"In fact, on May 24, 2008 daily revenues for CDC Games were 1.3 million RMB, or approximately (U.S.) $187,000. In addition, the company has seen strong revenue growth from Shaiya, a massively multiplayer online role playing fantasy game (MMORPG) launched by CDC Games in December 2006."

China's online RPG culture dwarfs online gaming anywhere else in the world, and it's interesting to see that even (or especially) in the wake of a tragedy, gamers are making room for their favorite pastime. The image shown here, from CDC's Shaiya Online, is certainly much more comfortable to look at than this gallery of Seattle Times images from the center of the devastation.

Mar 12, 2008 (CORPORATE IT UPDATE via COMTEX) — CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corp. and provider of a "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online games in China, announced it has licensed "Digimon RPG" and "Digimon RPG2," the massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) based on a Japanese television animated series, for distribution in North America and The People's Republic of China from SK Telecom, a mobile telecommunications operator in South Korea.

Digimon RPG is based on a series of Japanese animated television shows called, "Digimon Adventure," "Digimon Adventure 02," "Digimon Tamers," and "Digimon Frontier." Digimon RPG2 (currently the tentative name with an official name to be decided prior to launch date) is a 3D MMORPG version based on the next series of the TV shows listed above for Digimon RPG, as well as a series of shows called "Digimon Savers."

The "Digimon Savers" and "Digimon Adventure" series, produced by Toei Animation, is a Japanese animated line of media and merchandise that includes a cartoon series, anime, manga-style comics, toys, trading card games and other media. The media network for the Digimon series currently includes a Digimon Savers cartoon television series running on Toon Disney, and 13 video game titles available in North America.

Digimon RPG and Digimon RPG2 are developed by Digitalic and are also jointly planned by Digitalic and Bandai Korea Co., Ltd. CDC Games intends to launch Digimon RPG in North America later this year. Digimon RPG2 is currently under development and is expected to be launched first to the Korea market later this year.

"We are very pleased to license Digimon RPG and Digimon RPG2 to CDC Games," said Yongbo Cho, Online Game Business team leader, SK Telecom. "Digimon RPG has been very well received in Korea which is one of the world's most competitive online games markets. With CDC Games' impressive global infrastructure, deep expertise in the global gaming market and its successful track record in the world's largest online games market, we believe Digimon RPG will be very successful in both the U.S. and China."

"This is the first massively multiplayer online game based on the Digimon world," said Jeffrey Longoria, president of CDC Games International. "With one of the most widely recognized names around the world, this family-friendly game is targeted at the millions of Digimon fans who have enjoyed the last 10 years watching the worldwide syndicated cartoons, have played more than a dozen different Digimon console and handheld video game titles, and enjoyed the world-wide phenomenon of the popular collectible card game. Now for the first time, Digimon fans along with their favorite friends from all over North America, can interact with this amazing world and each other in a whole new exciting way.

Lunia, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the popular manga-style comic art form, was launched for commercial availability in North America on February 22, 2008. Since the launch, the game has demonstrated growing popularity. Average player hours totaled more than 205,000, with an average of six hours per player per week. Other key operating metrics during the last week of commercial operation include:

Growth in total registered users of 158 percent,
Growth in peak concurrent users (PCU) of 151 percent, and
Growth in average concurrent users (ACU) of 140 percent.

Because Lunia leverages the "free-to-play, pay-for-merchandise" model, we believe the growing base of highly active players forms the foundation for future revenues. CDC Games USA will be focused on maintaining a high degree of activity with the current users, and growing the total number of users, to spur revenue growth going forward.

"Our first marketing campaign for Lunia began on February 26," said Ron Williams, general manager, CDC Games USA. "This campaign accounted for more than 22,000 registrations on our U.S. game portal, www.12foottall.com during the first eight days of the ad campaign. Since the Beta launch on January 28, 2008 and subsequent commercial launch on February 15, our U.S. game portal 12FootTall has signed up over 42,000 subscribers. Currently, more than 35 percent of the visitors to 12FootTall convert to subscribers. We see this as a testament to the ground-breaking design of the portal, and relevance to today's online game players. Based on these metrics, we are very pleased with our initial results for both the 12FootTall game portal and the Lunia game."

Williams added, "With more than two years of content updates already built into our release pipeline for Lunia, we are excited about the game's potential to be a top online game in North America this year. We look forward to continuing to build our base of Lunia players and portal subscribers as well as leveraging the portal as the platform for launching additional new games in the U.S."

CDC Games Provides Update on Key Performance Metrics of China Games and Lunia in North America [BusinessWire]

CDC Games said Wednesday it has settled all legal disputes with South Korean online gaming company Mgame Corp. over their differences regarding the operation of the online game "Yulgang."

Under the agreement, CDC Games, a unit of Hong Kong-based software and online gaming company CDC Corp., will have exclusive distribution rights to "Yulgang" in China until March 2010, with an option for a one-year extension. The companies also agreed to work together to launch "Yulgang 2.0" as quickly as possible.

If I were a Korean company, I'd think really hard before entering into any sort of contractual agreement with a Mainland company, giant potential market be damned.

