Atari Drops Cryptic

uh oh.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34704/Atari_Drops_Champions_Online_Developer_Cryptic_Studios.php

The studio, which recently took Champions Online free-to-play, showed a €5.3 million ($7.5 million) loss for the 2010/11 fiscal year, up from a loss of €12.6 million ($17.9 million) the previous year.

That's a bit troubling.

While this is rather disconcerting, I think this gives Cryptic a great opportunity for expansion.

Can you imagine what they could do to STO if they had the resources and talents of a company like Blizzard behind them?

:speechless:

So, do we still get to have a game?

Yeah, I am not all that worried (famous last words)! It gives them a chance to either a) go it alone or b) have a bigger company buy them and give more resources.

I did however, instant rush to check the Terms of Service wherever I could to check out what this would mean for subscriptions.

Retail inclusion effective September 23, 2010. Lifetime subscription covers your subscription fee for as long as the game is in service. Promotional discounts and features do not apply. You will be charged immediately when purchasing a lifetime subscription. Subscription fees are non-refundable. We make no explicit or implicit warranties on the service period of the game.

Since we all took out the sub under cryptic, as that's who charged me on my bank statement, as long as the game continues under cryptic, I will have my lifetime. Plus I doubt any company would come in and say you couldn't use the game. Think how man players they will loose who use the c-store? Think of how many blue names there are now, there goes a chunk of the player base!

Wow I wonder what this means, I guess they will have to find another company to back them, but I don't think it's looking good. If something happens to STO due to Atari i'm gonna be mega peved....

I guess the Atari tokens etc will be changing back to Cryptic points. I think that Atari are pretty crappy any ways and they have really wasted the Cryptic teams time and resources only to drop them. Now Cryptic will have to reverse quite a bit of changes I'd imagine.

Unless I'm miss interpreting the announcement.

2012 is supposed to be the end of the world so STO wont have any players in a few months anyway lol

Quote by Captdry

2012 is supposed to be the end of the world so STO wont have any players in a few months anyway lol

Hahaha! :D

WishStone posted this on the STO forums:

The headline is chosen a little unfortunate by the colleagues at Gamasutra and makes it sound like we're a kicked puppy standing in the rain. That's not the case.

Right now I have no further details other than what has been mentioned elsewhere. Support for Champions Online and Star Trek Online will be continuing as normal, our staff is working hard on their projects (and the folks from the Champions team deserve an extra cheer for their new stuff by the way) and there are no planned changes to the way any of our games and projects will operate.

So Stormy is here, I am here, Dan and the gang are here, your GMs and QA staff are working hard. It sounds way more dramatic than it actually is.

This could end very badly if not handled correctly.

There also aught to be a clear announcement made by Cryptic to its customers. It's put me off buying anything from the C-Store and making any concerned effort to play due to a possible wasted amount of time in a game that may fold before its time.

Quote by Furlong

Can you imagine what they could do to STO if they had the resources and talents of a company like Blizzard behind them?

Dear gods, I hope it's not Blizzard.

"Cryptic could be an attractive purchase for a player that wants to get into the MMO space, and Champions Online and Star Trek Online do represent two good properties that still have much potential. An analyst we spoke with claims that the sale of Cryptic could finally lead to the kind of breakout that has been elusive for these two MMO offerings. “With a different marketing approach, things could be much different with Cryptic, as I still see much potential in what they are doing,” said one analyst we spoke with."

I have been reading quite a bit about this, quite a few business analysts are saying Cryptic could be worth quite a few bucks.

I really hope Atari haven't financially screwed Cryptic. If you think about it any and all profits going to Atari may not have been returned to Cryptic yet, which could threaten them. Then again, we don't have that information so maybe they also got a sweet continuing operations deal.

I agree. I think this would be a great company to be picked up by someone bigger. There is a few catches. #1 Whoever picks up Cryptic will have to deal with the fact that they have almost no content control over the game. Altho most companies do let the Devs deal with it all, a few like to make suggestions, hey I want this and this in here. Where since there is a vary tenious liscencing agreement for the Star Trek liscence, they are really limited. So basically with STO they are purchasing it, although they can change the pay model, etc, content they can't. Unlike CO which Cryptic has full liscensing capabilities from the owner of Champions and can do with it like they please.

As far as financial concerns, Cryptic doesn't have anything to worry about from Atari. Atari is divesting and based up French Trade Laws(it's a french company fyi) this will allow them to knock Cryptic's costs off of their financial summary's, basically as if they had never owned Cryptic in the first place. But since Cryptic is US based, the international contract between Cryptic and Atari, per basic Internation Trade summaries, Atari has to report an annual LIB, (loss, income, budget) report. Stating how much they made, lost and of course budgetted to any of their subsidieries. So until they drop Cryptic, Atari says they will hold it till a new buyer is found, they have to continue to pay Cryptic their budget.

Cryptic will be worth alot. We just have to sit and wait out the fire. :)

Very interesting stuff :D Thanx for the info :) I really hope the uni course I take next includes a lot of this stuff. My masters and honours only really included payments and rates over time so it's kinda interesting to here how this stuff would work between Cryptic and Atari :)

Hm, that sucks, but more for the people at Cryptic. I'm not too worried about the game for the time being. Additionally, I'm pretty sure that my lifetime sub has actually broken even by now, so I'm not worried about having lost money either. :P

The one company I really, really do not want buying Cryptic is Activision-Blizzard, and that's mostly because of the Activision section. They way they run products into the ground and treat their employees is downright shameful. If Bobby Kotick gets his hands on Cryptic, that is when I will pour a 40 on the curb, as STO's demise will be all but certain.

This has happened to a game I currently play, City of Heroes/Villians, before. Another studio picked up the game, but "Cryptic" still has its logo on the game to some degree. Couldn't tell you what income they derive from that, if any.

I think what will happen to STO will depend on who Cryptic gets sold to, when, and what the terms are.
I do think it a bit odd that Jack & Zinc get announced as returning, then shortly thereafter Cryptic gets sold.

Also what is odd is that this supposedly happened about 45 days ago, and it's just now getting reported? Usually divestures get a bit more...buzz than this, esp. for an IP like Star Trek (and IIRC, Cryptic or Atari also owns the whole of the Champs IP, including the paper 'n dice game, as well as the MMO.)

Of course, there could be some financial maneuvering we're not aware of, but if you really think about it, if a company runs STO properly, it could be a real cash cow.
But, someone thought that about SWG, and look how that turned out...then you have WoW.

Should be interesting. Looks like someone's going to have to take all the Atari logos out of CO as well. :blink:

Forgive my ignorance of the gaming industry but what happens if no one picks up Cryptic? Can they carry on as a lone venture?

Was Cryptic a division within Atari?

My head hurts :-(

Cryptic was it's own company, but back in 2008 (I think) Atari was trying to get more into the MMO market and bought Cryptic. Now Atari is looking to sell them again, possibly turning a profit from when they originally bought them.

So basically Cryptic would have to buy Atari out or be bought by someone else otherwise they would go bust?

Meh I'm sure it'll sort itself out, if not well its not the end of the world.