Who would have been better to buy Cryptic?

thedoctorbluebox · July 2012

So we all know what happened, Atari sold Cryptic (BAD decision IMO), and PWE bought it up. Now changes are occurring all over the place, such as free to play, and the fact that the cryptic name is being removed all over the game (just log into Tribble.)

For good or bad, PWE is what we got.

But, what if there had been other choices, and what if you got to chose who bought up Cryptic?

Who would that have been to set this game on the track to do Star Trek justice?

For the record, I do not believe that PWE is currently doing the Star Trek franchise justice with this game.

thepleasuredome · July 2012

Well Atari *had* to sell Cryptic. It was the only thing of value they owned at the time. Otherwise they would have drowned in debt and gone bankrupt. Then there would be no more STO, as a financial accountant, I can say that's for sure.

After that, at this time, I'm thinking anyone else would have been preferable to buy Cryptic, even EA, voted worst company in the world for 2011. But only 8 months or so is really not long enough to form the most informed opinion, so I'll give it another 4 months or so.

Do I hate what's happened to the game? Yes. Do I hate how I think it's going? Yes. Is there still time to turn it around before a crash and burn? Yes, because apparently 'they have a plan". But Cryptic's plans so far have not been the best, maybe there is some better long-term strategy involved than irking the entire playerbase on a regular occurrence.

Arawn - SOB

capnmanx · July 2012

Honestly, given STO's history, another company might have just tried to milk it for a while before closing it down.

PWE wants it as sort of an experiment, and so have incentive to invest in it. I don't much like their way of doing things; but I think, if nothing else, STO's future is a little more certain with them behind it.

captainbmoney · July 2012

OGplanet would have made this game a lot better. they are doing an amazing job with SD Gundam Capsule Fighter and their F2P Model is pretty nice. OGPlanet is located somewhere around Washington and parts of Asia. I suggest everyone check out OGplanet's game.

foxalpha5 · July 2012

Here is a question: what exactly is PWE doing to make you not like them? Besides lockboxes, which really aren't as horrible as everyone says. Just annoying.

Honestly I hope STO stays with PWE. I hope this game makes makes PWE lots of money, and that PWE continues to support STO.

Here we have the entire game available for free, and the ability to grind for cash shop items through ingame means. Lockboxes seem to provide a huge influx of cash, and those of you who complain about spending so much on them...the fault lies with you. Say what you will about that practice, but it sure does get results!

Hmm, back on topic. I think PWE was the better company to buy Cryptic, and I think that it is starting to show. I look forward to what happens farther down the line.

trek21 · July 2012

Atari more-or-less let Cryptic do it's own thing with STO, not caring about investing in it. Then they gave it up just for a short-term boost... so I really doubt them selling STO was 'bad', truly.

As for PWE, they're a foreign company. As a general rule-of-thumb, Star Trek was never that big overseas (whether from TOS, all the way to the new Star Trek film). Of course they're not entirely sure of the IP, even as they invested for a foothold in our market.

But regardless of the changes they've given, which are annoying at worst, they're investing in STO. And with this investment, STO's future is a lot more certain.

And while PWE is only investing in the game, it's Cryptic who's doing the franchise justice, even as they have to do it a little at a time while developing the game.

altrocks · July 2012

Well, what options would have been out there that could handle a AAA MMO title linked to a strong IP?

There's only a few who have done it at all, let alone well, but let's see:

Sony/SOE - The things they did to SWG and DCUO speak for themselves. In many ways, they're almost as bad as PWE, especially with their similar lottery and remove-with-cash-store-purchase caps. They have some older games that have been run mostly well for a long time, but honestly, the more recent titles and their treatment at the hands of SOE have been appalling. And, if you've never had the pleasure for yourself, SOE customer support is actually WORSE than PWE. Amazing, but true. SOE's financial troubles over the last 18 months have made it almost as bad as Atari was at the time. There was no chance.

Turbine - Probably the best bet, IMO, but I still think it would have been a huge failure there. Turbine has done really well with the F2P market for LoTRO and DDO and could have done a STO F2P transition much better than PWE did. I don't think they have the needed resources to handle a third game of this size, however. At present time, they barely seem to be able to handle running 2 games since both continue on with horrendous lag and bug problems for months/years at a time. Add to that the fact that Warner probably doesn't care about the Trek IP at all, nor would they want to try and promote a Viacom/Paramount property. It was never gonna happen.

Blizzard - They would have sold it off for parts, or TRIBBLE it up into little bits to feed to WoW and D3. I doubt they would've even bothered buying it at all since they do more than well enough on their own. Even if they did, I can't imagine merging Cryptic accounts with Blizzard, everyone dealing with Warden being shoved into a game that was never meant for it, and/or developers/businessmen trying to apply WoW-dynamics to STO.

