If it goes private then the owner will have more power to do what he wants. As in selling off things. The problem is we don't know how much this game is making. Is it profitable? They don't release sub numbers or operating cost for this game. This game has a lot of different owners. From time of the developing and on. If it is making profit that don't mean it won't be sold. But as long as it is making $$$ then it should survive. I kinda wish it would be sold to a American company that has strong backing. No offence to cryptic but I kinda wish they would take it from them. I love the new content!! It's not that. My problem with cryptic is the broken promises over the years. The GRAND PLANS! That never came to be. Cryptic seems to be a few people that have grand ideas one day and the the next new ideas that cancel out the other day.
You have fallen into the same thinking as most of the Trek fans that play STO.
STO doesn't matter to PWE. AT ALL. They bought Cryptic for the licence with Wizards, as in Neverwinter. Only a few months ago they started selling Neverwinter on Xbox One in China... THAT is the reason they bought Cryptic in the first place. Shanda publishes D&D online in China, Purchasing Cryptic was PWE answer to that at home. Although I'm sure they had no issues with picking up a US developer... make no mistake the majority of PWE income comes from the Asian market, and most future profit Shareholders have hoped for (and I'm sure there founder as well) is expected to come from a growing market in China for First class IP games like D&D properties.
STO is just a nice to have... I can't see why they would close it as for it to not be turning a small profit at this point is close to impossible. CBS isn't likely to do anything with there licence, cause frankly they can continue to sell new IP licences if they wish cause its not an exclusive deal they have with Cryptic. They will just keep cashing the cheques.
Anyway just saying. STO makes very little difference to the value of Cryptic. Cryptic scored big when they landed a D&D licence... that IP has a lot more international value then Trek. Also have to say Atari was so very very short sighted at the end of the day. I know they had some $ flow issues... still when Cryptic landed a D&D licence they should have gotten smart and started setting up publishing deals for countries like Korea and China.
For example, Red Lobster's parent company divested Red Lobster, took Red Lobster private, and sold them to an investment group that generally spends 2-3 years pumping money, managerial consulting, R&D, and new tech into businesses with a goal to take them public and sell off most of the ownership once the company is on better footing.
made me giggle...investment firms in general buy a broke company, chop up the rest and sell the assets separately for profit.
Rarely they would invest, and especially not for 2-3 years. They actually down size, which means lay offs.
It may have happened with Red Lobster, but for every Red Lobster there are 100 other businesses that get cannibalized by "investment" firms. Selling to an investment firm is a funeral, not a cure.
Whenever I read about ownership changes I start to wonder what gaming company is not universally loathed..... EA is apparently evil, so is Trion.... CCP is the spawn of Satan..... Everyone hates Sony..... and so on....
Whenever I read about ownership changes I start to wonder what gaming company is not universally loathed..... EA is apparently evil, so is Trion.... CCP is the spawn of Satan..... Everyone hates Sony..... and so on....
Heh, so many folks have had so many bad experiences with so many companies...
Somebody mentions EA...I think EnB. Others may get into Mythic/BioWare and what happened there.
Somebody mentions NCSoft...I first think Auto Assault...and then quickly think of other games. Others might start with Tabula Rasa. Etc, etc, etc.
Somebody mentions Sony...I think SWG. Er...not sure what anybody else thinks there other than SWG. I'm sure they'd share.
Somebody mentions CCP...I first think EVE. One of those different strokes for different folks and how EVE's changed over the years. Hrmm, then there would also be the WoD stuff, right? Hrmmm, yeah...
Somebody mentions Trion...I first think...why would anybody mention Trion in with the others? I'm uh...yeah...I don't get that.
Then again, somebody would probably mention Funcom too...and...I wouldn't get that.
Then it gets back and forth into Developers and Publishers. The lines blurred/crossed here and there...
...with in the end, some folks always thinking the grass is greener and folks that will have their horror stories that make Littlest Pet Shop more like Little Shop of Horrors or whatever, eh?
Somebody mentions Trion...I first think...why would anybody mention Trion in with the others? I'm uh...yeah...I don't get that.
I like Trion... Playing the game though of reasons people may have some hate for them.
Rift had a lot more promise, and should have done better then it did. They mismanaged a few things in year one and lost a ton of early players. I would say they have done a great job since going F2P still... I think plenty of people feel they lost there way a bit out of the gate, they should have given WOW an honest run... and just never did due to some silly mistakes early on when they did grab a ton of WOW switchers. lol
Another couple reasons to mention Trion.
