Artix Entertainment, LLC. (often shortened to AE) is an independent games development company that creates browser-based role-playing games. As of September 2010, the company has over 150 million users in their games.^[1]

The company was founded by Adam Bohn (better known by his pseudonym, Artix von Krieger) in 2002. It manages four single-player games (AdventureQuest, DragonFable, MechQuest and WarpForce) and four MMORPGs (HeroSmash, EpicDuel and AdventureQuest Worlds). They are currently working on a 3D game, AQ3D — Legend of Lore. Including an interactive minigames on their portal, such as Pony vs. Pony and BladeHaven.

AdventureQuest was Artix Entertainment's first project. The game is set in the fictional world of "Lore", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the original game name, Lands of Rising Evil. While it is free to play, players may upgrade their characters to become AdventureQuest Guardians in order to receive in-game benefits. As of July 14, 2010, the server cap was removed.

Artix Entertainment's expansion to AdventureQuest, WarpForce, was released on July 17, 2009. It is a sequel to AdventureQuest, specifically relating to the recently-completed five-year Devourer story arc in AdventureQuest, and many crossovers between the two are planned. It was built with the same game engine as AdventureQuest and, like AdventureQuest and Artix Entertainment's other single-player RPGs, is free to play with an optional one-time fee. Updates are on a monthly basis, but are intended to be much larger than weekly updates.

After AdventureQuest gained popularity, Artix Entertainment began to develop DragonFable, set in the same universe. Unlike AdventureQuest which featured a 2D background with the player clicking the edges of the screen or doors to move around, DragonFable has a 2.5D movement system. Unlike AdventureQuest, it does not have a server cap. Though it also has a daily exp. and gold cap.

The third game, MechQuest is a science fiction RPG set in the same universe as the previous two games. MechQuest's game system is a fusion between AdventureQuests' and DragonFable's, it is the prequel to AdventureQuest and DragonFable set 5,000 years before the former and 4,995 years before the latter. Players can control their own giant robot (called mechs in the game) to fight evil forces invading planets around the galaxy.

Nic Stransky complimented the graphics and simplicity of the game, but wrote that melee could feel inconsistent and that players may wish for more strategy.^[2]

AdventureQuest Worlds is the 4th game made by Artix Entertainment and a browser MMORPG. It is also the first multiplayer MMORPG created by the company. The game was released on October 10, 2008. Like its predecessors, it uses 2D-3D animation, although in a much simpler style to account for the increased server load and incorporates elements of all three previous games in its story. Unlike its predecessors, however, membership upgrades are not a one-time payment, but are instead purchased only for a certain number of months.

Play is similar to many MMORPGs, with players being able to chat and fight both in-game monsters and other players, in limited areas. Characters can be customized in appearance and gear, and character classes are available to train in game. Combat is not turn-based as in Artix Entertainment's other RPGs, but is real-time and allows for group battles. Special events take place often, with many holidays being celebrated in-game. Other special events include wars, in which players collaborate to defeat enough "waves" of monsters to win the war over several days, and live events with guest stars like Voltaire, One-Eyed Doll, George Lowe, Paul and Storm, Jonathan Coulton, the cast of Ctrl+Alt+Del, Ayi Jihu, ArcAttack, They Might Be Giants, and Michael Sinterniklaas as the voice of Deady.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]}

On December 2, 2009, Artix Entertainment announced that they were taking on a new MMORPG, EpicDuel, which they acquired from Epic Inventions LLC, who were developing the game independently. This is now their sixth major RPG. EpicDuel's battle system is primarily based on player versus player gameplay.

HeroSmash is a superhero-themed MMORPG that has entered beta testing, based on AdventureQuest Worlds. Beta stage is playable to all players in the game that possesses a Master account. The game was originally going to be called SuperHeroQuest, but "SuperHero" was a trademark from DC Comics and Marvel Comics which stopped Artix Entertainment from using the name they wanted.^[9]

Artix Entertainment is currently working on their first 3D game, AdventureQuest 3D, due to be released for alpha testing to all players who have purchased any packages in any of the games created by Artix Entertainment.^[10]

An upcoming game by Artix Entertainment's artist, Milton Pool(Miltonius/Nulgath). The game is known to be a multiplayer PVP and PVE game where the player uses cards.

In early 2010, the BattleOn Portal was launched allowing players to connect all of their accounts to one master account. Work also began on a system where progress in portal mini-games could be saved on the master account. The first of these mini-games is BladeHaven. Beta testing for the game began on October 14, 2010. Only players who had upgraded in one of the company's other games could participate.^[11] The game was released to the public on November 5. ^[12]

A test Guardian-only game known as ZardWars was developed in order to test how the servers would react to more than one database.

Another Guardian-only game called ArchKnight was made, though it was replaced by DragonFable before the game could be sufficiently developed, with the promise that ArchKnight would be worked into the new game. On February 19, 2010, the ArchKnight game and quest chain was continued and finished in DragonFable, and was made accessible only to those with upgrades in AdventureQuest and DragonFable.^[13]

In addition to their main projects, Artix Entertainment used to develop content for a minigame site, EbilGames. There are nine minigames available on the site.

Payment in AE games consists mostly of both a one-time payment (or subscription, in the case of AdventureQuest Worlds and HeroSmash) to unlock extra content. Most games also have "secondary currencies" (microtransactions) which are gained through offers or from spending real world money. These currencies can be used to buy in-game items.

AExtras is a system of obtaining the previously payment-based secondary currencies in Artix Entertainment's games. It was first introduced in AdventureQuest Worlds before becoming available for all its major games and portal. In December 2010 it was discontinued in all but the Master Account System to encourage users to connect their accounts and earn rewards from there. Players can obtain free secondary currency or membership through the completion of third-party offers.

In October 2010 Artix Entertainment started a lawsuit against Alpha Evolution and its founder Asib Tayeb for making private servers for their games and password cracking software. It featured of the AQW Designer Notes, 6 computers where seized for Asibs house then he was taken to court, however not much is know after this

• Artix Entertainment