I really don't think this move is going to affect anything, its just a smart move by Atari.
They want to focus on mobile gaming, Cryptic does not make mobile games.
They are still a bit in debt, selling off Cryptic will get them a nice insta-chunk of cash that will put them in the positive again.
Also, in my eyes Atari is not a good publisher, so getting a new one will help out STO and CO hopefully (unless they suck more than Atari).
Furthermore, both STO and CO are making money so there is no reason to think no one would want them. CO in particular is making leagues more than it used to. I personally play it and we've gotten a big update a month for the past two months and theres two more planned for the next two. Also gotten CStore items every week, but they're not game breaking and some are actually pretty cool (I'm still waiting for teddy bear transform).
This doom and gloom talk is pretty upsetting and a bit offensive for someone who has enjoyed CO since release and played STO for a year. Go to either offical forum and they are booming. I expected better from you mmorpg.com, stop trying to feed the trolls.
Please site the source of your data for this "leagues more" of money that you are talking about.
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.
Atari lists Cryptic's worth at about US$60m in its earnings report. They paid about $24m in cash for Cryptic when they bought it, along with bonus payments for certain targets being met for ChampO (which weren't paid) and STO (which were partially paid).
Not mentioned above is the issue of the Euro strengthening against the US$ - this makes Cryptic less attractive to hold onto since they need to pay back a lot more in US$ to pay back their Euro debt. And as for Cryptic making a loss, it could be expected since they are still paying off development costs for two titles and are developing two more. I'm sure Atari wanted them to be self-sufficient, but Cryptic would need to stop developing titles for that to happen. Revenue-wise they earned about US$22m in 2010/11, but obviously spent around US$30m.
I've thought that Cryptic might be a better purchase for an Eastern F2P group who wanted an in to the US market. ChampO and STO have improved since launch and STO going F2P could revitalise that title. That said, any potential purchaser might be thinking about waiting to see if they can buy a discontinued Cryptic for parts during a fire sale instead of picking up an operating company.
Also, in my eyes Atari is not a good publisher, so getting a new one will help out STO and CO hopefully (unless they suck more than Atari).
-SNIP-
Not a Fan of Atari & their shit international release schedule (srysly If I can buy titles from the US & get them in my hands 2 full weeks before it comes out locally something is really wrong) myself but...
How exactly will a switch of publisher help CO & STO ? CO is F2P so other than advertising there is little a new publisher can do for it (no distribution to do) and STO is fairly established insofar as it has been out for quite a while now and again beyond additional advertising exposure what can another publisher offer ? better distribution of the boxed game ? maybe an extra server for a game that is struggling to maintain a population as it is ? maybe a server in China to try and tap a market already saturated with F2P titles and with a large WoW playerbase ? Seriously what would a new publsiher be able to do ?
Both games are completely uninspired & clearly not what Atari was after. The fact that Cryptic took an IP that has so many Treknerd Fanbois and managed to make it fail tells you a lot about the company & has nothing whatsoever to do with the publisher.
Same goes for D&DO really, its uninspiring and fairly crappy but that is Turbine's fault not Atari's.
I really wish Atari would sell the rights to D&D to a huge studio like EA/Bioware and they do a real Forgotten Realms MMO set in 3.5 and not that 4.0 horsecrap.
Atari can't sell the license, since Hasbro owns the D&D IP; Atari can only relinquish their license to allow another company to negotiate with Hasbro for it. Since mediation in Habsro's lawsuit so far has failed, and the lawsuit continues, I wouldn't count on Atari letting the license out of their grasp anytime soon.
Just a thought. If Atari thinks this lawsuit is not going their way, that they will lose the license, then Cryptic isn't worth that much to them anymore. I mean they'd be working on an MMO they can't release w/o the license right? Maybe Atari knows something the rest of the world really doesn't since gaming and journalism is an oxymoron... aka, they won't be sniffing out this info on their own.
Cryptic i not working on a D&D MMO, they cannot because Turbine hold the sole rights to a D&D MMO which Atari licenced them sometimes ago. Atari is also in court with Turbine trying to get the D&D MMO rights back and at the same time Hasbro is in court with Atari trying to get the entirety of the D&D computer/video game rights back.
