[Subzzo]

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/17/at...scal-year-end/

Cryptic is going to be sold off but to whom?
Suppose STO wasn't doing that great and the development projects are going to be
scrapped.

[John Hathaway]

That's odd, I was under the impression the MMO sales were what was propping Atari up in recent times. Well of course this is somewhat concerning but things can change for the better. One to keep an eye on certainly.

[Stormy]

Wow. Hope that doesn't mean things will take a nose dive for STO!

[Noram]

They've been saying that STO and Champs will continue to do business as the have been and Atari's incompetence (My words, not theirs) will not be hurting either games.

[Christopher Halsey]

Not too sure who will end up buying them, I can't see any of the big three publishers going for them. Very much doubt Activision would be interested in them since they have Blizzard and given how things went last time they were involved with a Star Trek licence. EA might be interested but I think it would be too much of a gamble for them at this time. A year down the line this might be an attractive proposition for them depending on how well their Star Wars MMO does, at this time it would probably be too much of a gamble for them and since they own BioWare they might not see much gain from buying Cryptic. Ubisoft have published Star Trek titles before but they didn't make any worthwhile money for them, I don't think either IPs would fit well with their existing product catalogue.

As for some of the smaller publishers. THQ have some experience with MMOs but it hasn't been very good. They are quite bullish at the moment following some recent successes but they have no where near as much money as Activision, EA or Ubisoft and this would be a considerable financial risk on their part that they couldn't afford to go wrong. Sega have made a few smart accquisitions over the last few years and have branched out considerably from what their traditional games catalogue has been so I wouldn't rule them out but can't see it happening personally. Square Enix are struggling massively at the moment after butchering Eidos' catalogue since buying them up and the fact that people finally realise that Final Fantasy is ****. Take Two Interactive seem pretty happy to just keep their business as 2K Sports and Rockstar Games, can't see them being interested at all. ZeniMax Media I wouldn't rule out as they are looking at branching in to MMOs and have only recently created a development studio focused on this (ZeniMax Online Studios) also they have published Star Trek titles before under the Bethesda brand.

Could well be that one of the MMO focused publishers goes for them. NC Soft are the world's biggest MMO business and have worked with Cryptic before (City of Heroes), financially they are in a very good position but most of their success is in Asia and both of Cryptic's existing IPs appeal more to the Western market, this could put them off or they could see it as an opportunity to improve their international presence. SOE have plenty of cash and expertise (admittedly mainly for snatching failure from the jaws of success) and can easily port games to Playstation 3 thanks to the PSN infrastructure which could generate additional revenue for them.

[Stargazer]

I am very conren about what will happen to STO because if no one is willing to buy STO, then the game would go out of business and a lot of people will be very upset about that, so I think that Cryptic needs to work very hard to make the major changes that would allow the game to make more profit for the next company that decides to take Cryptic under its wing.

[Stormy]

I remember when it was announced Cryptic acquired STO, and a lot of people thought that spelled doom and gloom for the game back then. I don't think too many people were in favor of the Atari acquisition either. While it would be a serious issue of no one bought it, this could be an opportunity for the franchise to find the right home which will take it to the level we all want.

[Ryuken]

Two things come to mind in light of this news.

1) One would think that Cryptic would be making some money off the sub costs and the C-Store...not many games with a cash shop are b2p as well.

2) How badly does Cryptic need a publisher at this point? With a focus on digital distribution such as STO already has and the fact that the game doesn't really need to be advertised a smuch since it is out already (not that Atari promoted it much or very well when it launched), could Cryptic survive on their own?

Then I have to stop and think that Cryptic has other games and is developing more so yes, I think they are going to need to hook up with a publisher for financing, advertising and promoting future titles and current games. STO doesn't get much in the way of advertising or promoting from Atari to speak of.

Personally I think publishers should stick to advertising and promoting the games and stay the hell out of the developing, which they never can seem to do. Plenty of publishers are made up of corporate/business types who don't know squat about gaming, thus when they get involved they tend to fark things up.

We can only hope that whoever picks up Cryptic doesn't screw up STO.

[Christopher Halsey]

Personally I think publishers should stick to advertising and promoting the games and stay the hell out of the developing, which they never can seem to do. Plenty of publishers are made up of corporate/business types who don't know squat about gaming, thus when they get involved they tend to fark things up.

In an ideal world that might be the case the problem is games that are actually innovative and unique can be a big financial risk. From a publisher's stand point something like Call of Duty (which is a good game series but doesn't really innovate yet is one of the biggest entertainment brands on the planet) has hardly any risk and promises huge returns, then you look at something like Alan Wake (which is stupidly awesome yet flopped) which was innovative and unique and it represents a huge risk and hardly sold.

These days a lot of publishers want to get involved in MMOs because they see the amount of money Activision are raking in with World of Warcraft, the problem is the cost of making and maintaining an MMO are huge, the development time is generally pretty massive and you need a pretty big team working on it then you have to keep updating it with fixes, constantly re-balance it and keep delivering new content. If you get it right you can make stupid amounts of money but if fate isn't smiling on you then you are screwed.

For a publisher taking risks just isn't worth it most of the time so it is understandable that they put pressure on developers, especially since they are providing the money.

Since Star Trek Online has been out a year a large amount of the risk is taking out of the equation since the start up costs are already out of the way but anyone that buys Cryptic will need to feel they can make enough money out of Champions Online and Star Trek Online for them to make their money back and that both titles will perform well for them for a number of years to come. Since Champions has only recently gone free to play its hard to tell at this stage how it will perform when looking at the next 5-10 years, with Star Trek Online you have to take in to account the launch of Star Trek Infinite Space (which I doubt will actually have much impact at all on STO) and the new Star Wars MMO (which I think will have a big impact on STO), with that in mind it is hard to tell how well STO will perform over the next 5-10 years either. So ultimately buying Cryptic is going to be a pretty risky proposition for most Publishers at the moment which means they probably won't want to pay too much to improve the risk/reward in their favour, Atari on the other hand will probably want a fairly large amount of money not only to reduce their losses by not having to keep Cryptic running but so they can get a large cash injection in to make their accounts look a lot better.

[Ryuken]

So now my mind is jumping to worst-case scenarios and I am not sure if these thoughts are just unfounded or if there is any merit to them.

Say no one picks up Cryptic anytime soon, would this cause them to have to close their doors and thus shut down the games like STO and CO?

Would it be possible by any means that nother publisher could purchase Cryptic and end up closing down games (even STO) that they see as not profitable to keep running?

I would hope that such thoughts/scenarios are absolutely implausible and not possible by any means...

[Christopher Halsey]

I wouldn't be too worried at this stage.

Say no one picks up Cryptic anytime soon, would this cause them to have to close their doors and thus shut down the games like STO and CO?

If Atari want money then Cryptic are a valuable asset. It would make sense for them to hold on to them until they get an acceptable offer and they certainly wouldn't want to de-value something they are trying to sell off by shutting down key parts of it.

Would it be possible by any means that nother publisher could purchase Cryptic and end up closing down games (even STO) that they see as not profitable to keep running?

That is possible however I don't think a publisher would purchase Cryptic only to stop supporting the games they would inherit. Anyone buying Cryptic would have to see value in their portfolio or there wouldn't be any point purchasing them.

[Stormy]

Another thing to keep in mind is this. While the story said Cryptic lost more than $3 million this last year, it did not say STO was not profitable. Remember Cryptic is also developing another MMO, which has to this point absolutely no income. Money is being spent but nothing coming back to this point. That is likely where the negative balance comes in. I agree someone will likely see the value in STO. We can only hope it's a publisher who allows the game to continue to grow.