Atari acquires Cryptic Studios

In a piece of news that comes out of nowhere, Atari has announced that they've bought Cryptic Studios, the developer originally responsible for creating City of Heroes. Right now, Cryptic has three upcoming games: Champions Online, Star Trek Online and a third unannounced title. As part of the acquisition, Atari will have access to Cryptic's technology for use their games as well as for their website portal.

However, the most interesting part is that after an initial USD 26.7 million upfront payment to Cryptic, they stand to earn even more money through a performance-related bonus. How much? Try another USD 20 million in cash or stock, so long as the 2010-11 revenues of Champions Online and Star Trek Online outperform specific undisclosed targets. It would appear that Atari is expecting Cryptic's upcoming games to perform fairly well, and to launch fairly promptly. We can only hope, Star Trek and Champions fans.

Phil Harrison, director of Atari, has said in the past that the company's main focus would be online games and digital delivery. So while this news isn't out of the ordinary in that respect, it certainly came out of the blue. This also may fuel the fire of the rumor that Cryptic is bringing both of their upcoming titles to the PS3. There's no word yet on whether or not this affects the 2k Games publishing deal made for Champions Online.

[Thanks, Stan]

Reader Comments (19)

Wow, this one is out of left field. Didn't see that coming at all.

Holt shait, no kidding it was out of left field. Wow, damn now what the hell is going to happen..

That is one way to get into the MMO market I guess.

Damn, this is one jump into the MMO market. I wonder since when they had planned this, before or after Phil Harrison joined.

Wow, certainly didn't expect that.

As others have said: didn't see this coming.

I did wonder how Cryptic was going to fund the release of two titles with no income and when they were self-publishing (NB: 2K were just looking after physical distribution according to Cryptic, so weren't a publisher as such). Guess I now know.

I can understand it from a finical stand-point, but what really surprises me is how defiant Jack was after they had originally sold CoH, and how after the MUO deal fell through, that they were "going to create and publish everything in-house". The 2K deal isn't that surprising to me, b/c they were pretty ambitious w/ developing 2 games and developing a publishing software, but this… very surprising. I’m wondering if Jack will make a statement today.

Hmm, and Atari just signed a distribution deal with CCP for EVE Online. Clearly they want to establish a new strategic direction.

Did April 1st come early this year? Talk about an unexpected announcement...

~Ripper

They are not done with their acquisitions yet!

Really? I guess that's a good move. They're console development hasn't been all that great over the years. I guess buying up established dev houses and slapping the Atari symbol on it might prove to be a good move.

Are they trying to position themselves in an "EA" type manor?

Atari is infamous for pushing unfinished products out the door to meet arbitrary deadlines so I hope they have learned the golden rule with MMOGs: You get ONE chance to do it right.

It is 100% out of the blue, but honestly I can see why. They're right, Cryptic can make an MMO that works.

Good, so they can throw money at the worst selling gaming platfrom in the world.

Does no one remember that Atari distributed Horizons?

No doubt about it: CO and STO will shipped unfinished and unplayable.

Wasn't that a completely different Atari than the one that exists now, though? After the whole thing with Infogrames I'm pretty sure we're dealing with a different set of CEO types.

Atari had nothing to do with Horizons' state of release. That little incident can be entirely attributed to one David Bowman.

Atari's brought some good people onboard like Phil Harrison, so here's hoping that they give Cryptic the time and resources they need to do CO and STO well. I'm hoping this also guarantees PS3 versions of the games.

Star Trek and Champions I am sure thinking to pick them up both thanks god they broke free of that NCsoft :D

unexpected. lets just hope atari doesnt run COX, STO, and Champions into the ground.

Atari acquires Cryptic Studios

Reader Comments (19)

Posted: Dec 9th 2008 7:15AM DaBruuzer said

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