Atari Earnings Statement: "Oh, by the way, we're selling off Cryptic Studios"

[Stormwaltz]

As part of an earnings report today, Atari announced it is divesting of its interest in Champions Online developer Cryptic Studios, calling the development house a "discontinued operation" as of March 31.

Atari will continue to support all current Cryptic products while the publisher looks to sell the studio, Gamasutra understands. Development on the Bay Area studio's Neverwinter project will continue as normal for the time being.

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

[luckton]

It was only a matter of time.

(Insert something witty here about how Cryptic spread itself too thin quality wise with so many projects and took CoH for granted)

Also, would this make Bill Roper an official "toxic" asset to have on your dev team, regardless of how long he was there?

EDIT: I would also like to predict the future...Star Trek and Champs will part of Station Pass in the next 6 months.

[Amaron]

Is Jack Emmert the new Brad McQuaid yet?   I feel like there is an eerie similarity between their careers right now.

[Ard]

I wonder if any of this was partially due to Hasbro taking Atari to the mat over their usage of the dnd license a while back.  I never did go look around to see if anything came of that.

[Malakili]

I popped over to the Champions Online forums to see if there was any buzz about this.  I found a thread and it was basically filled with "Good riddance Atari, it was their influence that make CO crash and burn in the first place" 

[Kageru]

Excellent. Their business model of popping out of a rapid stream of mediocre half-baked titles will not be missed. Their main innovation being the sale of lifetime subscriptions to suckers before the game is even out, and then eventually going f2p to mess with their minds.

[Tannhauser]

Honestly, if you don't make money off of a Star Trek MMO, then you suck. 

[UnSub]

Actually, I see this as another case of Atari flip-flopping around about what business they are in while trying to pay off their debt.

Here's the earnings info.

Cryptic look to have made a loss of about 5m Euros on a revenue of about 16m Euros (about US$22m) in 2010 / 11, if I'd reading things correctly. Not great, but they are also currently developing Neverwinter under licence from Atari, which would be costs without revenue. Year-on-year it looks like Cryptic's revenue is up 11m Euros, with STO launched in Feb 2010.

So yes, Cryptic are spending more than they are earning, but they might not be entirely unattractive for someone else to buy. ChampO's F2P move apparently helped generate more revenue, but they only did that in January 2011 iirc.

(Someone correctly me if I'm wrong. Atari's earnings reports always confuse me.)

The other things in the Atari's info all point to them shedding basically everything they can, which includes Eden Games staff who worked on Test Drive Unlimited 2 and has been Atari's biggest seller in a long time. Outside of publishing The Witcher 2, Atari's listed titles appear to be mostly a raft of XBLA and equivalent titles.
 

[Stormwaltz]

You can bag on Cryptic, but I'll defend the STO live team nearly to the death.

I can't say they've turned the game around, but they've done an astonishing amount of work for a crew that's probably a dozen people with a budget of $2.89. They've added new game systems (diplomacy, minigames, player ship interiors), added a mission difficulty system with scaling risk vs. reward, threw out and redesigned the awful at-ship crafting system, completely redesigned the appearance of space maps (and almost in a drive-by, fully remodeled the exterior and interior of Federation Spacedock), added a fully-functional player content generation system, and will ship a complete redesign to the much-hated ground combat in early July. All that while pushing out three story arcs worth of weekly episodes with extensive custom art. Plus more stuff I don't care about (raids and PvP/Klingon play).

If STO does go bust, I want every single member of their Live Team to put in a resume where I work. No joke. Those guys are fucking heroes.

[koro]

So when Atari sells Cryptic, what happens to Champions and STO? STO I can imagine will stay at Atari (with the current live team brought over if Atari's anywhere approaching smart), but what about Champions? I can't imagine anybody wanting to buy a much-maligned MMO studio without getting at least one already sunk-cost released game out of the deal. Well, anyone aside from Atari that is.

[Tannhauser]

You can bag on Cryptic, but I'll defend the STO live team nearly to the death.