Defiance... ya nuff said I think. Great idea... good dev team (even pouched a few well known Devs from CCP). Yet somehow the game still mostly sucks.
and of course... The US publisher of archage that can get you some hate I'm sure from some.
Whenever I read about ownership changes I start to wonder what gaming company is not universally loathed..... EA is apparently evil, so is Trion.... CCP is the spawn of Satan..... Everyone hates Sony..... and so on....
CCP was not always "evil" in many gamers mind. Before the monoclegate, they were fine. But you have to admit, the monocle was absurd.
I've never heard anything bad about Trion, as far as their business is concerned. Games are something else.
Sony is evil when they suddenly do something beyond stupid and greedy, like the NGE (stupid) or the EQ2 f2p (greedy AND stupid). Usually, they are fine, and people tend to respect them. Mostly because they keep running small pop MMO, while most company would close them (*cough*NCsoft*cough*).
As for EA, well, they sells games in parts, and you ends up with a hundred dollars game, which is a poor console game barely made for PC. Until the next year you have the next iteration, with pretty much nothing more.
As for their marketing, they simply doesn't care what people think and say, they'll pay anyway. They take customers money over the appreciation anytime.
They probably just set up a new one, by selling a collector edition, for something like 150$, with crappy plastic items... and no game AT ALL (you have to buy the game AND the collector) with the latest dragon age.
I like Trion... Playing the game though of reasons people may have some hate for them.
Rift had a lot more promise, and should have done better then it did. They mismanaged a few things in year one and lost a ton of early players. I would say they have done a great job since going F2P still... I think plenty of people feel they lost there way a bit out of the gate.
Another couple reasons to mention Trion.
Defiance... ya nuff said I think. Great idea... good dev team (even pouched a few well known Devs from CCP). Yet somehow the game still mostly sucks.
and of course... The US publisher of archage that can get you some hate I'm sure from some.
Hrmm, there you go...I wasn't thinking. Heh, RIFT had one of the best betas I've ever been in. The communication was awesome. I bought a six month. I didn't play the last month. Everybody I knew had left. But yeah, skip ahead to their F2P and it wasn't bad, eh? Just wasn't my thing at the time - burnt out on the fantasy stuff. So yeah, I'd forgotten what they did that first year, just remembering the burnt out on fantasy stuff from later and not remembering that first year...lol, man - I used to get some heinous timeouts on the forums there...lol.
Never had any interest in either Defiance or Archeage, so wouldn't have any thoughts there.
It's kind of funny, I guess, but sure - I've got all sorts of /facepalms for Cryptic/PWE; but I've got all sorts of /wrenchtotheirface going for so many of the others. It's not a case of being here because of how awesome they are...it's a case of being here becaus eof how awesomely bad elsewhere was.
Way things are going...I might start drinking again and buy some sidewalk chalk...doodle in the driveway. Hrmm, though it's getting kind of chilly out there. Netflix!
Hrmm, there you go...I wasn't thinking. Heh, RIFT had one of the best betas I've ever been in. The communication was awesome. I bought a six month. I didn't play the last month. Everybody I knew had left. But yeah, skip ahead to their F2P and it wasn't bad, eh? Just wasn't my thing at the time - burnt out on the fantasy stuff. So yeah, I'd forgotten what they did that first year, just remembering the burnt out on fantasy stuff from later and not remembering that first year...lol, man - I used to get some heinous timeouts on the forums there...lol.
Never had any interest in either Defiance or Archeage, so wouldn't have any thoughts there.
Same Rift was great and then so very disapointing fast. I still think the game is great, like you though just can't really handle anymore fantasy right now.
Defiance is the one that irked me honestly. The concept is great... one of the few newer IPs that I think is really great and hope survives. I really wish the game was a lot better to help that along. The show at least is picked up for a third season... hopefully they produce a good show that keeps it going. I think its the sort of IP that could spawn new shows later, books would be cool to. It will die long before then likely, anyway. lol
All worries that Cryptic would be bought from PWE in any instance are completely unfounded. Stop assuming about how hard you have it here in space without knowing of the poverty in post Denver.
There is a lot of 'maybe' in this assuption. The articlie itself just explains that the offer is on the table for consideration.
