Cryptic Indeed

Toto dropped a note to the Rat's List today pointing to an article about Cryptic signing up with the devil Microsoft Gaming Studios to publish the Marvel Superhero game. Pause. There are so many interesting things to say about that. Do we need more superhero games? DC and Marvel think so and obviously Cryptic and MS are willing to take money if they can. Isn't that market saturated already, I mean they already have a superhero game right? WoW, as the hindsighters will point out, sunk the myth that we didn't need any more fantasy games. And let's be honest gentlemen (and ladies), can we ever actually have enough hot chick underwear perverts running around?

The independent Cryptic has only one game and when they started, they we're pretty much only interested in making that one game. I heard an ADC talk a few years ago by Jack and was thoroughly impressed by his background in classics and desire to make a video game. He was out of his element, completely devoted and had a very good grasp of what and why he was going to make what he was making. So if you are Marvel or DC and you're going to make a superhero game, who better to make a pass at? The question then for Cryptic is, as long as you are going to be splitting market share, isn't it best to split it with yourself? DC and Marvel ARE obviously going to make super hero MMOs. The E! people there can help but fall prey to those kinds of buzz words. I mean c'mon, it's as obvious as "Jason X".

The NC Soft guys tend to agree with them too. Robbie G recently extolled on the greatness of keeping players within the fold in the Escapist (warning, very ugly Flash based page). SoE has been doing it for a long time with the Station Pass concept. Once you realize, so the saying goes, that your players are going to turn over in 10 months on average, and if you can assume they are going to go somewhere else in the MMO space, then logically, you should try and have many destinations for them to land at. Hmm. ORLY? Sounds kinda like GM to me.

The smart one here is Cryptic. Using that same indie status that created a great game and sold it to a publisher to turn around and do the same thing all over again. Reminds me more of the casual gaming space where you get Coke to pay for making a game then you reskin it and sell it to Cheetos. Guess you know what I had for breakfast.

So here's to all you independent, fence jumping, non-stable-of-games, underwear perverts who do what you do because you love to do it. Have a Coke and a Cheeto on the publisher. Cheers!