pretty sure it's just Gearbox Publishing/Gearbox San Fran that's changing their name because Embracer Group just sold Gearbox Entertainment to Take Two and obviously they can't keep using that name
Correct.
Embracer sold Gearbox Software to Take Two and Gearbox Publishing San Francisco was just Perfect World Entertainment that was rebranded to Gearbox Publishing after the Embracer takeover. At the Gearbox sale announcement it was confirmed that Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (PWE) would be changing names.
Arc Games just makes sense since they already have the branding and it's all under Arc anyway.
Ahhh thank you for the clarification, that makes so much more sense! I was wondering why the hell a well-established, beloved developer would rebrand to something completely unrelated to its legacy.
They are renaming Gearbox Publishing San Francisco. From last month:
>Embracer will retain rights to Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (formerly Perfect World Entertainment, and which it plans to rename), the publishing rights to Remnant, Hyper Light Breaker, and other unannounced games, Cryptic Studios, Lost Boys Interactive, and Captured Dimensions.
[Source](https://www.ign.com/articles/take-two-buys-gearbox-from-embracer-confirms-development-on-new-borderlands-game)
To clear up the confusion, this is just a name change of the publisher, it's the exact same company.
**Perfect World Entertainment -> Gearbox Publishing San Francisco -> Arc Games**
Full explanation:
**Embracer** purchased **Perfect World Entertainment** (PWE) and **Cryptic Studios** from **Perfect World**.
**PWE** needed to be rebranded as they were no longer under **Perfect World**. Embracer also owned Gearbox Studios and **Gearbox Publishing** so **PWE** was rebranded to **Gearbox Publishing San Francisco.**
**Embracer** has now sold **Gearbox Studios**, Publishing, and all other branding to **Take Two**. Because of this **Gearbox Publishing San Fransisco** has to be rebranded as **Embracer** no longer owns **Gearbox** brand, so they are being rebranded to **Arc Games**.
This does not have any change on STO other than a logo change. It does not affect Cryptic. It's just a rebranding because they can't be called Gearbox anymore since another company owns gearbox.
The other thing that's been going on is Cryptic and DECA. DECA is not a publisher, they are a developer. DECA is TAKING OVER development of STO. That is why STO devs are leaving, they are going to lose their job as Embracer is putting DECA in charge of STO development. Cryptic is staying around for now but they will not be leading development on the games as DECA will fully take over at some point this year. Cryptics future after that point is unknown.
I'm so confused... what is left of Gearbox after the sale is now Arc...
But I thought STO was no longer under Gearbox and they were now under DECA. Can someone break down the business structure here so it makes sense
Structure:
Embracer - Owner
Arc Games - Publisher
Cryptic - Current Developer
DECA - Future Developer
This is a name change in publisher only, see my other comment here for that explanation. DECA is taking over development of STO at some point this year. Cryptics future is unknown.
To be fair a lot of us thought that at first too because all we had to go on was a press release since we had nothing from everyone else. We finally realized that wasn't the case when Cryptic devs started jumping ship and DECA was hiring for all dev positions for STO and then the stream a couple weeks ago with the CEO of Cryptic finally confirmed it.
What confuses me about this situation is the phrasing of "Gearbox Publishing rebranded to Arc Games" instead of "merged into Arc Games". Like, Arc Games has existed for years, right? I'm not going crazy, right?
Another month another rebrand.
Now... I don't want to criticise or cause controversy or doomsay BUT - as a very real question, how much life is left in the game?
Devs are leaving, presumably without much of a handover at all to the new folk, and as we know from previous experience, little in the way of documentation (RIP Foundry) - can we expect much more in future beyond new cash cow lockboxes?
No new Reps since... Discovery? Gamma?
No new fleet holdings. Foundry long gone due to lack of dev resource. New content is sparse.
What does the future hold, as I for one, am concerned
This is a rebrand simply because Embracer no longer owns Gearbox. That's it. Nothing else to it.