The buyer might be successful, or not. If they are then maybe STO and other titles will improve and even reduce the monitization features in favour of better content, or it might get even worse. Nothing may happen at all and things bumble along as they are, or at long last the doom everyone prophicises comes to pass.
From a purely product point of view MMO's aren't all that great. The field hasn't really grown in leaps and bounds at all, they still stick to the same game design they've used for years now. Since F2P came along everyone has been pumping out titles in an effort to grab a slice of the micropurchase pie. It's certainly quantity over quality and I don't see that changing, therfore I don't see STO changing.
I can't help but wonder what this buyer plans to do if he were sucessful, seeing as this article spends a great deal of time mentioning the decline in players. What will they bring to the table that PWE as it is doesn't?
The nature of the deal with CBS doesn't really matter.
The only thing PWE would be concerned about if they where to change there nature of Cryptic as a business unit would be there deal with Wizards.
Lets all get real CBS is 110% happy with Cryptic. They gave them a AAA(ish) style MMO in almost no time at all. CBS deal was inked with Perpetual and the game would have likely died right there if Cryptic wasn't able to deliver in less then 2 years... which is crazy. Cryptic has done nothing but send CBS free cash... does anyone seriously think if some legal change forced them to have to reink the papers CBS wouldn't fall over themselves to sign them ? lol
The only possible issue is the deal in place for the Wizards IP... I'm not sure they where super happy about the PWE purchase... as they had other deals in place for D&D online for Asia. However at this point with a D&D licence game hitting china on the Xbox platform I doubt they wouldn't resign away as well.
Regardless Cryptic is a wholly owned subsidiary of Perfect World. That doesn't change if the company goes private.
CBS has a lot riding on Star Trek . There was a big stink about a decade ago when CBS (or was it Paramount at the time?) literally sued a game developer because they made a real TRIBBLE-bomb of a Trek game that was so bad that it was threatening the entire Trek franchise.
CBS has a lot riding on Star Trek . There was a big stink about a decade ago when CBS (or was it Paramount at the time?) literally sued a game developer because they made a real TRIBBLE-bomb of a Trek game that was so bad that it was threatening the entire Trek franchise.
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This was funny... it wasn't a serious suit though. The idea was getting out of having to create more Trek games. They gave us some good games ... armada 1 and 2, The Elite Forces, the Bridge Commanders. Bottom line they didn't feel they where making enough profit given the development time and IP payments on there trek games so they wanted out of the contract they had with CBS to turn out Trek games. (think about that time and all the junk Activision also turned out Like Away team and hidden evil. They where obligated to turn them out. When CBS refused to make changes to the contract, Activision started doing things like that. lol
You want to know why CBS can't manage to get good developers to make Trek games lately... well what happened with Activision is part of it. Who wants to get into business with such a screwed up company and an IP that is owned by multiple companies. Just look at the mess that was the last movie tie in game. Hard to blame Activision for wanting out at the time... as funny as the suit was they where in a situation where they negotiated a deal when CBS had 3 Trek shows on TV at the same time and TNG folks where turning out movies a pretty good clip. There own fault for not adding a reduced % if the volume of the main media material dropped off at any point.
See, this is what I'm talking about. You have to take everything I said and not just latch onto one small thing in my comment. One of the key things I said was that until there is a story about the company is sold or making a big move that you should take it with a grain of salt. Anything can happen in the financial world.
Hopefully the rumor turns true, and maybe then customer can buy things with money and know beforehand if they gotta get the items they pay for, or they gona get in a truculent probation sistem, wasting their money.
I don't know what any of this actually means and I'm not going to worry about it too much.
At the end of the day, while it's fun.. STO is just a game and if it goes away so be it. I will say though that even though I have my issues with some of the decisions concerning the direction of STO since Delta Rising, I hope the staff at Cryptic aren't in danger of losing their means of making a living.
At the end of the day, it's just a game, peoples lives are more important. I hate to read stuff like this because I can just imagine how uneasy and uncertain it makes all the employees that are just trying to feed their families. Best of luck to all of them.
They will the majority of PWRD is held by investment firms... they never turn down a good cash out that nets them 20-30%. Very good bet the company isn't really going to go private anyway... more likely its just going to be moved to the Chinese Exchange. Anyway this thread already exists. lol
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
The original founder, Michael Yufeng Chi, is making a bid to buy PWE and take them private, pulling them back off the stock market. The stockholders will be given a chance to decide whether to take the offer.
