world entertainment industry computer gaming founded 2000 headquarters los gatos california products city of heroes city of villains champions online star trek online neverwinter parent independent 2000 2008 atari sa 2008 2011 1 perfect world 2011 present 2 website http www.crypticstudios.com cryptic studios is an american video game developer specializing in massively multiplayer online role playing games . it is headquartered in los gatos california and is a wholly owned perfect world subsidiary . 1 contents 1 history 2 products 2.1 city of heroes villains 2.2 champions online 2.3 star trek online 2.4 other projects 3 references 4 external links history edit cryptic studios logo 2000 2007 established in june 2000 michael lewis and rick dakan conceived the idea for cryptic studios . rick and i wanted to do an online role playing game lewis told the los gatos weekly times in january 2007 . we d been role playing gamers growing up and thought that online would be a great way to continue that experience while overcoming the distances involved . we decided that there were too many fantasy games in development this was 1999 so we discussed many alternatives . superheroes quickly rose to the top of the list . it is something people could understand and identify with quickly versus ideas like science fiction or horror because it provides an infinite background on which to create adventures of all kinds . and who doesn t want to have super powers 3 at a new year s party in 1999 lewis and dakan met bruce rogers matt harvey and cameron petty veterans of atari games who had begun trying to found a computer game company but lacked funding . in 2000 lewis sold his company stellar semiconductor inc. to broadcom corporation . with lewis funding and rogers expertise the group formed cryptic studios . role playing game writer jack emmert joined the team to work on game design . in march 2007 cryptic studios moved to a larger corporate headquarters in los gatos california . plans for the new headquarters include adding a state of the art sound studio to be built by the walters storyk design group . 4 at that time the company also adopted a new corporate logo . cryptic studios now employs more than 100 full time employees . on december 9 2008 atari sa announced that it had acquired cryptic studios . 1 on march 2010 bill roper was promoted to chief creative officer succeeding emmert who became the chief operations officer but left the studio in august that same year . 5 on march 2011 jack emmert was promoted to chief executive officer when john needham left to pursue other opportunities in the gaming industry . 6 on may 17 2011 atari announced the divesting of its interest in cryptic studios . 7 on may 31 2011 it was announced that perfect world had acquired cryptic studios . 2 on april 25 2012 cryptic studios announced that the security of one of its user databases was compromised as far back as december 2010 . 8 products edit city of heroes villains edit main articles city of heroes and city of villains in early 2002 cryptic signed a publishing agreement for city of heroes with ncsoft which wanted to expand into the united states gaming market . 9 cryptic studios first mmorpg city of heroes was launched on april 28 2004 . on october 31 2005 it launched city of villains a separate game that was linked with city of heroes through player versus player combat zones . as of november 2007 update cryptic studios had released ten free expansions for city of heroes and city of villains . on november 6 2007 cryptic announced that it had sold the city of heroes city of villains intellectual property to ncsoft . all of the city of heroes city of villains development team transitioned to work under ncsoft under the working title ncnorcal ncnc which later became the ncsoft owned subsidiary paragon studios which ceased operation when ncsoft closed the game on august 31 2012 . champions online edit main article champions online see also marvel universe online on september 27 2006 marvel entertainment and cryptic announced that cryptic studios was developing marvel universe online the marvel universe mmo video game to be published by microsoft game studios for exclusive release to windows vista and xbox 360 which was later cancelled in march 2010 . 10 february 7 2008 shane kim of microsoft game studios reported that muo was canceled . 11 cryptic studios said development would continue using a new ip license of the champions and became champions online . cryptic studios released champions online loosely based on a superhero based role playing game on september 1 2009 . cryptic studios had announced this title on february 14 2008 . it has of february 2011 implemented a free to play model with optional micropayment transactions generating revenue in addition to its traditional subscription system . star trek online edit main article star trek online see also star trek games video games on july 27 2008 cryptic announced that they had acquired the license to continue development of a star trek based mmorpg previously developed by perpetual entertainment . earlier on march 13 2008 star trek news site trekmovie.com reported cryptic studios as the developer for star trek online based on unnamed sources confirming a several weeks old rumor . 12 star trek online was officially launched on february 2 2010 . the game resembles an action oriented mmorpg with combat and features divided between space environments and ground environments during play . other projects edit on may 9 2007 cryptic studios released the cryptic animation rig cryptic ar a free download that gives animators the same tools used by cryptic to animate characters in its games . 13 cryptic studios web site contains several images of concept art from one or more additional games currently in development . 14 one of these games is neverwinter a new mmorpg . 15 16 references edit a b c brightman james 2008 12 09 . atari to acquire cryptic studios . gamedaily . retrieved 2008 12 09 . cite error invalid ref tag ; name atariacquisition defined multiple times with different content see the help page . a b perfect world and atari announce agreement for the acquisition of cryptic studios los gatos weekly times cover story 0705 wednesday january 31 2007 game invasion news bill roper departs cryptic studios jack emmert appointed ceo of cryptic studios atari to divest champions online developer cryptic studios cryptic studios user database compromised ordinary hero forbes.com . forbes . april 10 2004 . marvel universe online announced shane kim on muo cancellation cryptic confirmed as new developer for star trek online cryptic animation rig home cryptic studios home http pc.ign.com articles 119 1198498 p1.html gamasutra news turbine sues atari for at least 30 million over dungeons & dragons mmo external links edit cryptic studios perfect world official site v t e city of heroes other media comic books collectible card game related articles characters ncsoft cryptic studios paragon studios captain dynamic v t e perfect world games battle of the immortals blacklight retribution ether saga odyssey final fantasy type 0 online heroes of three kingdoms jade dynasty neverwinter perfect world star trek online swordsman online subsidiaries antaeus cinema line cryptic studios perfect world entertainment runic games retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title cryptic studios & oldid 741196634 categories companies established in 2000city of heroesvideo game companies of the united statesvideo game development companiescompanies based in silicon valleyperfect world company hidden categories pages with reference errorspages with duplicate reference namespages using infobox company with unsupported parametersarticles containing potentially dated statements from november 2007all articles containing potentially dated statements navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces 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