate max revenue from lifetime subs at release among other things is unacceptable and will doom your studio in the long run.
Let Cryptic and their cash grab schemes die in peace. We don't need any more of those models floating around, regardless of the parent company.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
So we'll be seeing Cryptic Studios as C-store release soon! Hopefully they'll make an in-game option to acquire it too... *starts grinding emblems* ;-)
I'm one of the rare losers out there who enjoy cryptic's games. As a father (soon to be of 2) and a student AND someone who holds down a full time job, their emphasis on the casual gamer appeals to me.
While I don't often like to jump on the nerd bash bandwagon, I will agree with those that say maybe Cryptic should just fade quietly into history. When STO came out I had a friend who was pressuring me into joining on launch day and based on Cryptic's reputation alone I decided not to. After launch the rage and disappointment spewing forth on every forum available told me that I had made a good call.
A developer that seems to consistently put forth subpar games and anger their players in what appears to be nothing more than an attempt at a quick money grab probably is better off going under than being kept on life support. If companies that do this never suffer the ultimate punishment then other developers will never see that we want quality over quantity.
Currently playing: Rift Played: SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot World of Warcraft, AoC
So we'll be seeing Cryptic Studios as C-store release soon! Hopefully they'll make an in-game option to acquire it too... *starts grinding emblems* ;-)
Is Cryptic even worth 1 Emblem at this point?
All kidding aside, there are more than a few threads/posts on the STO forums regarding C-Store (or Atari) Points. The main question being asked is 'Will Cryptic still honor points if Atari sells them, since technically they are Atari Points"? There are a whole lot of subscribers over there stating they will not be buying any more points. I am sure that is not helping matters either.
Sad as it would be to see, I am inclined to agree that Cryptic should just fold and sell off CO and STO off to another shop that will cultivate them properly.
I thought he meant STO and NWNO, but I thought STO was released during the time.
Ok, then it is 1 AA MMO in development then. As I said in my post, not truly impressing even if it could have been worse.
Nope; STO launched in February, which was still in the same fiscal year as CO. Neither CO nor STO were in any definition AAA MMOs (or even AA or A games). If you are refering to NWN, remember that it is not going to be a MMO according to Jack; it will be an Online Multi-player Game. From what he has said so far, it will be more akin to a single-player/co-op game.
"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
You can't exactly look at Atari's financials and say how much Cryptic lost or gained. To start with, reading any companies financial statement is looking at smoke and mirrors. Now if you could look at their tax return you would see actual numbers.
Comments
If the studio is purchased by someone else the most logical first move is to remove Jack Emmert from his current role.
Well it looks to be the end of the universe because there is finally a idea both of us agree 100% on.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Champions Online was kinda lacking, and still have no people. hell there hardly anybody PvPing anymore even after it gone free. In my opinion, I think the only way this company to see the light is when they get acquired by a good reputation company like Valve (if only they get into mmo's), but if they want to play like the devil, then go to Activision.
If Turbine got their hands on Neverwinter then I would never touch the game. They compleely butchered D&D with DDO, associating D&D with that title is an insult to all D&D players.
Would love to see BW doing Neverwinter but I don't see that happening as Atari holds the D&D franchise or the current holders in the comp gaming industry.
Had such hopes for Neverwinter but not with this news....might as well as forget about it I suppose. Also /faceepalm at Cryptic for having "Rouge" on their studio's whiteboard. Knew that was a baaaad sign.
Yes, Cryptic lost $7.5 million dollars. In a year in which they were developing TWO AAA games, which cost at least $10 million a year to develop.
Their finished games were making at 8 figure profits.
atari will put a price tag on cryptic so high that it wont be financially viable to purchase it. lets face it the cryptic games are not very good at all.. sure im expecting the fans to start screaming praises and trolling me but truth is cryptic games have been crap since city of heroes. its that whole architecture forge yuor own missions thing..
its like a huge welcome come exploit the crap out of this game and wipe your feet after mats. but first reach max level in just one day..
im not suprised atari want shot of it, and if i know atari they will whack a massive price tag on it and cryptic will just vanish into the dust. which isnt a bad thing.
maybe some one with a bit of ingenuity and imagination will pick the licences up for startrek and actually make a good startrek mmo. some where along the lines of what perpetual was trying to create.