Now, you're going to say, "What will this mean either way?" Well, obviously, it's complicated with anything like this.
But, in general:
- When a business is on the stock market, the stockholders demand results. In general, that is one of the big driving forces behind monetization as "good" sales may not be "good enough".
- Taking a business private is often a move done when an investor or buyer thinks stockholders are undervaluing the product and that things would improve dramatically by easing up on expectations in the short term, putting money back into the company, and either settling for "good enough" results or re-launching on the stock market. For example, Red Lobster's parent company divested Red Lobster, took Red Lobster private, and sold them to an investment group that generally spends 2-3 years pumping money, managerial consulting, R&D, and new tech into businesses with a goal to take them public and sell off most of the ownership once the company is on better footing.
Think about this as like people who flip houses. You buy a fixer upper with the intent of pumping resources into improvement and better design choices and then sell after an extended period of improvements.
- What this means for STO is less certain, because PWE might sell off Cryptic or divest or do any number of things.
In any case, the founder is offering $20 a share and analysts are expecting it to stay around $15 with no major growth prospects for 2015. I suspect this may spike the stock value back up some. (If somebody's offering $20 to buy the whole thing out, people will be willing to pay maybe $18 for it with a hope that it does sell.)
It could be interesting times for Cryptic in either way and we might see some philosophy changes in terms of how STO gets managed if the shareholders get removed from the equation and you have an investor pumping funds into improvements, assuming the new owner wouldn't sell off Cryptic in the process.
All this means is they no longer want to:
- Do public Quarterly earnings reports.
- Pay dividends to stockholders
- Have to get Stockholder approval for some decisions
They also think it will increase their overall profit margin.
[Blizzard effectively did the same thing in 2014.]
Now, what does that mean for PWE and Cryptic? Who knows? But honestly, I don't think the board members eyeing this are out to just 'sell off' PW and run off with whatever cash they get. It appears the current head thinks they can make PW more profitable and easier to manage. I DON'T think it'll change their development strategy for their profitable games as honestly, even the stockholders are just in it for the return, so as long as whatever monetization paradigm keeps a game profitable with a good ROI (as they see it) - in the long run it doesn't matter if the parent company is publicly or privately held.
Could that mean PW will ultimately have PWE sell off Cryptic, or Runic Games? Yep, anything is possible. But honestly again, they could still do that as a publicly held company - and if Cryptic or other subsidiaries weren't performing to/meeting expectations; the stockholders wouldn't bat an eye at that, because all they want at the end of it all is their dividend check.
If you try and compare this to what happened with/under Atari it's apples and oranges as Atari was coming out of bankruptcy and had creditors coming after them; and further Atari didn't understand the MMO marketplace.
PW otoh has been and still is a successful and profitable company that has extensive knowledge of how to build/market/run/maintain MMOs and has done so for over a decade. If Cryptic or any other holding is sold off/divested; it will be because PW sees them as badly underperforming and/or giving a really low ROI, etc. I don't think Cryptic is at that point as yet.
But, in the end, it'll be up to the PW Board as to whether they go ahead with plans to take the company private; and if they go forward, and offer a good enough deal to the current stockholders that's what'll happen.
In the end though, it's WAY to early to conjecture what effect (if any) it would have on the day to day operations of PW (and PWE's) MMOs. The pattern pretty much is that their development budget is based on ROI - and I don't see what they'd change that paradigm even if PW went private.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Well, this is all rumor and conjecture. Until you see a credible news story on a reputable site that a company is already sold or made a big move you should take whatever is being said with a grain of salt. Even if news does leak anything can happen before a deal is signed and money exchanges hands.
There has been no talk of PWE or Cryptic being sold. And absolutely no talk of STO going anywhere.
No need to latch onto some random story out there
It is funny because same thing was said when PWE bought Cryptic. A similar story came out saying Atari was selling Cryptic off and that f2p wasn't coming to STO. It is roughly the aspect of customers learning about said changes before they are ready to get out in front of it. Not saying its a completely bad thing but it is a sign of the market where PC gaming and gaming in general is concerned.
See, this is what I'm talking about. You have to take everything I said and not just latch onto one small thing in my comment. One of the key things I said was that until there is a story about the company is sold or making a big move that you should take it with a grain of salt. Anything can happen in the financial world.