I can't say they've turned the game around, but they've done an astonishing amount of work for a crew that's probably a dozen people with a budget of $2.89. They've added new game systems (diplomacy, minigames, player ship interiors), added a mission difficulty system with scaling risk vs. reward, threw out and redesigned the awful at-ship crafting system, completely redesigned the appearance of space maps (and almost in a drive-by, fully remodeled the exterior and interior of Federation Spacedock), added a fully-functional player content generation system, and will ship a complete redesign to the much-hated ground combat in early July. All that while pushing out three story arcs worth of weekly episodes with extensive custom art. Plus more stuff I don't care about (raids and PvP/Klingon play).

If STO does go bust, I want every single member of their Live Team to put in a resume where I work. No joke. Those guys are fucking heroes.

OK, the Live Team is amazing, what can you tell me about the Producers and the design team?   You know, the ones who released, at best, a mediocre game which caused subs to flee after the first month.  Also, where's my Matty Coat? :)

[Modern Angel]

I still have a soft spot for STO. I don't think it was that bad. It just wasn't great.

Now Storm is making me want to resub to see all this amazing stuff.

[UnSub]

There were some claims that STO launched when it did to meet a contractual requirement. Whether that contract was with Atari or Paramount, or this claim is even true, is not exactly clear.

So when Atari sells Cryptic, what happens to Champions and STO? STO I can imagine will stay at Atari (with the current live team brought over if Atari's anywhere approaching smart), but what about Champions? I can't imagine anybody wanting to buy a much-maligned MMO studio without getting at least one already sunk-cost released game out of the deal. Well, anyone aside from Atari that is.

AFAIK, Atari bought Cryptic when Cryptic already had the ChampO and STO licence. In theory, if Cryptic is sold, they get sold with the games they currently have.

Atari bought Cryptic as their MMO developer; if Atari keep STO, they don't really have any capacity to set up a new studio.

Neverwinter might be a different because that's Atari's licence.

If Atari is looking to sell Cryptic, a big question is who has the money and interest to buy them. They aren't going to be as cheap as picking up a cancelled title and the bigger publishers have their own MMO relationships. Is there a second tier publisher with the money to buy them and the desire to have their own MMO developer? Or an Eastern developer who wants an in to the Western market? I can't think of any.

It also suggests that if Atari took Cryptic off the books on March 31, they've been looking for a buyer from at least then and still haven't got one.

[Mrbloodworth]

Kinda tempted myself, free to play yeah?

[Malakili]

Kinda tempted myself, free to play yeah?

Champions is, but I don't think STO is.

[Mrbloodworth]

Boooooo.

[01101010]

So what are my Atari points going to be used for? 

[ezrast]

Kinda tempted myself, free to play yeah?

Champions is, but I don't think STO is.

Yet.

[Ratman_tf]

You can bag on Cryptic, but I'll defend the STO live team nearly to the death.

I can't say they've turned the game around, but they've done an astonishing amount of work for a crew that's probably a dozen people with a budget of $2.89. They've added new game systems (diplomacy, minigames, player ship interiors), added a mission difficulty system with scaling risk vs. reward, threw out and redesigned the awful at-ship crafting system, completely redesigned the appearance of space maps (and almost in a drive-by, fully remodeled the exterior and interior of Federation Spacedock), added a fully-functional player content generation system, and will ship a complete redesign to the much-hated ground combat in early July. All that while pushing out three story arcs worth of weekly episodes with extensive custom art. Plus more stuff I don't care about (raids and PvP/Klingon play).

If STO does go bust, I want every single member of their Live Team to put in a resume where I work. No joke. Those guys are fucking heroes.

Damn. Your pom pom waving makes me want to take another look at the game.

[Pennilenko]

Damn. Your pom pom waving makes me want to take another look at the game.

Me too, I'm willing to check it out and fly around a starship for a month. The only thing stopping me is the 6 gigs of download hehe.

[Stormwaltz]

There's a place selling the box for $5 through Amazon.

But if you don't trust third-party sellers, Amazon proper has it for $9.

It's not a free trial, but you do get whole month to play around with it.

