As part of an earnings report today, Atari announced it is divesting of its interest in Champions Online developer Cryptic Studios, calling the development house a "discontinued operation" as of March 31.
Atari will continue to support all current Cryptic products while the publisher looks to sell the studio, Gamasutra understands. Development on the Bay Area studio's Neverwinter project will continue as normal for the time being.
The studio showed a loss of $7.5 million for the 2010/11 fiscal year period, up from a loss of $17.9 million in the same period a year ago. Most of this was due to turning its super hero MMO Champions Online to a free-to-play game, instead relying on micro-transaction to make money off the game. Its success was apparently not appreciated by parent company Atari.
Source: Gamasutra
Comments
Re: Atari To Divest Cryptic Studios
Despite the loss of jobs this might bring, I can't help but to snicker. Sorry But I've played the games that have been under Cryptic's banner and only one of them is doing well, and that's City of Heroes after Jack Emmerett left and Matt Miller took charge.