Neverwinter was planned as a singleplayer and cop-op adventure game, not an MMO. Pretty sure turbine would have no trouble getting an injunction to stop development of Neverwinter if it was an MMO. Personally I would be happier knowing cryptic is not going to have the chance to make a horrible and uninspired D&D MMO. Now that Bioware basically belong to EA I am actually kinda hopefull that Hasbro get the rights back and then find some way to work with Bioware again for more D&D games and maybe even a decent D&D MMO (preferably sandbox but I will take what I can get at this point).
Just a thought. If Atari thinks this lawsuit is not going their way, that they will lose the license, then Cryptic isn't worth that much to them anymore. I mean they'd be working on an MMO they can't release w/o the license right? Maybe Atari knows something the rest of the world really doesn't since gaming and journalism is an oxymoron... aka, they won't be sniffing out this info on their own.
Remember though that according to all sources so far (interviews on NWN with Jack, Cryptic's own website, etc.), NWN is not going to be a MMO; instead it will be a co-op style game. That means that they will primarily be looking at 'box' sales for the majority of their revenue from it, along with whatever cash shop or server fees they may decide to add. If NWN ships before the case goes to court (a possibility since the initial sttlement phase took place June 1 & 2, 2011, and they're still in that settlement phase), Atari gets to grab all the cash it can from the game and then if they lose, they shut down the servers and support. The people who bought the game are s.o.l. if there isn't a single-player section to it that doesn't require logging in to a server (and Jack has said that at least some elements of the game will require players logging on to Cryptic'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
I say the companies going to be fairly exppensive mainly becuase of the cryptic engine, which is basically allows them to cut game production time in half(takes out Programinng, mostly), Sar trek Online has some worth, it just needs some time and replanning to get better. Foundary looks cool. If a good company (non-Chinese hopefully) buys them, they could be making some of the best games but, for now we're stuck with the old CoX , Failure F2P Champions Online, and the nice but bad planned STO.
The Cryptic Engine 2.0 has been cryptic's problem to date, and it is not nearly as robust as they tried to sell it as. The engine is what they were developing for the Marvel MMO they were going to make, before Microsoft and then Marvel pulled out of the deal. They bought up the Champions P&P franchise so that they would have something to use the engine on. The problem started when they tried to take an engine clearly designed for superhero games, and try to make it work for Star Trek. Also, there seems to be this long-standing myth that every MMO out there has made it's own engine from scratch; a bit of research shows that many Western MMOs have used pre-existing engines (such as the Quake engine), and then worked with that.
Even if a company is making its own engine for their MMO, that doesn't mean the remaining departments are in limbo until work on the engine is finished; many things such as writing and various art is worked on at the same time. Additonally you are forgetting that one of the biggest problems with both CO and STO at launch was the lack of content, and variety in that content. That is where much of the development time goes; if you try to shove MMOs out the door on a 18-24 month cycle, you end up with games that have little content, no variety in that content, and even incomplete 'factions.'
"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
Cryptic i not working on a D&D MMO, they cannot because Turbine hold the sole rights to a D&D MMO which Atari licenced them sometimes ago. Atari is also in court with Turbine trying to get the D&D MMO rights back and at the same time Hasbro is in court with Atari trying to get the entirety of the D&D computer/video game rights back.
Neverwinter was planned as a singleplayer and cop-op adventure game, not an MMO. Pretty sure turbine would have no trouble getting an injunction to stop development of Neverwinter if it was an MMO. Personally I would be happier knowing cryptic is not going to have the chance to make a horrible and uninspired D&D MMO. Now that Bioware basically belong to EA I am actually kinda hopefull that Hasbro get the rights back and then find some way to work with Bioware again for more D&D games and maybe even a decent D&D MMO (preferably sandbox but I will take what I can get at this point).
Actually Turbine and Atari have settled their lawsuits, with all charges and litigation being dropped by both sides and Atari probably handing over some money to the company that now owns Turbine (though more than likely only a fraction of what Turbine was asking for). We'll never know how much money, if any, was given since the settlement was confidential.