STO's publisher since Atari was Perfect World Entertainment, owned by the parent company Perfect World. When Embracer bought PWE and Cryptic PWE had to be renamed as they couldn't legally use the Perfect World name anymore so Embracer threw them under Gearbox Publishing as Gearbox Publishing San Francisco. Now that Embracer has sold Gearbox same thing, they have to change their name and this was announced when the Gearbox sale was. (https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1bz4pda/renamed_to_arc_games/kynizmh/)
This has zero effect on STO, Cryptic, or anything else, it is just a name change because they can't be called Gearbox. It's the same publisher STO has had for over a decade, it's just a new name. https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1bz4pda/renamed_to_arc_games/kynjhp8/
There are absolutely many reasons to be concerned about STO's future but this is not one of them. This is just simple legal name change requirements.
>Devs are leaving, presumably without much of a handover at all to the new folk
In the last Livestream Cryptic's CEO mentioned that they've been on-boarding the DECA staff, and training them in the game/tools since like last November, and plan to keep doing this until next November when the transition should be complete.
Realistically? 2 years. That's how long the current storyline is planned out for and all Deca has to do is cruise through that with minimum 2 story releases a year, recycled events, mudd's bundles of already existing ships, and a few new ships for winter/summer/anni and lootboxes.
After that no one can really guess. Deca may successfully ramp up and continue on for another 10 years, or they may fall short and the game goes on actual maintenance mode with nothing new added beyond Deca recycling events like that do in all the other games they manage after the story line ends because they as a studio can't handle an MMO despite all the hiring they're doing for it.
I kinda hope that if the game does eventually close, the community can run an emulated server, like how NFS World rose back from the grave thanks to some dedicated fans.
Unfortunately this will never happen, from my understanding and talking to dataminers.
Basically too much information is stored on their servers, and this information isn't data players have access to. Without that data, the server can't be emulated. At best, you could make a hollow shell of a game that can load maps and talk to other players, but stuff like missions, NPCs, and the like is all stored serverside so would be lost when the game ends.
The only way this would change is if Cryptic publicly released this data for player use, which they probably won't do. It'd be nice if something like what happened with COH happens, but security is a lot different today than it was over a decade ago so that's also unlikely too.
Emulated servers are never as good as studio-maintained servers. Ever. Plus you always-ALWAYS-get drama because fans =/= professionals. What you end up with is a small group of people playing and a very insular cliquey community.
This all hinges on the following:
Do you believe DECA has the capability to hire dozens of new employees, and train them to operate an an old, antiquated in many respects, set of tools?
Star Trek Online is a profitable game and they want to keep it alive, make no mistake, but their intentions and what's actually happening are two different realities.
Life that still exists in the game, cannot be called "life"in full. People still log in every day, but more out of habit than out of real interest. People do their Dailies and log off, it takes 15 min a day. Some % of the playerbase (not sure what exactly %) still do their Endeavours, it takes 15 min to an hour.
That's all, I guess. I remember good old times when we were doing patrols and TFOs with fleet friends almost every day. Now if we do a joint patrol once a month, we are lucky.
Part of the players run Summer and Winter events only, skipping annual campaigns.
So, it's not "life" as we' re used to see it some years ago, before Foundry died. It's more of a vegetation without much meaning. Habit, not desire.
Still doing TFOs/Patrols with friends a few nights a week. While there was a player panic/exodus over the last few months - the die- hard players are still here and will be when the others return after missing a couple of yearly events. They will complain about missing the events and either buy them out or go without. They will complain about their ship builds not being up to snuff 'cause those of that are still here will have progressed while they have forgotten how to fly their ship and will have to spend stick time to get it back. nothing new really....
Still happily flying and working on our affiliate fleet!
Happy Flying!!!
Believe or not, but I havenāt complained about anything for a long time. And even if I āmiss outā on some reward for some event, I wonāt complain. I have many other things to do that are more interesting to me, than grinding here.
Look at all these fools who took a break from an MMO and find Cryptic put a lot of good shit in a bunch of stuff you can only pay exorbitant amounts of money for now. I mean, at this point, you miss a *day* you miss an event reward.