ive never really concider cryptic to be a good developer, never really enjoyed there games and all there games are so damn similatr one would think they was just the same game but edited.
take that stupid map/mission creator they used for sto, all it did was copy the missions and maps, then the dev team did a little editing and they had a new area a new planet and a new mission that just happened to mimic all the other areas planets maps and missions. so much so they was practically identical. give or take a few cosmetic diffrences.
nah i say let cryptic sink into the darkness and maybe some one else will pick up the startrek licence and do something worthwhile. lets just prey blizzard or EA dont get their hands on it.
and for the record atari should go back to makeing consoles and games. i really enjoyed my atari 2700 it was the best console for its day.. i think i got that number right.or was it atari2000, nah 2700 looks right.
Yep, I'd have to say the same. Going 1 for 3 in my eyes and I don't think the last two really qualified for AAA status. At this point, anything saddled with the name "Cryptic" is something I would pass on. I think Emmert needs to retire or change careers at this point. He peaked early.
I think I might buy em for about... tree fiddy.
hahaha loved the little screen play, brilliant stuff you should do more of other crappy games, this one really tickled me lol
"We know they have two games which failed to perform to expectations, but for all intents and purposes appear profitable."
According to Atari's financial report, no they weren't that profitable; Cryptic had a loss of -€5.3 million for the fiscal year running April 1, 2010 - March 31, 2011. At current conversion rates, that is -$7,583,248.98. The only reason Cryptic didn't do as bad in the 2010-2011 fiscal year as they did in the previous fiscal year (-€12.6 million or -$18,027,168.12) was due to STO having launched when the 2010-2011 fiscal year started.
"I’m not here to argue the merit of said content, but the fact that a somewhat small studio (for MMO purposes) was able to churn out two AAA MMORPGs in such rapid succession speaks volumes for the development package..."
A studio as small as Cryptic should never have taken on two MMO developments that had over-lapping development schedules. They took on more than they could handle, tried to cut corners and rush the games to release, and they have been paying the price for it every since. There's a reason there was a lot of skepticism when Cryptic announced that they would be devloping a Star Trek MMO while still working on CO; they weren't big enough to pull it off. Heck even the juggernaut that is Blizzard, with all of its resources, hasn't tried to develop two MMOs at the same time.
Content does need to be talked about, though not really the quality of said content; after all one of the problems with CoH/CoV was quickly the content became repetitive. One of the major problems with both CO and STO was the amount of content. These were not sandbox games where the players are expected to make up a fair bit of the content themselves, but themepark games that both turned out to be woefully short of content to begin with. Heck STO launched with no endgame content, and a 'faction' that had only a handful of PvE missions.
"That brings me to the Wild Card: Neverwinter. This to me is the game that has a chance to make Cryptic a winning studio in the eyes of gamers once more. It’s going to be F2P from the word go, and takes significant advantage of Cryptic’s instance-oriented engine and their slant towards giving players ultimate control in character creation. It’s poised perfectly to use well everything MMO stalwarts have found wrong with the company’s two most recent releases. It could be Cryptic’s return to form, if gets the chance to see the light of day."
Just an observation here, but I noticed that the only D&D title listed in the current Atari financial report was Daggerdale. NWN, which was listed in previous reports, was not on the upcoming releases list. I know Atari has said they will continue to support Cryptic and development of NWN, but in the business world the word support does not always have the same meaning we would apply to it. I'm not saying that Cryptic isn't working on it, I'm just saying it may not be a sure thing anymore. Also don't forget that Hasbro's lawsuit to revoke Atari's D&D license is still apparently ongoing. In addition, NWN is supposed to be a OMG and not a MMO; I'm not sure of free to play is quite the right term for what they are working on.
"But who should try to snatch up the struggling developer to see to it that Neverwinter comes out and CO and STO stay afloat for their fans?"
I would say that SOE, even despite their problems, would be the best fit for purchasing Cryptic. No matter who buys it though, it's a safe bet Atari is going to want a significant chunk of money to help pay back the BlueBay credit line; from comments in their financial statements, it appears that Atari used a large portion of that money just on Cryptic (both in the initial purchase, and in funding Cryptic for the past two years). Is there any company out there that wants to have that much of an initial cost for a division that has been losing money?