EA Conglomerate Gaming Corp. - Probably the only real alternative out there that wouldn't be a lateral move, quality-wise. I can't imagine what EA would have done with STO, but it probably would have been noticeably better than what we have now. I doubt they would have gone F2P, for one thing. They may have sunk a little extra money into it and continued expanding on STFs or opened up PvP and the Faction system, maybe? Who can really know. I'm sure they would have continued charging for it. If SWTOR hadn't been coming out they very well might have done that. However, they already have a space MMO, and it has a hugely strong IP attached to it, so there's no way it was gonna happen.

Funcom - ***? AO? TSW nearing release? Even if they could handle a game like STO, they didn't have the incentive or money to make it happen.

All that left, really, were the Pay2Win studios like PWE. And I think any other would have done pretty much the same as PWE has.

cptjhunter · July 2012

EA, but only if Bioware can assist cryptic.(my opinion) With all the cryptic guys have had to deal with with their new overlords,and having to change currency , forums, and other software to suit PWEs standards, I think they are doing the best they can for the moment.

beezle23 · July 2012

trek21 wrote: »

Atari more-or-less let Cryptic do it's own thing with STO, not caring about investing in it..

Well, it's not like Atari had a lot of spare cash to invest in things, they've been circling the financial drain for a while.

They sold off Cryptic as a desperation move -- it being one of the few things they had worth anything. I can't see the rights to outdated Atari IP really grabbing anyone's attention. And Tera isn't theirs, they're just the NA Publisher (Distributor) for it. And even if it was theirs, I'm not sure how desirable it is after the Lolicon Lagomorph debacle.

As far as autonomy, IIRC from a random Dev post I won't be able to find because of the forum merger, Cryptic is still running their own show for the most part under PWE.

foxalpha5 wrote: »

Here is a question: what exactly is PWE doing to make you not like them? Besides lockboxes, which really aren't as horrible as everyone says. Just annoying.

And someone has listened to the players: they've seriously toned down the lockbox drops. Doff pack "extras" are a much better way to deal with the special ships, IMHO.

Sure, the account merging and forum "standardization" has been a debacle, but merging account databases is never pretty. I used to work for a MegaISP that at the time was glomming up smaller ISP's. That was a disaster that makes the PWE/Cryptic changeover look like a sneeze by comparison.

The real mistake they made was doing it all at once instead of in steps -- forum standardization, then account merger, then this "Account Guard" thing.

atomicfb · July 2012

The fact is the answer to the question is no one...

A Star Trek IP isn't Bioware's cup of tea and their experience with SWTOR shows its.

Sony... SWG nuff said.

Blizzard... only does their own properties.

EA as a publisher maybe if a studio that was part of their network did it.

You have to remember that most Star Trek games, SFC+ etc were niche games and while some sold well they typically were not as main stream as other games. Video game wise the IP has languished for some time and had plenty of failures. No big studio was going to touch it with a ten foot pole. Not the mention the oversight that CBS would have plus licensing fees etc.

We may not like it but PWE is attempting to invest in STO so we might as well enjoy it while we can cause even for all its flaws STO is currently all we got.

cormoran · July 2012

I don't think it really matters, either way Cryptic would still be the dev studio making the game. I think many of the problems with the game itself come from the Cryptic part of the business rather than the Atari or PWE side.

anazonda · July 2012

Was selling Cryptic to PWE a bad idea on Ataris side? Not at all... I't saved them from drowning.

Champs and STO was the only thing making Atari real money, and as such the only real asset they had. Both are held by Cryptic.

Despite some misguided comments you will see here on the forums, STO was doing pretty well on the Subscription model (Come on... It's common sense... Why else would PWE pay frackign 50 million?), and they saw a opportunity to make it even more profitable as Cryptic was willing to go F2P on it, and they took it.

Was PWE a bad company to get a hold on STO? From my point of view, YES.

They are trying to convert STO into a Asian game. And hey... I'm sure that model works well and suits the needs of that market, but it clearly doesn't suit the western marked.
Why else would there be so much opposition to it, both here on the forums, in the pod-casts and even in zone chat, from the people who don't even go to the first two?

I would have loved seeing Activision take it over. Yes, the first few Star Trek games they made were pretty bad, and their methods aren't always clean but as they progressed they got a real good hold on how it worked, and BC and EF2 are two of the most sucessful Trek games ever.

twg042370 · July 2012

Who would have been better to buy Cryptic?

All of your mothers since it's their duty to keep you from imploding when you discover the world doesn't revolve around your desires.

iconians · July 2012

I personally would have wished for Take Two Interactive, given their success with publishing the works from Rockstar Games and 2K Games, and the fact they refused to be bought out by EA despite an impressive offer.

