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Cryptic Studios, perhaps most famous for City of Heroes/Villains—the MMORPG that introduced gamers to the joys of superheroship and extensive avatar customization over seven years ago—has been purchased by China-based Perfect World Entertainment for the sum of $50 million. This deal comes on the heels of Cryptic’s previous publisher, Atari, putting the MMO development team up on the auction block. This will be Cryptic Studios’ third publisher, from NCSoft to Atari and, now, Perfect World Entertainment.  Cryptic’s active, and future, library of games includes titles from major media franchises, namely Star Trek Online and a currently¬-in-development title in the Neverwinter series of Dungeons & Dragons RPGs, stated by the studio’s website to be a departure from the MMOG focus, aiming to provide an engaging experience “rather than sacrifice quality for a massive scale.” Their second superhero MMO, Champions Online, went free-to-play at the end of January, and Cryptic has expressed its intent to continue supporting its active titles. |