http-equiv="content-type">



One of the more surprising news stories last week revealed that
Infogrames (the owners of Atari) had purchased Cryptic Studios, whom
many of you may know as the creators of href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/140"> style="font-style: italic;">City of Heroes
and style="font-style: italic;">City of Villains. 
Shortly after the announcement
was made, Ten Ton Hammer spoke with Cryptic's Jack Emmert in an href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/50977">exclusive
interview about what the acquisition might mean for their
hotly anticipated titles href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/860"> style="font-style: italic;">Champions Online
and style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek Online. 
Though it was revealed that development for both titles was still on
track and that Cryptic was quite enthusiastic about the deal, one major
question remained unanswered – Who would be publishing
Champions Online?



It was originally
announced in July that 2k Games, the publishing arm of
Take-Two interactive, had signed a deal to publish the new super hero
themed MMOG from Cryptic.  Once it was revealed that Cryptic
had a new home with Atari though, it seemed highly likely that
a change in publishers was also in Champions' future.



Confirmation came this week in the form of a conference call to
Take-Two's investors by the company's president, Ben Fedder, who simply
stated, “ We no longer intend to publish the MMOG Champions
Online due to Atari's acquisition of Cryptic” according to href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/take-two-drops-champions-online">GamesIndustry.biz. 
Though no official comment has been made by Cryptic at this point,
signs point to Atari as taking over publishing rights to Champions,
along with the formerly announced Star Trek Online.