What I take off of it is that PWE being a gaming company and the business model is make 20 dollars off a new customer and TRIBBLE the one who already paid 20 dollars is part of the problem. I will just put it like this the reason that communication was made was due to the fact that games like Guild Wars 2 for example have a business platform that isn't f2p but buy and then no subscription as a middle ground and they have the cash store and such but the game isn't a grind where its actually fun to play so its a balance of content coming to the game as well as giving the customer the option of earning things in game or buying them for company profits where there is a good relationship between the customer and the company selling their product.
Overall regardless if its a rumor or coming soon the fact of the matter the problems exist and sweeping them under the rug as done for all of Cryptics lifespan has to change from making grindfests to making fun games or its going to shrivel up and die like the rest of the games out there doing the same exact thing.
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You have fallen into the same thinking as most of the Trek fans that play STO.
STO doesn't matter to PWE. AT ALL. They bought Cryptic for the licence with Wizards, as in Neverwinter. Only a few months ago they started selling Neverwinter on Xbox One in China... THAT is the reason they bought Cryptic in the first place. Shanda publishes D&D online in China, Purchasing Cryptic was PWE answer to that at home. Although I'm sure they had no issues with picking up a US developer... make no mistake the majority of PWE income comes from the Asian market, and most future profit Shareholders have hoped for (and I'm sure there founder as well) is expected to come from a growing market in China for First class IP games like D&D properties.
STO is just a nice to have... I can't see why they would close it as for it to not be turning a small profit at this point is close to impossible. CBS isn't likely to do anything with there licence, cause frankly they can continue to sell new IP licences if they wish cause its not an exclusive deal they have with Cryptic. They will just keep cashing the cheques.
Anyway just saying. STO makes very little difference to the value of Cryptic. Cryptic scored big when they landed a D&D licence... that IP has a lot more international value then Trek. Also have to say Atari was so very very short sighted at the end of the day. I know they had some $ flow issues... still when Cryptic landed a D&D licence they should have gotten smart and started setting up publishing deals for countries like Korea and China.
made me giggle...investment firms in general buy a broke company, chop up the rest and sell the assets separately for profit.
Rarely they would invest, and especially not for 2-3 years. They actually down size, which means lay offs.
It may have happened with Red Lobster, but for every Red Lobster there are 100 other businesses that get cannibalized by "investment" firms. Selling to an investment firm is a funeral, not a cure.
Heh, so many folks have had so many bad experiences with so many companies...
Somebody mentions EA...I think EnB. Others may get into Mythic/BioWare and what happened there.
Somebody mentions NCSoft...I first think Auto Assault...and then quickly think of other games. Others might start with Tabula Rasa. Etc, etc, etc.
Somebody mentions Sony...I think SWG. Er...not sure what anybody else thinks there other than SWG. I'm sure they'd share.
Somebody mentions CCP...I first think EVE. One of those different strokes for different folks and how EVE's changed over the years. Hrmm, then there would also be the WoD stuff, right? Hrmmm, yeah...
Somebody mentions Trion...I first think...why would anybody mention Trion in with the others? I'm uh...yeah...I don't get that.
Then again, somebody would probably mention Funcom too...and...I wouldn't get that.
Then it gets back and forth into Developers and Publishers. The lines blurred/crossed here and there...
...with in the end, some folks always thinking the grass is greener and folks that will have their horror stories that make Littlest Pet Shop more like Little Shop of Horrors or whatever, eh?
I like Trion... Playing the game though of reasons people may have some hate for them.
Rift had a lot more promise, and should have done better then it did. They mismanaged a few things in year one and lost a ton of early players. I would say they have done a great job since going F2P still... I think plenty of people feel they lost there way a bit out of the gate, they should have given WOW an honest run... and just never did due to some silly mistakes early on when they did grab a ton of WOW switchers. lol
Another couple reasons to mention Trion.
Defiance... ya nuff said I think. Great idea... good dev team (even pouched a few well known Devs from CCP). Yet somehow the game still mostly sucks.
and of course... The US publisher of archage that can get you some hate I'm sure from some.
I've never heard anything bad about Trion, as far as their business is concerned. Games are something else.