EA and SOE would have been hands down the worst possible publishers for STO. Their business practices are far shadier than anything PWE has done. While SOE is successful, they buy MMOs and put them on life support. EA? I know the Bioware fanboys in here think EA would have been the best thing since sliced bread, but keep in mind that EA was voted the worst company in America in April 2012 by The Consumerist. It managed to beat the Bank of America as the worst company. The Bank of America.

They have a reputation for treating their employees extremely unfairly, for liquidating development studios who create a poor-quality release, and don't get me started on Origin and how the EULA pretty much gives EA the right to do what they want to your hard drive.

And if Cryptic was bought out by EA? You can expect every single one of us to be forced to download Origin and sign over our hard drives to EA before we were allowed to log into STO or CO.

PWE has done things I don't agree with, but the fact is they're successful with what they do. We've seen more stuff added to STO since the acquisition. PWE is still exploring the North American market, and I think with Cryptic Studios and Runic Studios showing them how it should be done... PWE will learn a lot. Cryptic Studios makes successful MMOs, and their business practices while not 100% untarnished... are ethically more sound than their competitors at EA Games.

cmdrskyfaller · July 2012

CCP, makers of EVE.

ikenstein1 · July 2012

I would not want Atari back. They released the game after one year of development, opened a cash shop and moved all the devs to a new project. Anyone that was unhappy about this got called a hater.

At least PWE are improving the game. They have done more in a couple of months than Atari did since the game was released. Plus you can now even earn Atari credits in game. I don't like the lock boxes and pay to win, but without PWE I don't think Star Trek online would have lasted much longer.

kamiyama317 · July 2012

Any business located in the United States.

longasc · July 2012

thedoctorbluebox wrote: »

For the record, I do not believe that PWE is currently doing the Star Trek franchise justice with this game.

If I recall correctly nobody ever did Star Trek justice in your eyes. I am afraid you would have to run the show yourself.

I am sorry but this hypothetical "which other company would turn STO into the garden of Eden of Trek" stuff is just lame. We have to deal with PWE as we had to deal with Atari, personally I am quite positively surprised by PWE so far.

thlaylierah · July 2012

Pwe is not doing that bad by this game.

I think all the bad stuff is being slid by them.

We need a "Report Bonehead Move To PWE" button.

For example, upgrading the gambling ships for free.

wolfdelyon · July 2012

I'm actually pretty happy with PWE compared to other MMO companies. I only tried two of their games (PWI and FW), but both look very nice. On the other hand, I found games like SWTOR and DCUO quite boring and burdensome (from a casual semi-noob perspective). All in all, Cryptic games (STO and CO) were alluring right from the start for me. From what I saw, the PWE games I played were also quite impressive. I also recall Age of Conan to be rather nice, but I think they take money for raising the level cap and getting new story-based missions, which I'm not a fan of.

The game is essentially free, where the only things that cost money are nifty high-end stuff that are not required but more desired or wanted. The dev team is larger and they bring many new stuff to the game (DOffs, Fleet bases, Tholians, Defera invasion, Vault mission, PvE 5&20 men missions/events, new ships, and the list goes on). They seem to have a solid plan to add a new sector with story-based content in season 7, and to revamp several systems (e.g., crafting and PvP) in season 8. PWE is obviously investing in STO to tap into the enormous fanbase of star trek (as seen by their efforts to expand to the EU market). From a company-wide view, they are also investing a lot of time and effort on Neverwinter, which we are going to eventually enjoy in STO just like CO are getting stuff that was developed for STO (e.g., journal/calendar got there a month ago and time-based currency, Questionite instead of Dilithium in their case, got there a few months ago). From where I stand, these are all excellent things for the game, and PWE seem to be a good choice for me.

LLAP

husnock1 · July 2012

At least PWE/Cryptic has acknowledged our concerns and at least claim to be trying to fix them. Lockboxes are less common (but still there if that's your thing), S6 looks pretty good, and S7, if it lives up to DStahl's hype, will finally bring in some new missions for which we can use all these so-called "shinys" that've been collecting dust.

With EA? We'd all be banned from STO AND Origin for our complaints because they have such a "wonderful" track record in the customer relations department. And TOR was a bit... dull to me.

I honestly didn't enjoy my short tenure in DCUO either, so I don't trust Sony with STO at all. It was one of the dullest games I've played, and didn't manage to keep me like STO did. And unless it's undergone radical changes since I left, DCUO's character editor was just sad compared to STO's. Plus we'd be paying for all these new Seasons. If that's how SOE would've treated STO, then I wouldn't be here today.

Who would have been better to buy Cryptic?

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