"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
Cryptic i not working on a D&D MMO, they cannot because Turbine hold the sole rights to a D&D MMO which Atari licenced them sometimes ago. Atari is also in court with Turbine trying to get the D&D MMO rights back and at the same time Hasbro is in court with Atari trying to get the entirety of the D&D computer/video game rights back.
Neverwinter was planned as a singleplayer and cop-op adventure game, not an MMO. Pretty sure turbine would have no trouble getting an injunction to stop development of Neverwinter if it was an MMO. Personally I would be happier knowing cryptic is not going to have the chance to make a horrible and uninspired D&D MMO. Now that Bioware basically belong to EA I am actually kinda hopefull that Hasbro get the rights back and then find some way to work with Bioware again for more D&D games and maybe even a decent D&D MMO (preferably sandbox but I will take what I can get at this point).
Actually Turbine and Atari have settled their lawsuits, with all charges and litigation being dropped by both sides and Atari probably handing over some money to the company that now owns Turbine (though more than likely only a fraction of what Turbine was asking for). We'll never know how much money, if any, was given since the settlement was confidential.
All I can say is 2 articles back to back about cryptic about to roll over and die. MMORPG must have some inside info about things going on over there that we don't see.
All I can say is 2 articles back to back about cryptic about to roll over and die. MMORPG must have some inside info about things going on over there that we don't see.
One thing it has done is bring out the armchair/backseat financial experts that know what went wrong and how to fix it. Wikipedia educates a lot.
All I can say is 2 articles back to back about cryptic about to roll over and die. MMORPG must have some inside info about things going on over there that we don't see.
One thing it has done is bring out the armchair/backseat financial experts that know what went wrong and how to fix it. Wikipedia educates a lot.
Hmm, OK whatever. All I pointed out was the fact they ran 2 articles back to back. We all know criptic is in trouble I dont need weki to tell me that. I have to wonder about your reply as well it really does not match my comment. kind of funny.
All I can say is 2 articles back to back about cryptic about to roll over and die. MMORPG must have some inside info about things going on over there that we don't see.
One thing it has done is bring out the armchair/backseat financial experts that know what went wrong and how to fix it. Wikipedia educates a lot.
Hmm, OK whatever. All I pointed out was the fact they ran 2 articles back to back. We all know criptic is in trouble I dont need weki to tell me that. I have to wonder about your reply as well it really does not match my comment. kind of funny.
Wasn't aimed at you erictlewis. You thought the article meant mmorpg.com has inside info. I think it just brought out the "financial experts" that know all about Cryptics demise and how to fix it.
Just a thought. If Atari thinks this lawsuit is not going their way, that they will lose the license, then Cryptic isn't worth that much to them anymore. I mean they'd be working on an MMO they can't release w/o the license right? Maybe Atari knows something the rest of the world really doesn't since gaming and journalism is an oxymoron... aka, they won't be sniffing out this info on their own.
Remember though that according to all sources so far (interviews on NWN with Jack, Cryptic's own website, etc.), NWN is not going to be a MMO; instead it will be a co-op style game. That means that they will primarily be looking at 'box' sales for the majority of their revenue from it, along with whatever cash shop or server fees they may decide to add. If NWN ships before the case goes to court (a possibility since the initial sttlement phase took place June 1 & 2, 2011, and they're still in that settlement phase), Atari gets to grab all the cash it can from the game and then if they lose, they shut down the servers and support. The people who bought the game are s.o.l. if there isn't a single-player section to it that doesn't require logging in to a server (and Jack has said that at least some elements of the game will require players logging on to Cryptic's servers).
NWN will be a CORPG like DDO and Guildwars. From what I heard will the payment method be very close to GWs but with a more extended cashshop.
I havn't heard anything about people being able to play it in offline mode (but you might be able to work on your own modules offline).
I won't chime in to those who applaud the fall of Cryptic. They did also good things and CO wasn't a bad game; much better than the borked DCU if you ask me. And even STO had it's charm, even tho for a short while only.
It is sad, Atari never really intervened or seemed to care about the things Cryptic did. And now they drop it and focus on cell phone and cheap browser games? Bah.
