Torchlight Sells 500,000; Developer Bought by Perfect World | Shatter

Runic Games' indie action RPG Torchlight has sold 500,000 copies at retail and digitally on the PC. It was also recently released for the Mac along with the release of the Mac version of Steam.

Additionally, China-based MMO publisher and developer Perfect World has just announced (via Joystiq) that it has acquired a majority stake in Runic Games for around $8.4 million. Runic is currently working on an MMORPG version of Torchlight, which is slated to be a free-to-play game likely supported by micro-transactions. This is a popular business model in China and should be a successful partnership for both parties.

Perfect World was already lined up as the publisher for the Torchlight MMORPG, which is planned for a worldwide release. It is unclear which entity controls the intellectual property, which could be of specific concern to Runic employees