Perfect World completes Cryptic Studios acquisition
Atari announced earlier this year that it was trying to sell off City of Heroes developer Cryptic Studios, and it's now essentially done just that, according to the company. Chinese MMO developer Perfect World recently bought an equity interest in the studio, and Atari has now divested its own interest, meaning that Cryptic is in the hands of the same company that also owns a majority interest in Torchlight developer Runic Games.
Perfect World reportedly paid $49.8 million for the sale, and Atari says it will put $30.7 million of that total right back into its own debt, leaving the rest for investment in other deals and programs. Cryptic was working on Neverwinter, as well as developing content for Star Trek Online and the free-to-play Champions Online, but any other titles the company was working on with Atari are probably done for. We'll have to see just how the fate of these games plays out as Perfect World oversees things going forward.
Perfect World has said the purchase will use Cryptic's experience in the MMO space to "strengthen our well-established R&D capabilities," as well as "add [the aforementioned] attractive game titles to our portfolio."
