According to VentureBeat, Chinese game publisher Perfect World - maker of such games as Perfect World International and Forsaken World and publisher of Runic Games' Torchlight - has bought Cryptic Studios from Atari. The report says that the price tag ended up at €35 million, or $49.8 million.
Exactly what this will mean for Cryptic's current games is still unknown, and the same goes for the Dungeons & Dragons-game based on popular D&D franchise Forgotten Realms and the secret project Cryptic is supposed to be working on. Perfect World does publish many free to play MMOs, and while Champions Online has already adopted that particular business model, it remains to be seen what happens to Star Trek Online under the new management.
Cryptic Studios reported a loss of €5.3 million for the last financial year, which lead to previous owner Atari calling the company a "discontinued operation."