CDC Games, Mgame Settle Legal Disputes [AP]

An online game is just online content that you need to market in order to sell. The number of potential customers you can drive to the game's website either through word of mouth or through marketing spend is the key driver of sales, just like any other online business. The UV trend line is the best indicator of sales potential of a game.

Considering the amount of time I spend plowing through press releases for new MMOs and releases bragging about the earning potential of those currently on the market, it's interesting to get inside perspective on what all those pesky statistics actually mean from an operator's perspective.

How To Compare Online Gaming Businesses [Gamasutra]

ATLANTA & BEIJING—(BUSINESS WIRE)—CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation and pioneer of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online games in China, announced today that its CDC Games International (CGI) business unit plans to launch Lunia Online, a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) based on the popular manga style comic art form, for commercial availability in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2008.

Lunia Online, which was developed by Korea-based ALLM Co., Ltd., is based on the manga style of Japanese comics which is widely popular throughout the world and is currently a more than $200 million industry in the U.S. according to Publishers Weekly.

Unlike many other massively multiplayer online roll-playing games (MMORPGs) currently on the market, Lunia Online is played much like an action arcade game, allowing players to move around using arrow keys rather than a mouse. The game can be played with a console "D pad" style controller which makes the game familiar and easy to use for the millions of Xbox users throughout the U.S.

In Lunia Online, various attacks can be launched by pressing combinations of keys rather than clicking on an enemy to attack. In addition, special skills and items can be conveniently controlled with hotkeys. Unlike many other games, Lunia does not restrict its skill hotkeys to the function keys on a keyboard. This allows users to more fully customize and adapt the game controls to their personal liking.

In further contrast to many popular MMORPGs, Lunia Online also offers a detailed plotline and story to accompany game play. Battles between players and monsters take place in increasingly challenging stages which are much like chapters in the overall story. In each stage, the players accompany the three main characters: the Knight (Sieg), the Healer (Eir) and the Wizard (Dainn) in their adventure, often being required to complete certain tasks such as killing-off monsters in an area. These accomplishments advance the player through the story and are necessary to complete the stage. Animated cut scenes typically appear just before and after a stage, serving as transitions from chapter to chapter and additional sources of plot information.

Lunia has recently been test marketed in the U.S. by ALLM with favorable results and has received excellent user ratings from various game and fan sites. "We are excited to strengthen our partnership with CGI through the licensing of Lunia Online for the U.S. market," said Jong Myoung Lee, president of ALLM. "We expect Lunia Online to be well received in the U.S. market and we look forward to expanding our relationship with CGI further in the future."

"We are looking forward to launching Lunia Online for the U.S. market," said Jeffrey Longoria, president of CGI. "With our planned addition of Lunia Online, we will soon have games operating in three major markets: China, Japan and the U.S. We intend to continue working aggressively to expand our commercial portfolio further this year and in 2008, as we plan to launch many exciting new games in the coming months."

"Lunia Online breaks new ground in many new areas of the MMORPG genre," said Ron Williams, general manager of CDC Games USA, a unit of CGI. Lunia Online is less complicated to operate than the typical MMORPG because Lunia Online is designed to be played like console games that are widely familiar to U.S. players. With the popular manga style animation and a strong crossover potential with console players, we expect this game to be well received in the U.S. market."

Lunia Online is the latest in several new games backed internationally by CGI. CGI already has established sub-license agreements to publish games through leading online games providers in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.

The parties agreed to work together to find a mutually satisfactory result and signed an agreement to agree to negotiate in good faith over the next several weeks to resolve all differences between the parties and reach an amicable solution. "We are happy that the parties have agreed to negotiate and we are confident that we can reach a win-win solution for all in the near future," said Xiaowei Chen, Ph.D., president of CDC Games.

Apparently CDC doesn't feel like being the next Chinese company to rip off a Korean company's IP (doesn't look so good when you're trying to combat low-level piracy) and Mgame doesn't want to lose their piece of the lucrative Chinese market. We'll see how this pans out.

CDC Games and Mgame Agree to Negotiate to Resolve Differences over Yulgang [Yahoo]

CDC Games Enters Japan Market with Launch of New Online Game
Minna de Battle Begins Closed Beta Testing in Japan

BEIJING, ATLANTA - Oct. 22, 2007 - CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA) and a pioneer of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online games in China, announced today it is entering the online games market in Japan, through CDC Games Japan K.K., a subsidiary of CDC Games International (CGI), with the beginning of closed beta testing of Minna de Battle, its new multiplayer online action game.

CDC Games entrance into Japan, one of the world's largest online markets, is the latest move in its strategy to expand internationally. As previously announced, CGI launched operations in the U.S. under a new business unit called CDC Games USA last month. Already, CGI has sub-licensing agreements for publishing five new games with leading online games providers throughout Southeast Asia and Taiwan. CDC Games also has a strong roster of games including Yulgang, Eve Online, Special Force, SHAIYA, Shine Online, and Mir III, all commercially available in China. In addition, The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™, Dragonsky, Stone Age 2, ChaosGem, Come on Baby, and Red Blood are planned for launch in China.