Sony is evil when they suddenly do something beyond stupid and greedy, like the NGE (stupid) or the EQ2 f2p (greedy AND stupid). Usually, they are fine, and people tend to respect them. Mostly because they keep running small pop MMO, while most company would close them (*cough*NCsoft*cough*).
As for EA, well, they sells games in parts, and you ends up with a hundred dollars game, which is a poor console game barely made for PC. Until the next year you have the next iteration, with pretty much nothing more.
As for their marketing, they simply doesn't care what people think and say, they'll pay anyway. They take customers money over the appreciation anytime.
They probably just set up a new one, by selling a collector edition, for something like 150$, with crappy plastic items... and no game AT ALL (you have to buy the game AND the collector) with the latest dragon age.
Hrmm, there you go...I wasn't thinking. Heh, RIFT had one of the best betas I've ever been in. The communication was awesome. I bought a six month. I didn't play the last month. Everybody I knew had left. But yeah, skip ahead to their F2P and it wasn't bad, eh? Just wasn't my thing at the time - burnt out on the fantasy stuff. So yeah, I'd forgotten what they did that first year, just remembering the burnt out on fantasy stuff from later and not remembering that first year...lol, man - I used to get some heinous timeouts on the forums there...lol.
Never had any interest in either Defiance or Archeage, so wouldn't have any thoughts there.
It's kind of funny, I guess, but sure - I've got all sorts of /facepalms for Cryptic/PWE; but I've got all sorts of /wrenchtotheirface going for so many of the others. It's not a case of being here because of how awesome they are...it's a case of being here becaus eof how awesomely bad elsewhere was.
Way things are going...I might start drinking again and buy some sidewalk chalk...doodle in the driveway. Hrmm, though it's getting kind of chilly out there. Netflix!
Same Rift was great and then so very disapointing fast. I still think the game is great, like you though just can't really handle anymore fantasy right now.
Defiance is the one that irked me honestly. The concept is great... one of the few newer IPs that I think is really great and hope survives. I really wish the game was a lot better to help that along. The show at least is picked up for a third season... hopefully they produce a good show that keeps it going. I think its the sort of IP that could spawn new shows later, books would be cool to. It will die long before then likely, anyway.
All worries that Cryptic would be bought from PWE in any instance are completely unfounded. Stop assuming about how hard you have it here in space without knowing of the poverty in post Denver.
The buyer might be successful, or not. If they are then maybe STO and other titles will improve and even reduce the monitization features in favour of better content, or it might get even worse. Nothing may happen at all and things bumble along as they are, or at long last the doom everyone prophicises comes to pass.
From a purely product point of view MMO's aren't all that great. The field hasn't really grown in leaps and bounds at all, they still stick to the same game design they've used for years now. Since F2P came along everyone has been pumping out titles in an effort to grab a slice of the micropurchase pie. It's certainly quantity over quality and I don't see that changing, therfore I don't see STO changing.
I can't help but wonder what this buyer plans to do if he were sucessful, seeing as this article spends a great deal of time mentioning the decline in players. What will they bring to the table that PWE as it is doesn't?
CBS has a lot riding on Star Trek . There was a big stink about a decade ago when CBS (or was it Paramount at the time?) literally sued a game developer because they made a real TRIBBLE-bomb of a Trek game that was so bad that it was threatening the entire Trek franchise.
The other way around http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/news010703activision
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This was funny... it wasn't a serious suit though. The idea was getting out of having to create more Trek games. They gave us some good games ... armada 1 and 2, The Elite Forces, the Bridge Commanders. Bottom line they didn't feel they where making enough profit given the development time and IP payments on there trek games so they wanted out of the contract they had with CBS to turn out Trek games. (think about that time and all the junk Activision also turned out Like Away team and hidden evil. They where obligated to turn them out. When CBS refused to make changes to the contract, Activision started doing things like that. lol
You want to know why CBS can't manage to get good developers to make Trek games lately... well what happened with Activision is part of it. Who wants to get into business with such a screwed up company and an IP that is owned by multiple companies. Just look at the mess that was the last movie tie in game. Hard to blame Activision for wanting out at the time... as funny as the suit was they where in a situation where they negotiated a deal when CBS had 3 Trek shows on TV at the same time and TNG folks where turning out movies a pretty good clip. There own fault for not adding a reduced % if the volume of the main media material dropped off at any point.
Hopefully the rumor turns true, and maybe then customer can buy things with money and know beforehand if they gotta get the items they pay for, or they gona get in a truculent probation sistem, wasting their money.
