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Phil Frazier - Cryptic CEO - DECA, STO's Future etc - Reddit Thread
foxman00
Member Posts: 1,481 Arc User
Morning Captains
Phil Frazier, Cryptic CEO posted on reddit a thread to communicate with the player base. Answering some questions as well as informing everyone he has tentatively scheduled to appear in a stream on March 19th. Here is the text of his thread.
Greetings!
As requested, here's a real post. Not some comments buried deep under the comments of another thread.
I've been lurking for a long time but with all of the news about Cryptic recently, you all convinced me it may be time to say something. Please note that I specifically asked our teams to remain quiet on this topic until we had more of our ducks in a row related to this transition. I was reading late last night and decided to casually provide some information.
Yes - things are changing. We're in the process of transitioning our business to DECA. This process is quite involved and has broad implications on the development of the game, issues related to publishing, etc... We still haven't fully resolved all of the complexities but we're making great progress with the team at DECA.
I'd like to make two major points.
Star Trek: Online (plus Neverwinter and Champs) are not being sunset as part of this transition. The primary goal driving this change is to better position all of these titles for continued development into the future. Our shared ambition with DECA is that these games live on for many years to come.
The plan, as of writing this, is to maintain a steady state w/r/t our content cadence and mix. This could change over time as the business evolves, but right now we're pushing to keep things as they are.
With any change as significant as this, it's possible there will be challenges that impact things down the road. We still have a great team at Cryptic, and a growing team at DECA, trying to mitigate risks as best we can. All staff at Cryptic are fully looped-in on the process and as you all have noted in a few threads, some of our team have decided to proactively find other work. Game studios see people come and go all the time, and with as much internal transparency as we're providing into the process, I fully support and celebrate folks taking whatever steps they need to be where they want to be.
I have agreed to participate in a stream with Mike, Brett, and Jarrod in the coming weeks. I think we're pushing for 3/19 but don't hold me to that just yet.
We'll provide more updates there. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for comments here. Some I'll save as questions for the stream. Some I may deal with in real-time below.
Thanks, and nice meeting you all.
Phil Frazier
I also recommend reading the thread as he answers several other questions.
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1b3g360/an_actual_post_come_say_hello/
Phil Frazier, Cryptic CEO posted on reddit a thread to communicate with the player base. Answering some questions as well as informing everyone he has tentatively scheduled to appear in a stream on March 19th. Here is the text of his thread.
Greetings!
As requested, here's a real post. Not some comments buried deep under the comments of another thread.
I've been lurking for a long time but with all of the news about Cryptic recently, you all convinced me it may be time to say something. Please note that I specifically asked our teams to remain quiet on this topic until we had more of our ducks in a row related to this transition. I was reading late last night and decided to casually provide some information.
Yes - things are changing. We're in the process of transitioning our business to DECA. This process is quite involved and has broad implications on the development of the game, issues related to publishing, etc... We still haven't fully resolved all of the complexities but we're making great progress with the team at DECA.
I'd like to make two major points.
Star Trek: Online (plus Neverwinter and Champs) are not being sunset as part of this transition. The primary goal driving this change is to better position all of these titles for continued development into the future. Our shared ambition with DECA is that these games live on for many years to come.
The plan, as of writing this, is to maintain a steady state w/r/t our content cadence and mix. This could change over time as the business evolves, but right now we're pushing to keep things as they are.
With any change as significant as this, it's possible there will be challenges that impact things down the road. We still have a great team at Cryptic, and a growing team at DECA, trying to mitigate risks as best we can. All staff at Cryptic are fully looped-in on the process and as you all have noted in a few threads, some of our team have decided to proactively find other work. Game studios see people come and go all the time, and with as much internal transparency as we're providing into the process, I fully support and celebrate folks taking whatever steps they need to be where they want to be.
I have agreed to participate in a stream with Mike, Brett, and Jarrod in the coming weeks. I think we're pushing for 3/19 but don't hold me to that just yet.
We'll provide more updates there. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for comments here. Some I'll save as questions for the stream. Some I may deal with in real-time below.Thanks, and nice meeting you all.
Phil Frazier
I also recommend reading the thread as he answers several other questions.
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1b3g360/an_actual_post_come_say_hello/
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Comments
I wasn't terribly concerned about STO staying, as it's been successful and influential enough to have contributed designs to PIC. That's a good mark of achievement.
Sadly, many players have been going all doom posting, fear mongering and conspiracy theories for the past couple of weeks. Not that the linked post has stopped many players I have been seeing on twitter and Facebook going all "No, they are lying to us, they don't want to admit the game is being sunset".
Hey the doom and gloomers will be right, eventually. Probably after they're long dead, but they'll be right!
And for just as long, people have been pretending everything was fine, even when it wasn't (I'm reminded of a certain quote about 'the best expansion ever').
Even when predictions don't come true, that doesn't mean there was no reason to make those predictions. The last couple of months haven't been good and there are reasons to be concerned.
Even if things turn out to be not as bad as they seem, I think the doomsayers are closer to reality than those ignoring all the red flags.
