City Of Heroes developers will be joining the burgeoning armada of Atari’s parent company Infogrames, which has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Cryptic Studios.
Cryptic Studios, the creators, publishers and distributors of City Of Heroes/City Of Villains as well as the forthcoming Star Trek MMO, Champions MMO and an unrevealed MMO has a strong track record, and this acquisition seems to mark Atari’s climb back towards the forefront of gaming.
CoX, as it’s called, has already generated $100m in lifetime revenues, and currently employs 150 professionals.
With the recent purchase of Ghostbusters as well, Atari seems to getting just a bit closer to relevance in the gaming marketplace.
Infogrames has made some really positive moves in the games market lately; the 90’s saw the acquisiton of Ocean Software, Beam Software and Gremlin Graphics (c64 fans); whilst the 00’s has already seen it take GT Interactive, Paradigm Interactive, Hasbro, Eden Studios and Shiny Entertainment.
Atari also lost the Unreal Tournament license back to Epic when it joined up with Midway; but with Midway’s massive losses, perhaps Atari will be getting that back soon, too.