One can only hope this gives way to a Cryptic which is better led and managed and to a new start with a NWN MMO. I wish them luck, because Cryptic does have some good ideas.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
One can only hope this gives way to a Cryptic which is better led and managed and to a new start with a NWN MMO. I wish them luck, because Cryptic does have some good ideas.
The highlighted part is the problem; Cryptic's leadership has always been the problem, not the rank and file employees. Now that Jack is in complete control of Cryptic, whichever company that buys Cryptic will need to remove him for Cryptic to be able to move forward in that better direction.
"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
It seems that no one is paying attention (or has forgotten). If you look back at the news of the 'aquisition' of Crytpic, you will find that it was not so much a buyout, than a merger... with rules.
If you review the recent history, you will find that Cryptic has been growing, and hiring. Atari has been shrinking and laying off. Atari is offloading Cryptic because this has turned out to be a not so good deal for them.
The new buyers will have to either pay more, make a better deal, or offer Cryptic something extra to make this happen.
Just a thought. If Atari thinks this lawsuit is not going their way, that they will lose the license, then Cryptic isn't worth that much to them anymore. I mean they'd be working on an MMO they can't release w/o the license right? Maybe Atari knows something the rest of the world really doesn't since gaming and journalism is an oxymoron... aka, they won't be sniffing out this info on their own.
Remember though that according to all sources so far (interviews on NWN with Jack, Cryptic's own website, etc.), NWN is not going to be a MMO; instead it will be a co-op style game. That means that they will primarily be looking at 'box' sales for the majority of their revenue from it, along with whatever cash shop or server fees they may decide to add. If NWN ships before the case goes to court (a possibility since the initial sttlement phase took place June 1 & 2, 2011, and they're still in that settlement phase), Atari gets to grab all the cash it can from the game and then if they lose, they shut down the servers and support. The people who bought the game are s.o.l. if there isn't a single-player section to it that doesn't require logging in to a server (and Jack has said that at least some elements of the game will require players logging on to Cryptic's servers).
NWN will be a CORPG like DDO and Guildwars. From what I heard will the payment method be very close to GWs but with a more extended cashshop.
I havn't heard anything about people being able to play it in offline mode (but you might be able to work on your own modules offline).
As long as Cryptic has a hand in it, I just don't trust that they won't try an MMO model whether or not the game is an MMO or not. They've done it before, albeit, under a different name.
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.
If Cryptic were profitable and/or competent, Atari would not be looking to offload them. Cryptic is finished; there is no future. At best, someone MAY want to buy the name, but that's it.
Hedonismbot: Your latest performance was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams.
I don't know any figures involved, but Cryptic has to be one of the worst MMO developers around right now. I've not liked any of their products, be it Champions or Star Trek. They are sleazy and only seem interested in box sales based on the amount of content they give, plus the nickel and diming they do is atrocious. I felt bad for lifetime subs of Champions, but the lifetime subs for Star Trek need to learn the old saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
There are some single player games with more depth than any of their MMO's.
At best, someone MAY want to buy the name, but that's it.
I'm not so sure of that; the Free Zone columnist here has made a good case for an Asian company buying Cryptic, in order to establish a presence in N.A.
"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
When it came out as a freemium game, yes it did see a spike in players and revenue (which doesn't surprise me, as it is the better of the two games). However, the official numbers from Atari show Cryptic losing money for the last two fiscal years; apparently they couldn't retain that spike. Also consider that all we had with regards to numbers was this press release Cryptic put out; it could very well have been like the press release they put out around STO's launch bragging about the one million accounts on their websites. At the end of the day, for the last two Atari fiscal years, Cryptic lost more money that it made.
"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
Comments
Please site the source of your data for this "leagues more" of money that you are talking about.
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.
Atari lists Cryptic's worth at about US$60m in its earnings report. They paid about $24m in cash for Cryptic when they bought it, along with bonus payments for certain targets being met for ChampO (which weren't paid) and STO (which were partially paid).
Not mentioned above is the issue of the Euro strengthening against the US$ - this makes Cryptic less attractive to hold onto since they need to pay back a lot more in US$ to pay back their Euro debt. And as for Cryptic making a loss, it could be expected since they are still paying off development costs for two titles and are developing two more. I'm sure Atari wanted them to be self-sufficient, but Cryptic would need to stop developing titles for that to happen. Revenue-wise they earned about US$22m in 2010/11, but obviously spent around US$30m.