[3/25 10:41][Combat (Self)]Your Haymaker deals 26187 (10692) Physical Damage(Critical) to Orinoco.
In January 2024 we had approx. +120.0% more active players then we had in January 2023. December 2023 was approx. 4% higher then December 2022. Not every month is a gain but its a clear sign the game is not dying. When you combine that with with the yearly profit reports that show us as being not only healthy but often in the top 10. Then I am with you, best to ignore the doom posting, fear mongering.
As long as there are active Star Trek TV shows and movies I am not really too concerned. Those will keep a steady stream of new content and new players.
Some of those doomsayers like to cite Steam numbers. Problem with that is that Steam only tracks Steam users. Not total population. There's Arc, Stand Alone Launcher, and probably Epic as well. And lets not forget about the XBox and PlayStation players as well.
No one is ignoring anything, but at the same time no one should cloak doom under the veil of "accepting reality". Unless they come out and say the game is closing down, then to quote Director Fury: "Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on."
(I do miss the old DOOOOOM joke thread though. That was fun. OMG we got Proton weapons? DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Delta Rising actually was a very good expansion after some rebalancing and bug fixes. Except helping the zombies. Zombies must be put down with phasers and blades
Besides some good story episodes and and Voyager cast voice acting, we also got account unlocks for event ships (replacing the old single-character unlocks), the new crafting (much better than the old), bound-to-account gear instead of bound-to-character, specializations, and some good T6 ships like the Guardian, Phantom, Mat'Ha, Faeht.
But are the console versions still going to be supported...
And also can we please have on console the all of the ships stats IE EPG, CONTROL, DRAIN
This isn't a request thread
There's been zero indication consoles are going to be sunset. Ignore the doomsayers.
Just guessing: That is not the DECA I was looking for? :P
This is the site you are looking for..... https://decagames.com/
Thanks!
*browses it*
... uhhh... they know nothing about actual video games/MMOs. Just a big list of mobile games. That will be an interesting ride. I really hope they know what they are doing.
To be fair they're just the publisher, Cryptic is still the ones who are doing the actual work.
Thats very reassuring! Somehow it read a bit more dramatic then with the previous changes. So, just kinda the annual puplisher change then
Yup. You know what the doomsayers are like....game's only being 'dying' for 14 years
Yup.
Wrong. Did you even read the Reddit thread and the CEO's replies? DECA is hiring new staff (currently up to 15) to take over "the actual work". Contributions from DECA is planned for summer. The people who do the mobile games stuff have nothing to do with the Cryptic games intake.
Edit: Instead of the whole thread you can find just his responses by searching his username;
https://old.reddit.com/user/Fillychceeze
Oy, this get möre weird the more I read into it. "Devs are more expensive in US"; looking up to see in what 3rd world country (hyperbolic spoken) they try to get the cheap labor from and get presented with Berlin/Germany
And its still Embracer; just not the Gearbox subsidary anymore; so its more of an inhouse restructuring that likely might have been longer in development already which is good since it will lead to a cleaner transistion.
Will they take in some Cryptic devs & will they move to Germany? Not that this should be really required anymore with current tech available i.e. home offices but I'm curiouos.
I do get the doomsaying; this is very different from the times before when the publishers took the whole Cryptic and everything they had. Here the owner (Embracer) excercises his right to separate the two and put the IPs where he thinks is the best place to make more money.
Obviously a sunset game does not make anything anymore; but putting in an insanely expensive enviroment would make it far more likely to shut down when the cash does not flow in as desired.
On the bright side we do have a strong & passionate Star Trek community in Germany so I totally belive they'll manage to get a team that has the will to confront the insanity that is STO/Cryptics infamous "Spaghetti Code" and the passion to eventually master it.
I'll hope and look forward to a bright future; but I'll not ignore the past of sunset/retired to lifesupport games and act like this is the usual publisher change. This new team will not have the passion Cryptic had; or at least I do not belive they would fight like a raging Lioness for her cups as Crytic did for their titles in the aftermath of the Atari fallout.
Cheaper salary & benefits cost is cheaper <--- And right now to Embracer cost cutting is their #1 priority. If it costs less to hire staff in Germany, it costs them less.
They may make an offer and still allow them to work from home - BUT - said offer would probably entail a salary cut and a need to work 8:00 - 17:00 Central European Time meaning if they're living in California that would be +8 hours, meaning 4PM - 1 AM) (IE 'Swing Shift' type hours).
^^^
Thus most would probably decide to look for jobs with another U.S. based game development company.
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..."
This was posted on X
https://x.com/trekonlinegame/status/1770136399213175039?s=20
"Today at 3pm PT, we're having our first All Fans All Hands, as CEO Phil Frazier and Executive Producers Jarrod Fisher (STO) and Brett Norton (NW, CO) join us to talk about what's coming up in all our games!"
I would be over the 'Moon' if the official forums could thrive and come alive again, without the presence of certain... inhibiting factors.
Wow. Subtle. And ironic. 😏
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> Wow. Subtle. And ironic. 😏
Only the very best for you my friend.
Kinda makes you wonder what the doomsayers do when they discover the Circle K is out of Cheetos and Diet Dew. XD