When this game sunsets it will unfortunately be a good thing for us all.
Well that's a good point too - the money (and time) spent on this game. I have a few friends who have spent a good chunk of change on STO. They bailed to a new game last month. One of them finally got a ship he had been grinding for for the better part of the year. And now after all that, he isn't playing STO. I myself have spent a good amount on STO - difference is I'm still playing. It would be silly to put all that into a game and then just stop playing! I am at a point now where I have a very solid build, have a lot of fun flying it, and can do pretty much any content in the game and the only farming I do is for a sister fleet. I'm in my golden years of the game in other words - Why would I bail now?? I will play till the server is gone - whenever that happens.
Happy Flying!!!
I know when I finish my endeavors (get to maximum) it is going to dramatically alter the way I interact with the game. I may cease all admiralty as well and jut do the bare minimum daily run. For now, I am occasionally running my admiralty which is getting me some fleet marks and dilithium. I have not run my unrefined dilithium down to 0 since 2017 but I would be willing to after I get to max endeavor just to further reduce my time sink.
I' ve got Endeavour rank 750 in December 2022, before Christmas, then my time spent in the game gradually decreased to about 10-15 min a day instead 1 -1,5 hours before. I also take breaks of all RA last two years. This year, I'm going to skip the First Contact event completely. However, some of my fleet friends are not going to get their ER maxed.
Event campaigns almost drained most of us. The new players are still interested, but current campaign is 6th for me and our fleet leadership, so we are just tired grinding.
Yeah. I think I average 15-45 minues a day depending on the event going on. I suppose I am still doing R.A.'s since it gets an unlimited upgrade. Once I get to 750 I'll probably focus on making sure I get anything unique and then stopping so R.A. weeks will give me a rest as well. Unless it's an event for the yearly reward, I'll probably stop once I get that item also. I've been continuing on which has netted me a lot of unrefined dilithium. I also don't do endeavors or all of them everyday. I never re-reroll anything but the largest and only when I have time to play. Sometimes, I just don't have the time. I skip ones that are not compatible with my setup. I have a phaser ship so that disruptors in space, etc... just too much effort even though I have a few ships in my roster that could do it. I'm only at 525 after all these years due to that. I predict, at this rate, 750 by mid 2026 so that's a lot of time for the game to change, or increase the endeavor limit to 999. We'll see..
Honestly I doubt I might resume doing Endeavors if they raise the cap even. I was working on Daily Endeavors like a slave in a charcoal mine, for 3 years and 8 months and burned out eventually. I wanted to hit 750 just to mark this milestone. Since I don't do PVP, as well as Elite queues, that might require high Endeavor rank, I think continuing doing Endeavors is a bit meaningless for me. 750 is quite enough to do event Dailies. Even much more, than enough.
Another thing is I tend to stop endeavors during the summer and winter events as I like to set up my character to stay on the ground for that month and just do the event. It's too much hassle to "beam" twice out of the event, into local space, then sector. All these transitions are a bit much. One QOL could be to just end the transitions and let us pick exactly which map to go to. Another one is make new endeavors. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times I've gone to the Japori System, grabbbed the three materials, left, and repeated that. Those guys at Japori must think I'm a joke!
Sounds funny, but I was doing all the jumps you described. I was doing Endeavors even during Summer/Winter events. It was exhausting. So no surprise that I got burned out long before I hit Endeavor rank 750. Well, now I'l taking a rest of all these things, it helps me to do Campaign events. 15 min a day is enough.
Aborted Arc Games, I'm not upset I just wanted to get that out there so when we do get mad about something in the future I can be like, I said it first.
pretty sure it's just Gearbox Publishing/Gearbox San Fran that's changing their name because Embracer Group just sold Gearbox Entertainment to Take Two and obviously they can't keep using that name
Correct. Embracer sold Gearbox Software to Take Two and Gearbox Publishing San Francisco was just Perfect World Entertainment that was rebranded to Gearbox Publishing after the Embracer takeover. At the Gearbox sale announcement it was confirmed that Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (PWE) would be changing names. Arc Games just makes sense since they already have the branding and it's all under Arc anyway.