I've thought that Cryptic might be a better purchase for an Eastern F2P group who wanted an in to the US market. ChampO and STO have improved since launch and STO going F2P could revitalise that title. That said, any potential purchaser might be thinking about waiting to see if they can buy a discontinued Cryptic for parts during a fire sale instead of picking up an operating company.
Not a Fan of Atari & their shit international release schedule (srysly If I can buy titles from the US & get them in my hands 2 full weeks before it comes out locally something is really wrong) myself but...
How exactly will a switch of publisher help CO & STO ? CO is F2P so other than advertising there is little a new publisher can do for it (no distribution to do) and STO is fairly established insofar as it has been out for quite a while now and again beyond additional advertising exposure what can another publisher offer ? better distribution of the boxed game ? maybe an extra server for a game that is struggling to maintain a population as it is ? maybe a server in China to try and tap a market already saturated with F2P titles and with a large WoW playerbase ? Seriously what would a new publsiher be able to do ?
Both games are completely uninspired & clearly not what Atari was after. The fact that Cryptic took an IP that has so many Treknerd Fanbois and managed to make it fail tells you a lot about the company & has nothing whatsoever to do with the publisher.
Same goes for D&DO really, its uninspiring and fairly crappy but that is Turbine's fault not Atari's.
Cryptic i not working on a D&D MMO, they cannot because Turbine hold the sole rights to a D&D MMO which Atari licenced them sometimes ago. Atari is also in court with Turbine trying to get the D&D MMO rights back and at the same time Hasbro is in court with Atari trying to get the entirety of the D&D computer/video game rights back.
Neverwinter was planned as a singleplayer and cop-op adventure game, not an MMO. Pretty sure turbine would have no trouble getting an injunction to stop development of Neverwinter if it was an MMO. Personally I would be happier knowing cryptic is not going to have the chance to make a horrible and uninspired D&D MMO. Now that Bioware basically belong to EA I am actually kinda hopefull that Hasbro get the rights back and then find some way to work with Bioware again for more D&D games and maybe even a decent D&D MMO (preferably sandbox but I will take what I can get at this point).
Remember though that according to all sources so far (interviews on NWN with Jack, Cryptic's own website, etc.), NWN is not going to be a MMO; instead it will be a co-op style game. That means that they will primarily be looking at 'box' sales for the majority of their revenue from it, along with whatever cash shop or server fees they may decide to add. If NWN ships before the case goes to court (a possibility since the initial sttlement phase took place June 1 & 2, 2011, and they're still in that settlement phase), Atari gets to grab all the cash it can from the game and then if they lose, they shut down the servers and support. The people who bought the game are s.o.l. if there isn't a single-player section to it that doesn't require logging in to a server (and Jack has said that at least some elements of the game will require players logging on to Cryptic'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
The Cryptic Engine 2.0 has been cryptic's problem to date, and it is not nearly as robust as they tried to sell it as. The engine is what they were developing for the Marvel MMO they were going to make, before Microsoft and then Marvel pulled out of the deal. They bought up the Champions P&P franchise so that they would have something to use the engine on. The problem started when they tried to take an engine clearly designed for superhero games, and try to make it work for Star Trek. Also, there seems to be this long-standing myth that every MMO out there has made it's own engine from scratch; a bit of research shows that many Western MMOs have used pre-existing engines (such as the Quake engine), and then worked with that.
Even if a company is making its own engine for their MMO, that doesn't mean the remaining departments are in limbo until work on the engine is finished; many things such as writing and various art is worked on at the same time. Additonally you are forgetting that one of the biggest problems with both CO and STO at launch was the lack of content, and variety in that content. That is where much of the development time goes; if you try to shove MMOs out the door on a 18-24 month cycle, you end up with games that have little content, no variety in that content, and even incomplete 'factions.'
"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
Actually Turbine and Atari have settled their lawsuits, with all charges and litigation being dropped by both sides and Atari probably handing over some money to the company that now owns Turbine (though more than likely only a fraction of what Turbine was asking for). We'll never know how much money, if any, was given since the settlement was confidential.