"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
there is nothing qaulity about cryptic games.
Well, yes but CO never sold as well as expected, many potential customers stayed at CoX instead of upgrading to the new game.
STO did sell very well but it has been bleeding players since launch. The number of sold copies is nothing to complain about but it havn't been good enough to keep the players it got, like WAR and AoC.
I wouldn't count out Cryptic yet of course but both these games could have done better.
Neverwinter nights should however be a given success unless Cryptic get greedy and want to sell it as a P2P CORPG. Forgotten realms is one of the most popular IPs out there and unlike ST is it easy to convert into a computer game.
If and I say if they mess it up then I agree that it would be best if someone boght the company up and teach the crew a bit about how you make fun games. Jeff Strain and his zombie labs would be perfect, he knows how to make a game that is both cheap and still fun (he made Diablo, Warcraft 3 and Guildwars and is known as one of the best bosses in the genre).
Warner Brothers should buy them. Cryptic are pretty much Turbine, minus the fanboys
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
That's not quite correct: Cryptic had a loss of roughly -$18,027,168.12 for the fiscal year running April 1, 2009 - March 31, 2010, the fiscal year they had two MMOs in development and launched. Cryptic had a loss of roughly -$7,583,248.98 for the fiscal year running April 1, 2010 - March 31, 2011; CO and STO were already up and running then, having both released in the previous fiscal year.
"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 thought he meant STO and NWNO, but I thought STO was released during the time.
Ok, then it is 1 AA MMO in development then. As I said in my post, not truly impressing even if it could have been worse.
Nobody
Cryptic seriously needs to fail... someone needs to send a hard and clear message to wannabe studios that the subscription + cash shop model combined with releasing games in a barely beta state and using bait and switch advertising to generate max revenue from lifetime subs at release among other things is unacceptable and will doom your studio in the long run.
Let Cryptic and their cash grab schemes die in peace. We don't need any more of those models floating around, regardless of the parent company.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
So we'll be seeing Cryptic Studios as C-store release soon! Hopefully they'll make an in-game option to acquire it too... *starts grinding emblems* ;-)
Elannar
Wow. So I am not alone . . .
I agree with most of the comments above and I 'm hoping
that a South Korean company will take advantage of buying Cryptic for cheap.
A company like Nexon will be very suitible for Cryptic.
Nexon recently posted profits.
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Nexon-Revenue-Increases-By-59-Percent-MapleStory-Adventures-Coming-Soon-31758.html
This will certainly be a financial loss for Atari.
No Way EA/Bioware buys Cryptic, They're too heavily invested in ST-TOR to buy in to a couple of niche games right now.
They should sell off shares to the fans. Then all the fans are owners. All 10 of them can run the game
While I don't often like to jump on the nerd bash bandwagon, I will agree with those that say maybe Cryptic should just fade quietly into history. When STO came out I had a friend who was pressuring me into joining on launch day and based on Cryptic's reputation alone I decided not to. After launch the rage and disappointment spewing forth on every forum available told me that I had made a good call.
A developer that seems to consistently put forth subpar games and anger their players in what appears to be nothing more than an attempt at a quick money grab probably is better off going under than being kept on life support. If companies that do this never suffer the ultimate punishment then other developers will never see that we want quality over quantity.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
Is Cryptic even worth 1 Emblem at this point?
All kidding aside, there are more than a few threads/posts on the STO forums regarding C-Store (or Atari) Points. The main question being asked is 'Will Cryptic still honor points if Atari sells them, since technically they are Atari Points"? There are a whole lot of subscribers over there stating they will not be buying any more points. I am sure that is not helping matters either.
Sad as it would be to see, I am inclined to agree that Cryptic should just fold and sell off CO and STO off to another shop that will cultivate them properly.
Nope; STO launched in February, which was still in the same fiscal year as CO. Neither CO nor STO were in any definition AAA MMOs (or even AA or A games). If you are refering to NWN, remember that it is not going to be a MMO according to Jack; it will be an Online Multi-player Game. From what he has said so far, it will be more akin to a single-player/co-op game.
"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
You can't exactly look at Atari's financials and say how much Cryptic lost or gained. To start with, reading any companies financial statement is looking at smoke and mirrors. Now if you could look at their tax return you would see actual numbers.