What’s Jack Emmert been up to since surfacing briefly to talk about Neverwinter a few months ago? Apparently climbing the corporate ladder, as Cryptic has just announced via press release that the game design veteran has been tapped to serve as CEO of the company that brought us Star Trek Online, Champions Online, and way back when, City of Heroes.
Emmert is replacing John Needham and says that, while the latter will be missed, Cryptic remains committed to developing AAA gaming experiences. “I co-founded this company and am extremely proud of everything our teams have achieved. We will continue to set high goals for ourselves and under my leadership we will continue to meet them,” Emmert says.
CoH is their one good game to date, and it got a lot better once it was out of their hands. The more I think about it the more I realize CoH more or less blundered into success, almost as if by random chance. It succeeded despite Cryptic, not because of it. Truly lightning in a bottle.
Next step for the Emmert one: the ruination of Neverwinter.