Perfect World Bought Champions Online Developer Cryptic Studios

Major Chinese MMO maker Perfect World has acquired Cryptic Studios, developer of Champions Online and originally owned by Atari.

Atari revealed earlier in the month that it was divesting of its interest in the studio, calling Cryptic Studios a "discontinued operation". Cryptic had been part of Atari since a 2008 acquisition.

Perfect World has acquired a 100 percent equity interest in Cryptic
Studios, paying approximately €35.0 million ($50.3 million) for the
studio.

Michael Chi, chairman and chief executive officer of Perfect World, said
of the move, "This strategic acquisition will add attractive game
titles to our portfolio, which will help us further penetrate into the
U.S. and global online game markets."

"More importantly, Cryptic Studios' highly reputable development team
and its technology platform will further strengthen our well-established
R&D capabilities. We deem this as another noteworthy achievement of
our global expansion efforts."

Atari said that the divestiture of the studio followed the company's
focus "on key owned and third-party strategic franchises and expansion
into emerging game platforms."

Perfect World posted improved financials
this month, noting that some recent releases helped increase revenues
for the first quarter of 2011 and drove profit margins higher than the
the same period in 2010.

all i can say is wow lol

no suprice so long i no the companie i no they are big and good
if i look all there games is very wel made and they can be easy be in the top 10 of best game companies

its always amazing that they have a big players base and it keeps growing
and that for a F2P :)

same is for TQ digital of conquer online stil dunno why they have a very high players base but it seems pll love that game even if its 8 years old xD

but nice if they have there studio am very sure they gone make a new and beter mmorpg ^^

I hope Perfect World keeps aquiring successful and/or innovative dev studios. That way they might stop copy/pasting elements from PW online into their other "original" games. They have at least 2 games made with the same engine, graphics, and gameplay used in PW online. And to make things worse, these games had less content and looked like they were made in a rush with very little effort put into them.

All PW games have been copy/paste since PWs launch.

So yea, they better pull their ass off their head and their head out of their ass and start making a new quality game again.

I know they make easy money by (re)making those games, but eventually that money pool ll run dry and no one ll ever belive them when they say they made a new game.

I didn't even bother checking that new game of theirs out(the one with vampire race and stuff), because after reading about the things that are in that game, it was an obvious copy/paste/cash shop sucking game all over again.

On top of that all the shit they'r going to produce ll probably have their heavy cash shop centered gameplay all over it again, so I hope no other game company has ever to fall victim to these greedy Chinesee bastards.

Today Atari announced that it has officially divested its interest in Champions Online developer Cryptic Studios, and that the developer is now wholly owned by major Chinese MMO company Perfect World.

Atari first revealed it planned to sell the studio in May of this year, and soon after Perfect World acquired a 100 percent equity interest in the studio, agreeing to pay Atari 35 million euros ($49.8 million).

Now that the sale is complete, Atari says it will use 21.6 million euros
($30.7 million) to pay down its debts to the BlueBay credit facility,
and the balance will go toward the company's social and mobile
initiatives, as well as licensing costs and other higher margin
segments.

In addition to purchasing Cryptic Studios, Perfect World also acquired a majority stake in Torchlight developer Runic Games in May of this year, which the company says will help strengthen its R&D capabilities.