"We are very excited to launch our first online game in Japan," said Jeffrey Longoria, president of CDC Games International. "Along with our recent launch of our U.S. operations, our plans to offer five new games for southeast Asia and Taiwan and our strong games pipeline, we are positioning ourselves to become one of the leading global online games companies with a broad and diversified international games portfolio."

Developed by Korea-based Nimonix and licensed through Gretech Corp., the free-to-play, pay-for-merchandise 3D online action game features a range of Martial Arts Skills (Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Boxing, Kobudo), boasting simple gameplay with support for gamepad input devices. Game modes include Team Play, Battle Mode, and Rumble Mode.

Minna de Battle, also known as Gemfighter outside of Japan, is already in commercial operation in Korea and the United States. In Korea, Gemfighter (Minna de Battle) has reported 1.5 million registered users. The Minna de Battle website (http://www.minbat.jp/) is now live and available for closed beta registration and download of the game in Japan. The game is expected to begin open beta next month with general commercial availability later in 2007.

In a lawsuit filed by CDC Games last week, the company claims MGame has not been providing adequate technical support for "Yulgang" and that it has not been supporting CDC in its efforts to combat piracy.

In response, MGame said it has "hired and dispatched key personnel to sincerely provide support to address those issues."

MGame Chief Executive Yi Hyoung Kwon said in a statement the company "will provide constant and stable services for 'Yulgang' in China with a new partner sometime soon,"

I love reading this stuff - it's like a soap opera, but way better and with a lot more money at stake. You can't make this stuff up. I can't wait to see what happens if MGame and CDC don't manage to iron this out, and MGame goes shopping for a new Chinese operator.

MGame Responds to CDC Lawsuits [Forbes]

CDC Games and Leading Game Developers Form Alliance to Protect Online Game Industry from Piracy

Landmark Piracy Cases Result in Convictions Including Prison Sentences and Fines

BEIJING, ATLANTA - Sept. 13, 2007 - CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA) and a pioneer of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online games in China, announced today that the company, along with several other leading game developers, has founded the Online Games Alliance Against Piracy (OGAAP) to fight the piracy of online games in China.

Piracy costs the global entertainment industry billions dollars of lost revenues every year, and this problem has been particularly rampant in the booming China market. Piracy activities include operators who have set up private servers and macro programs that mimic some of the most popular online games.

As part of its commitment to fight online games piracy, OPTIC Communications, which is now part of CDC Games, has helped the China government convict two operators of "piracy for profit" of one of their online fantasy games called MIR III. These two landmark cases are among the first of their kind in China and each resulted in criminal convictions. The first case, known as the "Tianzi case" involved a private server operator that was running illegal copies of the MIR III game online. The conviction of the operator included the seizure of all their equipment and a three-year prison sentence. The second case, known as the "007 case", recently concluded in August 2007 with a six-year prison sentence and a fine of (U.S.) $67,000. In this case, the operator was running an illegal macro program that allowed players to purchase online game merchandise such as special powers and weapons. With over 20 million users currently registered as players of MIR III, the revenue impact was substantial before the illegal operation was shut down.

The goals of OGAAP are to establish a platform for industry participants and stakeholders to exchange ideas and share experiences; conduct market and technology research; propose industry-wide policies and practices; and lobby relevant government bodies and lawmakers to enact anti-piracy legislation. The alliance will also actively promote public awareness of copyrighted online game usage, educate online game players about copyrighted content and vigorously pursue the continued shutdown of pirated online games as well as the arrest and conviction of their operators.

Other founding members of the OGAAP alliance include leading developers such as: CCP, the Iceland-based developer of EVE Online; Ons On Soft Co. Ltd., the Korea-based developer of Shine; Sonokong Co. Ltd., the Korea-based developer of Shaiya, and Come on Baby; T3 entertainment, the Korea-based developer of Audition online game; and Wemade Entertainment, the Korea-based developer of Legend of Mir II and MIR III online games. CDC Games is also actively recruiting others in the online game industry to join OGAAP in this united front against piracy.

OGAAP, to be a non-profit organization headquartered in Beijing, is already in discussions with several of China's governmental organizations that oversee the games industry to seek their guidance and support of this initiative. These agencies include the China Game Publishers Association (CGPA) as well as top authorities governing press and publications, copyright administration and protection of intellectual property rights.

"At CDC Games, we have long recognized the potential severity of illicit piracy activities, and have achieved success in individual campaigns against piracy," said Peter Yip, CEO of CDC Games. "The formation of OGAAP is a milestone achievement for the online game industry and will seek to leverage the combined power, experience and efforts of many key industry players. Like other segments in the entertainment industry, we have experienced an increase in piracy, especially with some of our more popular online games. Our primary objective is to reduce, and if possible, eliminate these piracy challenges so our industry can continue its vibrant growth throughout China. This alliance and the recent successful convictions of illegal operators are major steps in achieving our objectives."

For more information regarding participation in OGAPP, please contact Dr. Xiaowei Chen, president of CDC Games at Xiaowei.Chen@bj.china.com, or Mr. John Huen, COO of CDC Games' OPTIC Communications business unit at JohnHuen@optisp.com.