Champions' F2P switch does the business

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 16 February, 2011

Early TDU2 sales meet expectations.

MMO maker Cryptic Studios has once again propped up parent company Atari with money made from Star Trek Online and Champions Online.

Both games helped online revenue for the first nine months of the 2010/2011 financial year rise nearly 500 per cent from the previous year to €18.4 million (£15.4 million).

Much of this improvement was down to Champions Online's switch from a subscription based MMO to free-to-play, the initial results of which were "promising", Atari said.

Early sales performance for online-enabled racer Test Drive Unlimited 2, which Oli awarded 7/10 to, were "in line with expectations".

Still, French company Atari's revenues for the 2010 holiday quarter were down 52.5 per cent from the year before to €11.4 million (£9.5 million).

And nine month revenues for the fiscal year (1st April to 31st December 2010) were down 55.7 per cent at €41 million (£34.3 million), compared to the same period in the previous financial year when Terminal Reality's Ghostbusters: The Video Game was released.

Atari blamed the decrease on its new focus on selling fewer but more profitable games and online games.

"Over the next few months, we look forward to new game releases based upon our classic Atari game franchises as well as Ghostbusters, Dungeons and Dragons and The Witcher," CEO Jim Wilson said.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcmonkeyplc #1 1 year ago

    So when is Star Trek Online going free to play then?!

  • Dizzy #2 1 year ago

    At the moment STO seems to have a stable player base... so probably not very soon.

  • speed182 #3 1 year ago

    F2P seems to be increasing revenue for most MMO's now.

    Why aren't we seeing newer releases starting off with F2P if it's going to make more money?

  • tenebrae #4 1 year ago

    Because MMO development is not a quick process. F2P was quite much an untested area in the West before Turbine blew the bank with DDO and LotRO F2P successes. All of the MMOs released recently, and most upcoming ones were started before Turbine proved F2P, so they can either a) postpone publishing and add F2P to their MMOs or b) release now and create subscription revenue, then consider adding F2P.

    I suppose that many MMO dev cycles that are getting started now are going to consider supporting F2P/store options from the get-go.
    Edited by tenebrae at 16/02/11 @ 09:17

  • icematt12 #5 1 year ago

    Now you have met your expectations, how about meeting ours and making TDU2 more stable.

  • levitate #6 1 year ago

    I guess people fancied the dresses more than the actual game then.

  • dsmx #7 1 year ago

    STO isn't going free to play for a long time.

  • nuanimal #8 1 year ago

    EG if you're going to report the financial fgures then can you please see if its possible to identify the profits from revenues?

    I appreciate some companies aren't that forthcoming - but it would be nice to try. Surely profit is more interesting than revenue - and would give a n insight into how companies are managing?

  • actionfitz #9 1 year ago

    @speed182

    "F2P seems to be increasing revenue for most MMO's now.

    Why aren't we seeing newer releases starting off with F2P if it's going to make more money"

    Probably because being able to 'launch' at £30 at retail then go F2P 6 - 12 months later is proving rather profitable.
    The revenue generated from those initial launch sales is no chump change.
    /my thoughts.

    --

    Negged?
    For what?
    Someone is offended by an observation?
    /puzzled.
    Edited by actionfitz at 16/02/11 @ 12:28

  • Roarster #10 1 year ago

    Didn't Champions Online only go F2P about 2 weeks ago? Seems a bit unlikely to me that those 2 weeks have made a massive difference in the revenue for an entire financial year.

    Are you sure you are reading this financial statement properly or is this entire article just a bunch of incorrect assumptions?

  • iokthemonkey #11 1 year ago

    I could see how the subscriptions could boost their revenue but - as Roarster says - it sounds a bit of an assumption on Eurgamer's part that the F2P-shift meeting their early goals and CO/STO making them money.

    Obviously I could be wrong and Atari could be claiming that, but if they are it's a claim I find dubious.