Atari is trying to sell Cryptic Studios as they veer more toward casual games and fewer projects. Story here.

Strangely they say development of the new Neverwinter "MMO" is ongoing, though I wonder how that would work with Atari having the D&D license and Cryptic's eventual buyer, if there is one, not having it. Also if they find no buyer won't they shut it down?

Quite the odd thing. On a personal note: Cryptic SUCKS.

Oh I know that, I wrote that weird. My point was more I wonder how that will effect development and the sale. Not sure many buyers will want to take that whole thing on.

Well Activision are looking to take Call of Duty online. Can't think of a more bland MMO studio to fit with that bland franchise.

The easiest way would be to set up a joint venture, would allow for the easiest division of liabilities / responsibilities / proceeds, etc.

Maybe the backlash of complaints from the users of Cryptic have Atari thinking they can't afford another blunder? Already TD2, Ghostbusters, and another game from Atari have the ticket systems overloaded from very pissed off people about buggy and or not working right software from them. Plus Atari wants to push the console and PC version of Daggerdales out.

Personally, I don't have enough solid info to say up or down on this. But it seems like Atari and Crypitc are too like minded.

I say we all pool our money & buy it, turn it into something big.

Now if you'll all just PayPal the money for your shares to me...

Champions Online ans Star Trek Online are now good. The company likes to nickel-and-dime the customer even on the pay-to-pay Star Trek game but the games themselves are good. Cryptic are greedy, untrustworthy and like releasing games unfinished but Star Trek and Champions are worth playing despite Cryptic imo.

Edit: I meant pay-to-play but thinking about it...

They have paid the price for releasing buggy and lazy games. The figures quoted show that they lost $12Million and then $5Million (likely that was boosted by ST:O) and while it looks like they may make a profit they are also developing Neverwinter which will increase their costs. Fixing games 6 months to a year after release never works with MMO's as it's those initial subscriptions that matter and quite frankly Cryptic are lucky to still be around.

Thus why those companies are so good together.

It's amazing how people pay for these types of games to these idiots. Maybe I'm jumping the gun here but this could be the reason why so many games now a days are so bad.

epic fail < got company mixed up..


sad to see another company go down..

I paid because the lifetime subscription offer was good and it was the best (only) Star Trek game out there. It was in a poor condition but it's now getting really good.

CO and STO may now be playable, but they were totally and ridiculously plagued by rookie issues at launch.

In CO if I didn't have auto attack turned on I couldn't attack anything on my dual wielder. This was true up to the last free weekend they had I took part in prior to the shift to f2p. In STO I did and do like the game, but I felt the space combat was pretty lame. The space combat is actually what made me quit it and never resub.

Cryptic is a shitty studio that went running pants down at the first publisher to offer more money than NCSoft. Look what it got them. NC may not be the best pub out there, but they do have standards as long as it comes to not banning botters and gold sellers.

The proof is in the pudding, really. ArenaNet was founded by a large portion of ex Blizz North employees who didn't want to join the main Blizzard team. They've stuck with NCSoft all these years and the Guild Wars franchise is something you can be proud of playing, regardless of what type of mmo player you are.

If any of you buy Neverwinter Online I'm going to do my best to not publicly laugh when the reports come in of broken quests, npcs, ai, and items. Cryptic is the only studio I can name that has all the ego of Bobby Kotick with none of his money laden mansions to back it up. They could not and cannot afford to continue being this thick.

I am not surprised Atari is looking to unload them. They probably promised Atari complete games in that year and a half timeframe they negotiated per new game. Shame on Atari for actually falling for it.

Funny thing is in the ST:O beta the space combat was actually fun and enjoyable. It's what made me buy the bastard game but when I installed the full version it was suddenly completely broken. I guess Cryptic panicked at the thought they did something right at launch and quickly screwed it up.

Oh and the gold sellers... In travelling from one star system there must have been about 20 broadcasts offering credits and no messages from actual players. Yeah didn't sub after my 30 days and never will.