Champions' F2P switch does the business
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.