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Atari to sell Star Trek Online dev Cryptic
by Alice O'Connor, May 18, 2011 7:15am PDTAtari 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.
Comments
Publisher Atari is looking to sell Cryptic Studios, the developer of Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and the upcoming Neverwinter.
Publisher Atari is looking to sell Cryptic Studios, the developer of Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and the upcoming Neverwinter. : Shacknews
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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.
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