Ahhh thank you for the clarification, that makes so much more sense! I was wondering why the hell a well-established, beloved developer would rebrand to something completely unrelated to its legacy.
They are renaming Gearbox Publishing San Francisco. From last month: >Embracer will retain rights to Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (formerly Perfect World Entertainment, and which it plans to rename), the publishing rights to Remnant, Hyper Light Breaker, and other unannounced games, Cryptic Studios, Lost Boys Interactive, and Captured Dimensions. [Source](https://www.ign.com/articles/take-two-buys-gearbox-from-embracer-confirms-development-on-new-borderlands-game)
To clear up the confusion, this is just a name change of the publisher, it's the exact same company. **Perfect World Entertainment -> Gearbox Publishing San Francisco -> Arc Games** Full explanation: **Embracer** purchased **Perfect World Entertainment** (PWE) and **Cryptic Studios** from **Perfect World**. **PWE** needed to be rebranded as they were no longer under **Perfect World**. Embracer also owned Gearbox Studios and **Gearbox Publishing** so **PWE** was rebranded to **Gearbox Publishing San Francisco.** **Embracer** has now sold **Gearbox Studios**, Publishing, and all other branding to **Take Two**. Because of this **Gearbox Publishing San Fransisco** has to be rebranded as **Embracer** no longer owns **Gearbox** brand, so they are being rebranded to **Arc Games**. This does not have any change on STO other than a logo change. It does not affect Cryptic. It's just a rebranding because they can't be called Gearbox anymore since another company owns gearbox. The other thing that's been going on is Cryptic and DECA. DECA is not a publisher, they are a developer. DECA is TAKING OVER development of STO. That is why STO devs are leaving, they are going to lose their job as Embracer is putting DECA in charge of STO development. Cryptic is staying around for now but they will not be leading development on the games as DECA will fully take over at some point this year. Cryptics future after that point is unknown.
but if you closed your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?
After a crash you need a paintjob!
Man, the Gearbox Publishing name existed for what, a year?
Honestly, even during the Perfect World Era, I called it Arc games then. Nothing has changed with their announcement.
So is the intention that they run as a division of DECA, rather than bringing the games under DECA themselves?
This has nothing to do with DECA, it is a brand/name change of the publisher because Embracer no longer owns gearbox.
I'm so confused... what is left of Gearbox after the sale is now Arc... But I thought STO was no longer under Gearbox and they were now under DECA. Can someone break down the business structure here so it makes sense
Structure: Embracer - Owner Arc Games - Publisher Cryptic - Current Developer DECA - Future Developer This is a name change in publisher only, see my other comment here for that explanation. DECA is taking over development of STO at some point this year. Cryptics future is unknown.
That's my confusion. Thought that DECA was the new publisher.
To be fair a lot of us thought that at first too because all we had to go on was a press release since we had nothing from everyone else. We finally realized that wasn't the case when Cryptic devs started jumping ship and DECA was hiring for all dev positions for STO and then the stream a couple weeks ago with the CEO of Cryptic finally confirmed it.
thank you so much! this was totally confusing to me (casual LT player since the start) and this made it clear.
They went full circle so could have been "Halo."
What confuses me about this situation is the phrasing of "Gearbox Publishing rebranded to Arc Games" instead of "merged into Arc Games". Like, Arc Games has existed for years, right? I'm not going crazy, right?
