Atari Purchases Cryptic Studios For $26.7 Million

Trevor DeRiza writes "Early this morning, Atari announced that they had purchased US MMO developer Cryptic Studios for an initial 26.7 million USD, along with a possible 20 million USD bonus for future performance. Cryptic has three games coming out in the next three years: Champions Online (2009), Star Trek Online (2010), and a secret project (2011). All three will now be released under the Atari logo." This is welcome news in light of all the recent troubles in the MMO market.

Re:atari HAS 47 million dollars?

[grahamd0]

I am surprised Atari still exists, even more so that it has tens of millions to invest.

Atari, the company that made those cartridges you remember, doesn't exist [wikipedia.org]. The name is still around, and they've published some good titles.

I played Champions online at Gen Con, it looks pretty cool. I wouldn't be surprised if it prints money for them.

Re:Champions Online

[Metapsyborg]

Tabula Rasa received a poor reception largely because it was released prematurely. A classic management error that is seen in every sector. "Talent" is usually just given the bare minimum of time to create a product before it is pushed out the door. I enjoyed the game, the same as I enjoyed Auto Assault and Saga of Ryzom. Just because a company has declared them not profitable enough to continue supporting, doesn't mean they were bad games. The "masses" are not known for their good taste in art or media.

Of course Jack stayed with Cryptic, he basically founded the company. City of Heroes was his project for years and the other developers (who are now working for CoH with NCSoft) were brought into his project. There were many years where Jack was the lead developer of City of Heroes. I'm not too sure of his level of involvement with Champions, but the fact that he created the only other MMO in this genre means something in his favor.