GG Cryptic.
dnirg eht nioj
Collective greed will be replaced by personal greed... One mind... one direction...
IF the shareholders agree to sell.
At the end of the day, while it's fun.. STO is just a game and if it goes away so be it. I will say though that even though I have my issues with some of the decisions concerning the direction of STO since Delta Rising, I hope the staff at Cryptic aren't in danger of losing their means of making a living.
At the end of the day, it's just a game, peoples lives are more important. I hate to read stuff like this because I can just imagine how uneasy and uncertain it makes all the employees that are just trying to feed their families. Best of luck to all of them.
They will the majority of PWRD is held by investment firms... they never turn down a good cash out that nets them 20-30%. Very good bet the company isn't really going to go private anyway... more likely its just going to be moved to the Chinese Exchange. Anyway this thread already exists. lol
LMAO
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All this means is they no longer want to:
- Do public Quarterly earnings reports.
- Pay dividends to stockholders
- Have to get Stockholder approval for some decisions
They also think it will increase their overall profit margin.
[Blizzard effectively did the same thing in 2014.]
Now, what does that mean for PWE and Cryptic? Who knows? But honestly, I don't think the board members eyeing this are out to just 'sell off' PW and run off with whatever cash they get. It appears the current head thinks they can make PW more profitable and easier to manage. I DON'T think it'll change their development strategy for their profitable games as honestly, even the stockholders are just in it for the return, so as long as whatever monetization paradigm keeps a game profitable with a good ROI (as they see it) - in the long run it doesn't matter if the parent company is publicly or privately held.
Could that mean PW will ultimately have PWE sell off Cryptic, or Runic Games? Yep, anything is possible. But honestly again, they could still do that as a publicly held company - and if Cryptic or other subsidiaries weren't performing to/meeting expectations; the stockholders wouldn't bat an eye at that, because all they want at the end of it all is their dividend check.
If you try and compare this to what happened with/under Atari it's apples and oranges as Atari was coming out of bankruptcy and had creditors coming after them; and further Atari didn't understand the MMO marketplace.
PW otoh has been and still is a successful and profitable company that has extensive knowledge of how to build/market/run/maintain MMOs and has done so for over a decade. If Cryptic or any other holding is sold off/divested; it will be because PW sees them as badly underperforming and/or giving a really low ROI, etc. I don't think Cryptic is at that point as yet.
But, in the end, it'll be up to the PW Board as to whether they go ahead with plans to take the company private; and if they go forward, and offer a good enough deal to the current stockholders that's what'll happen.
In the end though, it's WAY to early to conjecture what effect (if any) it would have on the day to day operations of PW (and PWE's) MMOs. The pattern pretty much is that their development budget is based on ROI - and I don't see what they'd change that paradigm even if PW went private.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
It is funny because same thing was said when PWE bought Cryptic. A similar story came out saying Atari was selling Cryptic off and that f2p wasn't coming to STO. It is roughly the aspect of customers learning about said changes before they are ready to get out in front of it. Not saying its a completely bad thing but it is a sign of the market where PC gaming and gaming in general is concerned.
What I take off of it is that PWE being a gaming company and the business model is make 20 dollars off a new customer and TRIBBLE the one who already paid 20 dollars is part of the problem. I will just put it like this the reason that communication was made was due to the fact that games like Guild Wars 2 for example have a business platform that isn't f2p but buy and then no subscription as a middle ground and they have the cash store and such but the game isn't a grind where its actually fun to play so its a balance of content coming to the game as well as giving the customer the option of earning things in game or buying them for company profits where there is a good relationship between the customer and the company selling their product.
Overall regardless if its a rumor or coming soon the fact of the matter the problems exist and sweeping them under the rug as done for all of Cryptics lifespan has to change from making grindfests to making fun games or its going to shrivel up and die like the rest of the games out there doing the same exact thing.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2797735-perfect-world-privatizes-renren-next?uide=31102825&uprof=82&dr=1
With what's going on with Shanda...
http://www.rttnews.com/2427626/shanda-announces-formation-of-new-consortium-to-acquire-company.aspx
What Giant Interactive did...
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/giant-interactive-group-announces-completion-of-us3-billion-going-private-transaction-267705611.html
Get a sense of perspective, why don't you? http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/champions-online/news