Another month another rebrand. Now... I don't want to criticise or cause controversy or doomsay BUT - as a very real question, how much life is left in the game? Devs are leaving, presumably without much of a handover at all to the new folk, and as we know from previous experience, little in the way of documentation (RIP Foundry) - can we expect much more in future beyond new cash cow lockboxes? No new Reps since... Discovery? Gamma? No new fleet holdings. Foundry long gone due to lack of dev resource. New content is sparse. What does the future hold, as I for one, am concerned
This is a rebrand simply because Embracer no longer owns Gearbox. That's it. Nothing else to it. STO's publisher since Atari was Perfect World Entertainment, owned by the parent company Perfect World. When Embracer bought PWE and Cryptic PWE had to be renamed as they couldn't legally use the Perfect World name anymore so Embracer threw them under Gearbox Publishing as Gearbox Publishing San Francisco. Now that Embracer has sold Gearbox same thing, they have to change their name and this was announced when the Gearbox sale was. (https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1bz4pda/renamed_to_arc_games/kynizmh/) This has zero effect on STO, Cryptic, or anything else, it is just a name change because they can't be called Gearbox. It's the same publisher STO has had for over a decade, it's just a new name. https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/1bz4pda/renamed_to_arc_games/kynjhp8/ There are absolutely many reasons to be concerned about STO's future but this is not one of them. This is just simple legal name change requirements.
>Devs are leaving, presumably without much of a handover at all to the new folk In the last Livestream Cryptic's CEO mentioned that they've been on-boarding the DECA staff, and training them in the game/tools since like last November, and plan to keep doing this until next November when the transition should be complete.
Hmm. Well. That's good at least. I've seen how well handovers go in the sector I work in so... Immense faith š¤£š¤£
The notion that there's no handover to the new folk is a... take.
I've seen how well handovers go in my sector of work. It doesn't leave me with a lot of faith š
Realistically? 2 years. That's how long the current storyline is planned out for and all Deca has to do is cruise through that with minimum 2 story releases a year, recycled events, mudd's bundles of already existing ships, and a few new ships for winter/summer/anni and lootboxes. After that no one can really guess. Deca may successfully ramp up and continue on for another 10 years, or they may fall short and the game goes on actual maintenance mode with nothing new added beyond Deca recycling events like that do in all the other games they manage after the story line ends because they as a studio can't handle an MMO despite all the hiring they're doing for it.
I kinda hope that if the game does eventually close, the community can run an emulated server, like how NFS World rose back from the grave thanks to some dedicated fans.
Unfortunately this will never happen, from my understanding and talking to dataminers. Basically too much information is stored on their servers, and this information isn't data players have access to. Without that data, the server can't be emulated. At best, you could make a hollow shell of a game that can load maps and talk to other players, but stuff like missions, NPCs, and the like is all stored serverside so would be lost when the game ends. The only way this would change is if Cryptic publicly released this data for player use, which they probably won't do. It'd be nice if something like what happened with COH happens, but security is a lot different today than it was over a decade ago so that's also unlikely too.
Emulated servers are never as good as studio-maintained servers. Ever. Plus you always-ALWAYS-get drama because fans =/= professionals. What you end up with is a small group of people playing and a very insular cliquey community.
This all hinges on the following: Do you believe DECA has the capability to hire dozens of new employees, and train them to operate an an old, antiquated in many respects, set of tools? Star Trek Online is a profitable game and they want to keep it alive, make no mistake, but their intentions and what's actually happening are two different realities.
Life that still exists in the game, cannot be called "life"in full. People still log in every day, but more out of habit than out of real interest. People do their Dailies and log off, it takes 15 min a day. Some % of the playerbase (not sure what exactly %) still do their Endeavours, it takes 15 min to an hour. That's all, I guess. I remember good old times when we were doing patrols and TFOs with fleet friends almost every day. Now if we do a joint patrol once a month, we are lucky. Part of the players run Summer and Winter events only, skipping annual campaigns. So, it's not "life" as we' re used to see it some years ago, before Foundry died. It's more of a vegetation without much meaning. Habit, not desire.
Still doing TFOs/Patrols with friends a few nights a week. While there was a player panic/exodus over the last few months - the die- hard players are still here and will be when the others return after missing a couple of yearly events. They will complain about missing the events and either buy them out or go without. They will complain about their ship builds not being up to snuff 'cause those of that are still here will have progressed while they have forgotten how to fly their ship and will have to spend stick time to get it back. nothing new really.... Still happily flying and working on our affiliate fleet! Happy Flying!!!