[5150]

If anyone is serious about checking this out and wants a trial key please let me know (because I'm a sucker for the shinies from the referral program)

[Stormwaltz]

*blink*

Oh, yeah, they've got one of those, don't they?

Yeah, I can hit up people with that as well.

/durrrr

[Morat20]

Out of curiousity what are the (real) system requirements for STO? Not the box bullshit, but the "Can play without wanting to stab a fork in your eye" requirements?

[ghost]

I don't think there is a graphics quality option that will keep you from wanting to stab a fork in your eye. 

[Hutch]

My brother picked up STO a few weeks ago. Unlike me, he didn't get bored at level 11 and quit. So, after we level-capped our LotRO duo toons, we switched to STO. For me, playing this game with another person makes it more interesting.

Similar to the last time around, the actual fun part of this game for me is the starship combat, and not so much the cat-herding away missions.
The thing that I learned in a duo, is that the mission difficulty scales. So you get more opponents, or else tougher opponents. It reminds me of CoH in that aspect. Starship battles in a regular, full-sized party must be a blast.

[koro]

I don't know how they are now, but around release full-party space missions alternated between "chaotic fun" and "hope you like respawning and limping back to the fight a lot in order to shave another 5-10% off of an enemy's hull and hope you explode next to them when they wreck your ship in six seconds flat via focus fire."

[Stormwaltz]

they wreck your ship in six seconds flat via focus fire

That was fixed toward the end of beta. NPC fleets no longer target like PC fleets do.

Unless you launch into them alone, of course. In that case you're the only target.

[01101010]

I do miss the ship combat in STO at times... then remember the circles... oh the circles. 

[koro]

they wreck your ship in six seconds flat via focus fire

That was fixed toward the end of beta. NPC fleets no longer target like PC fleets do.

Unless you launch into them alone, of course. In that case you're the only target.

I'm talking post-beta.

In a world where lag is a thing it only takes one person toggling off their impulse power a half second too late to  be the "only target" long enough for it to matter. Granted, I really only noticed this early on when everyone was still stuck in a Miranda, but even so the scaled ship spawns at low levels were wildly out of whack for the shitty little rigs you were forced to fly.

That is, unless you had a TOS Enterprise with their blue rape phasers of doom.

Do Cruisers still suck? I really liked mine until I got up to Captain and into a Galaxy and found it turned like a beached whale, rendering torpedoes pointless to equip and meaning that any loot you missed would take minutes to circle back around to get.

[5150]

Do Cruisers still suck? I really liked mine until I got up to Captain and into a Galaxy and found it turned like a beached whale, rendering torpedoes pointless to equip and meaning that any loot you missed would take minutes to circle back around to get.

I'm still only on Lt Cmd in Cruisers so not really the best judge but, unless I get tractor beamed, I dont have trouble bringing my torps to bear [yet]. That said I just started a Kilingon and the starting Bird of Prey kills stuff way quicker than my Cruiser does (but I guess it's not apples for Apples as I ought to compare it to an Escort that I dont fly)

They must have changed the looting because it appears you can pick up space loot regardless of your proximity to it (assuming you did the most damage or whatever the criteria is)

[Tannhauser]

Are there PVE quest lines for Klingon/Romulans yet?  I know the Klingons had a couple. 

[5150]

Are there PVE quest lines for Klingon/Romulans yet?  I know the Klingons had a couple. 

Do you mean quest lines against Klingons/Romulans or playing as them? (Romulans arent a playable race)

The 3 Feature Episodes (each a 5 mission story arc) are available to Klingon players if thats what you were asking?

[01101010]

Are there PVE quest lines for Klingon/Romulans yet?  I know the Klingons had a couple. 

Do you mean quest lines against Klingons/Romulans or playing as them? (Romulans arent a playable race)

The 3 Feature Episodes (each a 5 mission story arc) are available to Klingon players if thats what you were asking?

Bah. I guess I understand their justification for not being able to play races all the way thru, but I am very unhappy with the inability to be a Romulan. That was my favorite race in the setting.

[palmer_eldritch]

I hope Neverwinter still happens in some form.