Atari to sell Star Trek Online dev Cryptic
Publisher Atari is looking to sell Cryptic Studios, the developer of Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and the upcoming Neverwinter.
Atari is divesting its interest in Cryptic Studios, developer of Champions Online and Star Trek Online, looking to sell it, Gamasutra reports. The publisher only acquired Cryptic in December 2008.
"In line with the previously stated strategy of fewer but more profitable releases and further expansion into casual online and mobile games, the Company has determined that external development creates more flexibility in the changing marketplace," Atari explained in an earnings report.
Atari will continue to run and support Cryptic's MMORPGs Star Trek Online and Champions Online while it looks to sell the studio, Gamasutra says. Development on Neverwinter, Cryptic's co-op-oriented take on the D&D RPG series, will continue at least for now. Neverwinter was announced in August 2010, then slated to launch on PC in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Cryptic lost $7.5 million in the past fiscal year, though this was down from a $17.9 million loss the year before. The studio boasted that Champions Online's revenues increased by over 1000% after it went free-to-play in January 2011 but evidently this wasn't quite enough.
Cryptic community representative 'WishStone' took to the forums, explaining, "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 there are no planned changes to the way any of our games and projects will operate.
When Atari picked up Cryptic only 29 months ago, Atari CEO David Gardener commented that "This is exactly the type of company we wanted to acquire in order to build Atari for the 21st century." Short century.
-
Shacknews
replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Atari to sell Star Trek Online dev Cryptic.
Publisher Atari is looking to sell Cryptic Studios, the developer of Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and the upcoming Neverwinter.-
Not too surprised here, champs and trek left an awful taste in my mouth. I know many folks say/do this, but this is one dev studio that when I see now, it's like, "I think I might pass on this one" Love me some Forgotten Realms, but that foul taste remains
-
-
Another 12-15 months or so and I bet you'll get your wish.
-
-
-
They limited the levels in the beta. The lack of content was a major concern during that time :/
-
-
-
-
Both of those games have been terrible, especially Champions Online. That game lags like fuck when using a character with Super Jump travel powers. Both games are shallow and no where near as awesome as DAoC was. Either Atari messed them up with release schedule and bad management or Cryptic has lost their touch.
-
-
same with Obsidian
-
I am more inclined to think their problems are related to the brutality, project to project, paycheck to paycheck nature that these studios work under. Neither seems to have deep pockets or a revenue stream that comes directly to them. Cryptic seems to be just throwing stuff out there, hoping that something sticks. Obsidian is probably just beholden to publisbers for funding, funding that is probably hard to win after results like alpha protocol. I wonder if bethesda is angry with them over new vegas' stability problems.
-
Obsidian keeps getting games no matter how shitty they are. I don't get it. I never understood how Obsidian is still in business and why they keep getting contracts.
-
-
I'm not trolling. Their games always tend to be broken incomplete messes, if you don't beleive that, you are the one trolling.
-
-
-
[deleted]
-
Nothing will inspire me to play through DS1 again.
The economy was broken. I accumulated 99,999,999 gold throughout the game and at the end, dropped it on the floor whereupon it exceed the capacity of every adjacent floor tile and spread across a large section of the ground like a numbers virus.
After winning the game, I went back to the king who was still in his cell and he gave me another Star Key.
Pathfinding had critical flaws. Party members would randomly go off in other directions and trigger other nearby enemies, ruining a coordinated attack.
The most dangerous common enemy was the Swamp Hag, who even on the hardest difficulty never fully utilized her power to warp in powerful monsters in a coordinated effort with other adjacent Swamp Hags in a way that threatened the progress of the party.
On of the most unique level design features of the game was a split level encounter where the ground collapsed in the swamp and the party was split into two groups, only occured once.
For me to purchase DS3, I'll need to see some seriously good reviews.
-
-
Obsidian has not released a single stable game
Every release they have made has had massive issues with bugs. KOTOR 2 had horrible lockup and CTD bugs on launch Plus large swathes of content that were removed to make the shipping date. I still own a CD copy of this game. F:NV had a similar, plus a large number of broken quests.
NWN2 was incredibly slow and had a lot of CTDs. So many that it was a major complaint for most reviews. The forums were full of hundreds of posts about it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=Mi6&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=+site:nwn2forums.bioware.com+Neverwinter+Nights+2+ctd
And: The most common criticism of the game was its numerous technical glitches.[1][8] Some reviews compared Neverwinter Nights 2 to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II,[5][10] a previous Obsidian game that had received similar complaints.[80][81] The bugs were described as disruptive to gameplay and "downright infuriating",[5][10] and one reviewer encountered a "showstopper bug" in the initial retail version that prevented him from playing the game past a certain point.[82] The bugs were said to negatively affect NPC AI, camera operation, and pathfinding.[8][18]
Alpha Protocol same thing: Some critics have been less forgiving, with VideoGamer giving Alpha Protocol 6/10 and criticising its "huge range of technical issues" and "flawed combat." -- GameSpot's 6/10 review was also mixed, stating that "Alpha Protocol's astounding intricacies are tarnished by bugs, clumsy gameplay mechanics, and rough production values.
They've never released a stable game.
-
dude, stop trolling
-
-
did you buy Terraria?
-
-
I -almost- fell for it.
Anything you say I take srs bznly-
I was serious with everything I said
-
O.o, I was agreeing with you.
-
I know
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Obsidian's games tend to have technical problems at launch, yes, but they make some of the most innovative, complete RPGs on the market.
-
-
-
Same here. Between NWN2 (and expansions) and F:NV I just gave up on them.
-
-
-
-
-
-
alot did, the beta did gone really well (the core game mechanic are really well done)
I was concern with the lack of content in general..... but even so I was tempted to buy a lifetime sub at launch simply because I felt that it has the potential to become a good mmo should it be given enough time to develop further.-
You should never buy an mmo based on it's potential, because developers never live up to it.
-
-
Ummm, what?
-
-
-
-
wha wha wha....Obsidian are a good company in my opinion.
Besides Fallout NV wasnt that bad and the bugs dont get in the way of playing the game. What else offers you as much content that that? LA noir? no thanks..60 bucks and that will over in no time and the graphics werent even that great..just GTA IV redressed. -
I like that boast of over a 1000% increase in revenue after CO when free-to-play, as if that was a feat. A 1000% revenue increase from subscription fees paid by the 12 people still playing still is next to nothing compared to the cost to produce and develop the game. The people that really got screwed are the ones that bought the lifetime subscriptions to either of these games.
Was pretty sad, Cryptic was like a broken record that keeps repeating the same old thing.
"Hai guis, I know, let's make a MMORPG based on super heroes where we release the game before it's actually ready, develop almost no content, ignore our customer base when they tell us what's wrong with the game, and ignore balancing completely."
Sever month's later....
"Hai guis, I know let's make a MMORPG based on Star Trek where...."
-
