Champions lifetime subs sell out

By Oli Welsh Published 27 August, 2009

Update: No they don't!

Cryptic has sold out of the lifetime and six-month subscriptions for its new superhero MMO Champions Online, forcing it to close the offer early. The deals were originally intended to stay open until the game's launch next week on 1st September.

Fans hoping to take advantage of the offers - which included guaranteed beta access to Star Trek Online among their perks - have kicked up a fuss on the forums, saying Cryptic didn't make the numerical limit to the offers clear enough.

This prompted a response from the developer. "We do sincerely apologize for the rather abrupt end to the promotional offers... Frankly, we never suspected our special offers to be so popular," Cryptic said in a statement, according to IncGamers.

"While we did mention that supplies were limited in an announcement post, we definitely should have emphasised our limits more explicitly in all our messaging. Again, we just never expected supply to be any kind of an issue. The community response to our offers has been... amazing," continued the MMO developer, trying really hard to sound apologetic and not at all smug.

Champions Online launches in Europe on PC on 4th September - that's next Friday. More on the Champions Online gamepage.

Update: Minutes after finishing this story, we read that Cryptic had decided to reinstate the lifetime and six-month offers with no supply limit until midnight, Pacific time, on 31st August. Panic over.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Pirotic #1 3 years ago

    "limited supplies"

    How hard can it be to generate keys? sounds like a bit of a PR stunt to me, no doubt they'll find a few more of these "limited supplies" down the back of the sofa and hope that the initial sell-out creates a mad dash by people who might not have bothered otherwise.

  • TheDudesRug #2 3 years ago

    It looks like a ham-fisted knockabout from what I've seen. So does the fact that they have 'run out' of keys mean that it's not a pile of crap?

    Edit: UPDATE! Does the fact that they have not 'run out' of keys mean that it is a pile of crap?
    Edited by 1 at 27/08/09 @ 12:06

  • DDevil #3 3 years ago

    Yeah, it's jolly amounts of fun. If I had any money I would buy it and subscribe :-(

  • George-Roper #4 3 years ago

    @Piro

    No doubt about it. PR stunt written all over it.

  • j-bo #5 3 years ago

    Thought it was a bit shallow and arse tbh from the beta; amazing first impressions then all a bit 'meh' a few days in.

  • ZuluHero #6 3 years ago

    Heh - "limited amount" probably sounded like a great idea in some PR meeting when they thought they set a figure that their analysts predicted getting in the first place.

    In reality, loads more people than expected wanted them and they saw doller signs ka-ching in their eyes...

  • DFawkes #7 3 years ago

    The nerd rage on the official forums has been incredible. Luckily, like the news story says, they're back until the 1st of August with no supply limit. Shows that sometimes a good bit of forum based anger can change things, which is nice for all those that were waiting on being paid :)

    I'm glad that everyone now has the option, at least for a while. I really love the game and would hate to thing this oversight had put off potential hero allies.

  • mikeck #8 3 years ago

    Thought it was a bit shallow and arse tbh from the beta; amazing first impressions then all a bit 'meh' a few days in.

    Same, I enjoyed the character creation immensely, but from then on it all went slowly downhill. Shame, I was really looking forward to this game.

  • ZuluHero #9 3 years ago

    I'm of 2 minds. On the one hand it sounds cool. Creating your nemisis to battle (read this on the Champions Online thread)sounds like a really original mmo feature. On the other hand i can't get it to run decently on my PC. And my PC runs Aion pretty much maxed.

    Knowing me, I'll probably cave when i see the box on the shelves though...

  • Rubarack #10 3 years ago

    I had the same thing, great character creation, great start followed by a downhill drop. Followed by an enormous quality spike when they did the end of beta event and I got to see the Unity and Nemesis content.

    I can't tell if this is just a publicity stunt though, on the one hand I can definitely see Atari only accepting a finite number of keys, on the other there's nothing more appealing than an offer you can't accept. I'm still going to get a lifetime though, that late game content is absolutely great.
    Edited by 1 at 27/08/09 @ 12:07

  • Spekingur #11 3 years ago

    Easy to generate keys maybe, but these aren't keys. These are subscription offers without any needs to input keys until you get the retail version.
    The keys have already been handed out to the retailers in the form of the hardcopy as well as headstart keys.

    Also beware that when you create a sub like this that you are probably going to have to put in a number/loop that grows smaller each time it is bought/used. My guess is that they never expected to have so many wanting these. We believe it is a simple matter to throw up a few more but is it, really? Don't they have to go through some kind of legal stuff, announcing to this place and that official place that they are adding more, etc? I ask because I don't know and I'm not going to jump to conclusions.

  • Gurgeh #12 3 years ago

    "a shiny path to nowhere" was one review I read. There's a cobbled together end game similar to WoW daily quests; the powers need more balance to the point where you're afraid to take the good ones in case they get nerfed the next day; the whole thing still needs months more work. It's one step forward and one step sideways from CoH but ultimately feels just as pointless.

  • Rack #13 3 years ago

    Exalted by faint criticism much?

    Yeah the game is in shaky MMO first month territory, but there seems to be a real potential and promise of the right direction here.

  • moshegy #14 2 years ago

    It's easy to generate more keys but they most likely wouldn't want to. The more life-time accounts they sell the more accounts will eventually become a cost instead of a gain. I wonder why any MMO company would ever consider them in the first place since it's a big gamble. Basicly you're selling them for a shot of initial cash, hoping that they players who buy them won't stay very long. Heh.

    Just imagine Blizzard having sold lifetime subscriptions for the price of say 1-2 years, then they would've lost 360-540€ per account that's been active since vanilla and that loss would only continue to grow.
    Edited by 1 at 31/08/09 @ 10:17