Earlier this week we reported thatAtari had acquired Cryptic Studiosfor a ton of money and the potential of sales bonuses if Crytpic’s future MMOs surpassed minimal expectations. Apparently, Atari wasn’t the only big publisher with its hand in the studio’s cookie jar. Ubisoft wanted the company as well, and wanted it bad enough to express anger that the deal went Atari’s way.
Alain Martinez, Chief financial officer at Ubisoft recently spoke at a UBS conference (viaEurogamer) and said, “We [Ubisoft] lost one deal which we were a bit mad [about]. We lost Crpytic; it’s a US company that was taken by Atari … We were a bit disappointed.” Not to leave such a sour note in the air, Martinez followed it up by saying that Ubisoft is still doing some holiday developer shopping:
We have about three deals within [the] five million Euro range that we are negotiating. Most probably, one or two of them will be closed in the next three or four months.
After hours of research, we’re confident that Martinez’ attitude is the result of drinking too many nutritionally enhanced milkshakes. Often after consuming products, the user can experience bouts of irrational anger and after a prolonged period of use, abnormal hair growth. We haven’t had the chance to confirm either hair growth or testosterone-fueled aggression, but Ubisoft PR probably wouldn’t respond anyway.
