Top secret: Cryptic revamps website, hints at new project

@Graill440

But they cannot presell new lifetime subscriptions if they don't publish a new game!

@Graill440
Hey do not rain on Cryptic's attempt to counter DCUO launch, because how else can they reuse CO/STO engine again and again.

@Graill440

But that is their business model. That is how they operate.

@RudyHuxtable
You know, a planescape MMO *would* be good about now.

@Degu
The thing is, the majority of MMO players at this point are already hooked on one game or another. They hop to a new game when it comes out, but then almost always get homesick for what they'd been playing before. That's where they have their time invested, their friends, and their overall comfortable niche. New MMO's simply simply give players a break for a while.

Cryptic seems to simply have decided to capitalize on the "new and shiny" market. They know the majority of players won't stick around, but that doesn't matter. As long as they can use their existing engine(s) to keep churning out new stuff with minimal overhead, they can keep profiting from those initial box sales -- and whatever long term subscription fees they can manage to squeeze out of people who haven't learned better.

From a pure money-making standpoint, their strategy makes sense. Why bother turning out the high quality that would keep people playing long term when the majority of people wouldn't stick around anyway? Of course, that means they'll never be the company that puts out the next WoW (or even the next LotRO). It also means that they'll never truly contribute anything to the genre. But then, how many developers out there right now are truly trying to innovate anyway, as opposed to simply putting new shine on a feature or two?

The strategy is clearly working for them as well. After all, STO just won all sorts of "best of" acclamation for 2010. When the playing field is uniformly awful, it doesn't take much effort to make a profit.

If anything, Cryptic simply underscores the sorry state of the MMO genre at this point.

@aurickle
That will work at most 2 times. The number of people 'fooled' by Cryptic drops with every less than satisfactory launch.

At least with companies like Funcom they try to put a bit of distances between crappy releases.

@Mendoras
Hehe.. you mean STO/CO engine lol.

Same auction houses and such.

@danubus

I'm not sure why they don't go F2P first so they can least compete with gPotato. And gives me an excuse to avoid their games like the plague will they make a Jack Emmert ego size'd profit.

@Utakata

*while...

@Jeromai

Cryptic - The Uwe Boll of MMORPG developers.