"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
Cryptic did so much damage to gaming that any1 there should be banned from gaming industry for life.
All I can say is 2 articles back to back about cryptic about to roll over and die. MMORPG must have some inside info about things going on over there that we don't see.
One thing it has done is bring out the armchair/backseat financial experts that know what went wrong and how to fix it. Wikipedia educates a lot.
.. .... .- - . - .-. --- .-.. .-.. ... .-- .... --- .-. . .--. --- .-. - .-.-.-
--------------------------------------------------------
Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
Hmm, OK whatever. All I pointed out was the fact they ran 2 articles back to back. We all know criptic is in trouble I dont need weki to tell me that. I have to wonder about your reply as well it really does not match my comment. kind of funny.
Wasn't aimed at you erictlewis. You thought the article meant mmorpg.com has inside info. I think it just brought out the "financial experts" that know all about Cryptics demise and how to fix it.
.. .... .- - . - .-. --- .-.. .-.. ... .-- .... --- .-. . .--. --- .-. - .-.-.-
--------------------------------------------------------
Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
NWN will be a CORPG like DDO and Guildwars. From what I heard will the payment method be very close to GWs but with a more extended cashshop.
I havn't heard anything about people being able to play it in offline mode (but you might be able to work on your own modules offline).
I won't chime in to those who applaud the fall of Cryptic. They did also good things and CO wasn't a bad game; much better than the borked DCU if you ask me. And even STO had it's charm, even tho for a short while only.
It is sad, Atari never really intervened or seemed to care about the things Cryptic did. And now they drop it and focus on cell phone and cheap browser games? Bah.
One can only hope this gives way to a Cryptic which is better led and managed and to a new start with a NWN MMO. I wish them luck, because Cryptic does have some good ideas.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
The highlighted part is the problem; Cryptic's leadership has always been the problem, not the rank and file employees. Now that Jack is in complete control of Cryptic, whichever company that buys Cryptic will need to remove him for Cryptic to be able to move forward in that better direction.
"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
It seems that no one is paying attention (or has forgotten). If you look back at the news of the 'aquisition' of Crytpic, you will find that it was not so much a buyout, than a merger... with rules.
If you review the recent history, you will find that Cryptic has been growing, and hiring. Atari has been shrinking and laying off. Atari is offloading Cryptic because this has turned out to be a not so good deal for them.
The new buyers will have to either pay more, make a better deal, or offer Cryptic something extra to make this happen.
As long as Cryptic has a hand in it, I just don't trust that they won't try an MMO model whether or not the game is an MMO or not. They've done it before, albeit, under a different name.
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.
If Cryptic were profitable and/or competent, Atari would not be looking to offload them. Cryptic is finished; there is no future. At best, someone MAY want to buy the name, but that's it.
Hedonismbot: Your latest performance was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams.
I don't know any figures involved, but Cryptic has to be one of the worst MMO developers around right now. I've not liked any of their products, be it Champions or Star Trek. They are sleazy and only seem interested in box sales based on the amount of content they give, plus the nickel and diming they do is atrocious. I felt bad for lifetime subs of Champions, but the lifetime subs for Star Trek need to learn the old saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
There are some single player games with more depth than any of their MMO's.
And also they suck.
I'm not so sure of that; the Free Zone columnist here has made a good case for an Asian company buying Cryptic, in order to establish a presence in N.A.
"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
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Champions-Online-Sees-1-000-Percent-Increase-in-Players-and-Revenue-185307.shtml
There you go.
When it came out as a freemium game, yes it did see a spike in players and revenue (which doesn't surprise me, as it is the better of the two games). However, the official numbers from Atari show Cryptic losing money for the last two fiscal years; apparently they couldn't retain that spike. Also consider that all we had with regards to numbers was this press release Cryptic put out; it could very well have been like the press release they put out around STO's launch bragging about the one million accounts on their websites. At the end of the day, for the last two Atari fiscal years, Cryptic lost more money that it made.
"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
Looks like Cryptic has been bought by Perfect World:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/05/31/cryptic-now-in-a-perfect-world/
So yes, it was an Eastern developer / publisher looking to expand into the Western market who bought them for (upfront, at least) E35m.