I agree. I think this would be a great company to be picked up by someone bigger. There is a few catches. #1 Whoever picks up Cryptic will have to deal with the fact that they have almost no content control over the game. Altho most companies do let the Devs deal with it all, a few like to make suggestions, hey I want this and this in here. Where since there is a vary tenious liscencing agreement for the Star Trek liscence, they are really limited. So basically with STO they are purchasing it, although they can change the pay model, etc, content they can't. Unlike CO which Cryptic has full liscensing capabilities from the owner of Champions and can do with it like they please.

As far as financial concerns, Cryptic doesn't have anything to worry about from Atari. Atari is divesting and based up French Trade Laws(it's a french company fyi) this will allow them to knock Cryptic's costs off of their financial summary's, basically as if they had never owned Cryptic in the first place. But since Cryptic is US based, the international contract between Cryptic and Atari, per basic Internation Trade summaries, Atari has to report an annual LIB, (loss, income, budget) report. Stating how much they made, lost and of course budgetted to any of their subsidieries. So until they drop Cryptic, Atari says they will hold it till a new buyer is found, they have to continue to pay Cryptic their budget.

Cryptic will be worth alot. We just have to sit and wait out the fire. :)

4 for today, including my favorite Romulan.

"Cryptic could be an attractive purchase for a player that wants to get into the MMO space, and Champions Online and Star Trek Online do represent two good properties that still have much potential. An analyst we spoke with claims that the sale of Cryptic could finally lead to the kind of breakout that has been elusive for these two MMO offerings. “With a different marketing approach, things could be much different with Cryptic, as I still see much potential in what they are doing,” said one analyst we spoke with."

I have been reading quite a bit about this, quite a few business analysts are saying Cryptic could be worth quite a few bucks.

I really hope Atari haven't financially screwed Cryptic. If you think about it any and all profits going to Atari may not have been returned to Cryptic yet, which could threaten them. Then again, we don't have that information so maybe they also got a sweet continuing operations deal.

I'll try and be there :)

DJ Zepari in da house! (I'm sorry, I felt ridiculous typing that. I could feel my IQ dropping. I'll be in my house, but everyone elses Vent window, if music is requested.)

Episode 275 - The Next Generation - "Masks" - 2/21/1994

www.allstepisodes.com/googlevideodatabase.php?n=2717

The Enterprise finds an ancient library that recreates its civilization by taking possession of Data and transforming the ship.

Enjoy!

Awesome good job!!! :)

Hello fleet!

This Thursday, May 19th, our amazing Crafting Corp is going to be holding a Data Sample Gathering Party. Hosted by group member tstanyaspain, please join us as we aim to collect as many samples as possible so we can get the Stonewall Store back open as soon as possible.

As a heads up, we are in the most need to Vertion, Chronometric and Antithroron rare particle traces.

We will be holding two time slots to accommodate our European and US fleeties:

UK Time Slot: 7pm BST (11am PDT/ 2pm EDT)

US Time Slot: 8pm EDT (5pm PDT/ 1am BST [5/20])

We hope you can join us for the party! We will all be in Vent so we can share jokes, riddles, and if Zepari is around, get some music in there!

LET'S GET READY TO PAAAAARRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTYYYYY!

Quote by Furlong

Can you imagine what they could do to STO if they had the resources and talents of a company like Blizzard behind them?

Dear gods, I hope it's not Blizzard.

This could end very badly if not handled correctly.

There also aught to be a clear announcement made by Cryptic to its customers. It's put me off buying anything from the C-Store and making any concerned effort to play due to a possible wasted amount of time in a game that may fold before its time.

WishStone posted this on the STO forums:

The headline is chosen a little unfortunate by the colleagues at Gamasutra and makes it sound like we're a kicked puppy standing in the rain. That's not the case.

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 the folks from the Champions team deserve an extra cheer for their new stuff by the way) and there are no planned changes to the way any of our games and projects will operate.

So Stormy is here, I am here, Dan and the gang are here, your GMs and QA staff are working hard. It sounds way more dramatic than it actually is.

Quote by Captdry

2012 is supposed to be the end of the world so STO wont have any players in a few months anyway lol

Hahaha! :D

2012 is supposed to be the end of the world so STO wont have any players in a few months anyway lol

Wow I wonder what this means, I guess they will have to find another company to back them, but I don't think it's looking good. If something happens to STO due to Atari i'm gonna be mega peved....

I guess the Atari tokens etc will be changing back to Cryptic points. I think that Atari are pretty crappy any ways and they have really wasted the Cryptic teams time and resources only to drop them. Now Cryptic will have to reverse quite a bit of changes I'd imagine.

Unless I'm miss interpreting the announcement.

Yeah, I am not all that worried (famous last words)! It gives them a chance to either a) go it alone or b) have a bigger company buy them and give more resources.

I did however, instant rush to check the Terms of Service wherever I could to check out what this would mean for subscriptions.

Retail inclusion effective September 23, 2010. Lifetime subscription covers your subscription fee for as long as the game is in service. Promotional discounts and features do not apply. You will be charged immediately when purchasing a lifetime subscription. Subscription fees are non-refundable. We make no explicit or implicit warranties on the service period of the game.

Since we all took out the sub under cryptic, as that's who charged me on my bank statement, as long as the game continues under cryptic, I will have my lifetime. Plus I doubt any company would come in and say you couldn't use the game. Think how man players they will loose who use the c-store? Think of how many blue names there are now, there goes a chunk of the player base!

So, do we still get to have a game?

:speechless:

While this is rather disconcerting, I think this gives Cryptic a great opportunity for expansion.

Can you imagine what they could do to STO if they had the resources and talents of a company like Blizzard behind them?

The studio, which recently took Champions Online free-to-play, showed a €5.3 million ($7.5 million) loss for the 2010/11 fiscal year, up from a loss of €12.6 million ($17.9 million) the previous year.

That's a bit troubling.

uh oh.

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