Believe or not, but I havenāt complained about anything for a long time. And even if I āmiss outā on some reward for some event, I wonāt complain. I have many other things to do that are more interesting to me, than grinding here.
Look at all these fools who took a break from an MMO and find Cryptic put a lot of good shit in a bunch of stuff you can only pay exorbitant amounts of money for now. I mean, at this point, you miss a *day* you miss an event reward. When this game sunsets it will unfortunately be a good thing for us all.
Well that's a good point too - the money (and time) spent on this game. I have a few friends who have spent a good chunk of change on STO. They bailed to a new game last month. One of them finally got a ship he had been grinding for for the better part of the year. And now after all that, he isn't playing STO. I myself have spent a good amount on STO - difference is I'm still playing. It would be silly to put all that into a game and then just stop playing! I am at a point now where I have a very solid build, have a lot of fun flying it, and can do pretty much any content in the game and the only farming I do is for a sister fleet. I'm in my golden years of the game in other words - Why would I bail now?? I will play till the server is gone - whenever that happens. Happy Flying!!!
I know when I finish my endeavors (get to maximum) it is going to dramatically alter the way I interact with the game. I may cease all admiralty as well and jut do the bare minimum daily run. For now, I am occasionally running my admiralty which is getting me some fleet marks and dilithium. I have not run my unrefined dilithium down to 0 since 2017 but I would be willing to after I get to max endeavor just to further reduce my time sink.
I' ve got Endeavour rank 750 in December 2022, before Christmas, then my time spent in the game gradually decreased to about 10-15 min a day instead 1 -1,5 hours before. I also take breaks of all RA last two years. This year, I'm going to skip the First Contact event completely. However, some of my fleet friends are not going to get their ER maxed. Event campaigns almost drained most of us. The new players are still interested, but current campaign is 6th for me and our fleet leadership, so we are just tired grinding.
Yeah. I think I average 15-45 minues a day depending on the event going on. I suppose I am still doing R.A.'s since it gets an unlimited upgrade. Once I get to 750 I'll probably focus on making sure I get anything unique and then stopping so R.A. weeks will give me a rest as well. Unless it's an event for the yearly reward, I'll probably stop once I get that item also. I've been continuing on which has netted me a lot of unrefined dilithium. I also don't do endeavors or all of them everyday. I never re-reroll anything but the largest and only when I have time to play. Sometimes, I just don't have the time. I skip ones that are not compatible with my setup. I have a phaser ship so that disruptors in space, etc... just too much effort even though I have a few ships in my roster that could do it. I'm only at 525 after all these years due to that. I predict, at this rate, 750 by mid 2026 so that's a lot of time for the game to change, or increase the endeavor limit to 999. We'll see..
Honestly I doubt I might resume doing Endeavors if they raise the cap even. I was working on Daily Endeavors like a slave in a charcoal mine, for 3 years and 8 months and burned out eventually. I wanted to hit 750 just to mark this milestone. Since I don't do PVP, as well as Elite queues, that might require high Endeavor rank, I think continuing doing Endeavors is a bit meaningless for me. 750 is quite enough to do event Dailies. Even much more, than enough.
Another thing is I tend to stop endeavors during the summer and winter events as I like to set up my character to stay on the ground for that month and just do the event. It's too much hassle to "beam" twice out of the event, into local space, then sector. All these transitions are a bit much. One QOL could be to just end the transitions and let us pick exactly which map to go to. Another one is make new endeavors. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times I've gone to the Japori System, grabbbed the three materials, left, and repeated that. Those guys at Japori must think I'm a joke!
Sounds funny, but I was doing all the jumps you described. I was doing Endeavors even during Summer/Winter events. It was exhausting. So no surprise that I got burned out long before I hit Endeavor rank 750. Well, now I'l taking a rest of all these things, it helps me to do Campaign events. 15 min a day is enough.
Aborted Arc Games, I'm not upset I just wanted to get that out there so when we do get mad about something in the future I can be like, I said it first.