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Champions Online: Perfect World Snaps Up Cryptic Studios
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Gamasutra is reporting that Chinese publisher Perfect World Entertainment has snapped up Cryptic Studios. Cryptic was recently put on the market by Atari and is the development studio responsible for Champions Online and Star Trek Online. PWE acquired 100% equity in Cryptic for $50.3 million.
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."
Read more at Gamasutra.
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Comments
If they turn STO into a F2P game like CO i'll be happy
Well, one things for sure. This is just a sign of how much Perfect World have come on if they can aford this. With the exception of the mighty Torchlight I am not a big fan of pw's games. Let's see what happens.
lol, Perfect World.
Chinese companys are very good with their money, I dont think even Cryptic would be able to fail hard enough to cause them problems xD
PWE have been very smart in business from day one, ive no doubt they can do something with Cryptic to put it on the right track and into a profitable future, certainly one to keep an eye on.
I always knew that PWE was making a butt load of money off of their cash shops. I like their games. Some are a bit grindy but they are fun too. I love that they offer character customization by fashion and that is where they probably make most of their money. Good for them.
Do PWE's games have pay 2 win cash shops? (Hope they don't.)
I never played one before, so just wondering.
I did expect them to go for a little more than 50mil, but at least they have a home.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
PWE games get their money with pixel crack. They introduce half nude female pets to their games and put them in 50 cents costing lottery boxes that has 0.5% chance to give you one...Reading their games forums you can see why they're doing so well. Most common topic is "I've bought 80$ worth of lottery boxes and I still dont have my sexed up pornish succubus pet!!!"
Wow... that's the first Ebay auction I've ever lost...
Hehe
hahaha!
Here comes the aggressive cash shops to CO and STO.
Sooo, cryptic still has the license to Neverwinter Nights IP MMO?
That would be a very bad idea.. If PWE has any say in the direction of that game, it will be very "standard"..
Doubt it. NWN is part of the Forgotten Realms license which Atari has the rights to. So I doubt Atari handed over that license.
"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."
I can only hope that with this aquisition PWE will start making future games with even better graphics (at least like STO).
Plus now i have even higher hopes that CO will remove the limitations and make the full game completely free to play with PWE typical cash shop. And probably the same goes for STO? i really hopse so...
Way to go PWE
Hello SBFord! Guess you didnt catch my thread about this.. cept in the STO forums on this site.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/317245/Cryptic-has-been-sold.html
I am not impressed with any of the PW games. Waaaay too much grind compared to the P2P games. Of course there is always using the cash shops to get ahead...but two things come to mind here.
Cash shops in some cases give you an edge over some who rather not use them, and in some ways can be considered cheating IMO.
Second, why do I want to give my hard earn money to a communist country. Nothing against its people, just towards there government who keep the people down. As it is, we give them to much money with purchasing goods they make. And we wonder why our (America) economy is failing. First we let them become one of the top leaders in manufactured goods, and now they are taking a role in video games. Pretty soon they will own us and sorta already do... Done with my rant.
Actually it would be very good idea - PWE usually does NOT influence the games of their acquired companies (as shown with Runic Games) and instead just invests cash into the company and product(like they did with Runic , torchlight franchise budget practically doubled from that) and manages the servers. And presently, pwe seems to focus less on genericness and more on something new( they plan to expand on movie industry, there are rumors on PS3 mmorpg in the works and they are currently working on a sandbox class-less mmo)
However this acquisition also gives PWE the engine rights, so expect to see high-end graphics mmos from them in future if anything.
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
And the license is in place all thanks to WoTC. If WoTC decide that the mmo should still be made by Cryptic they have all the rights to shift that particular license from atari to Cryptic. Considering PWE in quarter of year makes double the ammounts Atari makes in a year, thats quite likely and would be business-sound decision.
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
Winning.
Of all the potential buyers, I think PW is a good choice. They have a similar portfolio with f2p + item shop, and among the f2p games I always thought PW had the better games. Not my cup of tea, but of an ok quality, and they keep their MMOs supported with expansions and new stuff. So it looks like a fairly good choice now.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Hasbro can't just shift the licence to Cryptic. Atari paid for the lience and still holds it untill they give it up, expires or the court forces them to return it. That is why Hasbro and Atari have been in court for a year and a half.
NWN is not a MMO but a co-op game, this is why the game is not listed on mmorpg.com. Cryptic and Atari both were careful with thier words in intervies and press releses on the type of game NW is going be or risk another lawsuit.
I have only tried Forsaken world so I cant speak for their other games, but the cash shop in FW was not pay to win, it was pay for time basically. You could grind / play your way to most things but they would be in a dilluted form or time limted, except for gear, which you gained nearly exclusively ingame.
Things like mounts, xp, appearances etc in the cash shop. Though even then you could get a mount in game too it just took a while. They have progressively gotten better and better from what I have seen and read, certainly I would place Forsaken world at the same level as Lotro (just with a more anime feel).
All in all Cryptic have done well here, and PWI have gotten 2 very strong and 1 mediocre IP (Neverwinter and Star Trek are names that guarantee sales).
I see this as a good outcome, they could have been bought by worse, Perfect World have a great rep from providing great games and keeping them updated and fun.
Good times ahead for STO and CO XD
I see this as a hit or miss. I play CO and have a ton of fun. But PWI has a P2W cash shop in almost all their games and if they do that do STO or CO then it will kill it for a ton of ppl. And then their is the whole engine thing. Most PWI games seem outdated in terms of over all graphics and art style. All i can hope is that they keep the updates going and do not make a cash shop P2W
Played Aoc/DDO/FFXI/WAR / LoTRo / CO / Aion
Playing Rift
Waiting for FFXIV to be the game it should. so sad =(