Earlier this week, CDC's online gaming unit, CDC Games, sued Mgame in a Hong Kong court claiming Mgame has not been providing adequate technical support for its "Yulgang" online game and that it has not been supporting CDC in its efforts to combat piracy.

CDC Games said Wednesday that Mgame terminated its contract with the company, citing nonpayment. CDC said on Friday its games unit has "continued to make obligatory royalty payments to Mgame for its operation of 'Yulgang,' which continues to operate in China today."

I'm not sure how CDC's status as the largest outside shareholder in MGame ties into all of this, but I do know that even the brief news reports have given me headaches.

CDC Files Another Lawsuit Against Mgame [CNN]

CDC Games Launches First Online Game in the U.S.

CDC Games USA to Start Open Beta Test of Battle of Shadows on September 30

BEIJING & ATLANTA—(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 USA unit will launch the open beta program on September 30 for Battle of Shadows, its first free-to-play online game to be distributed in the U.S. CDC Games USA is a unit of CDC Games' newly formed subsidiary, CDC Games International (CGI).

Battle of Shadows is the latest in several new games backed internationally by CGI. Already, CGI has sub-licensing agreements for publishing five new games with leading online games providers throughout Southeast Asia and Taiwan. In addition, CGI also has plans to publish games directly in Japan.

"We are very excited to launch our first online game in the U.S.," said Peter Yip, CEO of CDC Games. "With our recent agreements to offer five new games for southeast Asia and Taiwan, along with the launch of Battle of Shadows in the U.S. and future plans to publish games in Japan, CDC Games is positioning itself as one of the leading global online games companies with a broad and diversified international games portfolio."

Developed by Korea-based N-Log Inc., Battle of Shadows, known as "Darkness and Light" in the Asian online game markets, is a real-time strategy (RTS) and role playing game (RPG). In the team-based action game, a player can choose a character and fight enemies with weapons and magic skills. The goal of the game is to conquer the base camps of the opponents. The concept of Battle of Shadows is based on the final war between the power of darkness and light. The game features a Gothic setting with vampires, werewolves and other fantasy creatures. Some key technical features of the game include one-round matches from the RTS genre and character growth elements from the RPG genre; as well as enabling players to use the mouse only when playing so they are not forced to learn complicated keyboard-skills that are typical of RTS or massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.

"We believe Battle of Shadows will be a well-received game in the U.S. market because it combines the appeal of an easy-to-use and quick to play online game with the depth and intensity of RPG and the fun of MMO games," said Ron Williams, general manager of CDC Games USA. "In addition to Battle of Shadows, we have plans for several exciting new games for the U.S. and we expect the free-to-play model to grow rapidly in the coming years and exhibit the same potential for success that we have seen in China."

Along with the recent new games being offered in southeast Asia and Taiwan, CDC Games also offers the following commercially available games in China: Yulgang, Special Force, SHAIYA, Shine Online, Mir II and Eve. Other games planned for launch include: Lord of the Rings, Stone Age 2, ChaosGem, Come on babies, Gemfighters, Redblood, Fury and others.

Players can visit: www.battleofshadows.com to register during the open beta test program. Commercial launch of Battle of Shadows is expected by the end of the year.

[via Yahoo Finance]

The new subsidiary will leverage the domain expertise of CDC Games to seek out licensing opportunities that will enable the company to enter targeted global markets including Japan, North America and southeast Asia. CGI intends to launch new online MMO games in Japan and North America in late Q4 this year through its own operations as well as through publisher partners. The company has completed initial plans for publishing games directly in North America and Japan, including plans to leverage the global network and support infrastructure already established by its sister company, CDC Software.

They also announced sub-licensing agreements with companies in Taiwan and Southeast Asia and ... a lot of other stuff. Agreements to right of them, agreements to left of them - looks like they're serious about invading foreign markets. The question is - will gamers outside of China bite?

CDC Games Launches CDC Games International to Publish Online Games on a Global Scale [Digital 50]

Do you spend all of your free time playing or reading about computer and video games? Ask your doctor about...

My personal gaming bias aside, I can think of about 20 million other things I would rather have the CDC doing rather than watching children with diodes on their heads play Frogger - not that that wouldn't be immensely entertaining. Saving us from another black plague, for instance.

If gaming addiction were to become a recognized mental disorder, what doors would that open? Gaming addiction as a legal defense? Rehab clinics? Anti-gamer bias for insurance coverage? I should stop speculating before I freak myself out. Michael Fahey

American Doctors Want Videogame 'Addiction' Recognised [Spong.com]

So, let me get this straight, the CDC want's to try to motivate the American youth to get off their fat lazy asses and to go outside and run, jump, skip, frollic, etc... As a gamer, I'm the first to agree with them, we all should give our thumbs a rest and discover a 3D world that no computer can ever simulate 100%. You want real life physics? News flash, that stuff's been around FOREVER! Sorry guys, but I say keep the Ads, if anything we should be supporting them, not getting pissed off at them. Give your thumbs a rest doesn't mean stop playing games, it means don't play games 100% of the time! We can be gamers and have an active lifestyle at the same time. No, that's not it, We can be gamers and should have an active lifestyle at the same time. That way we can be gamers longer :) So... um... yeah... that is all :)

Don't forget to post away today for your chance to win. I will be randomly selecting a post tonight, as I will every day this month, and then deciding which comment about the post was the funniest, most insightful or interesting and hand out a prize to the poster.

Today's prize is a copy of NBA 2K6 for the Xbox 360 and a Memory Unit.. Prizes cannot be changed. Brian Crecente

When is an ad not an ad? When it's disavowed by the CDC. Ian Bogost had a little sit down with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about their ill-conceived anti-gaming ads. Yesterday, he bumped into someone at the CDC's Atlanta office who told him they ads were not officially part of the CDC's VERB Youth Media Campaign. Here's the deal:

Faye Wong, Director of the campaign, explained that the "Give your thumbs a rest" ads were indeed created by Saatchi & Saatchi New York, one of the agencies retained by CDC for the campaign. Saatchi even submitted the concepts to the CDC for consideration, but the CDC rejected them. "This is an ad that was never approved for use," explained Wong. "As with all advertising, the agency presents multiple concepts, and the rejected ones died, but this one has been released for reasons the CDC doesn't understand."
She further clarified that the ads were never moved forward to focus testing or media placement, and they never appeared in magazines like Teen People or the gaming magazines where other VERB ads ran. "VERB targets kids 9-13," explained Wong, "and it is aimed at getting those kids to become more physically active. We present kids with a range of 'verbs' and hope to get them motivated to run, swing, climb, swim—whatever makes them physically active." According to Wong, formal evaluation of the broader VERB campaign suggests that it has been effective.

Wong goes on to theorize that perhaps recent employee turnover at Saatchi led to the killed ad campaign making it into the wild. However it happened, it appears the leaked ads have soured the CDC on Saatchi.

"It raises a caution, whether with Saatchi or anyone else, that they should be aware that this mistake should never happen again. We have communicated to Saatchi that we are very unhappy about the release of these rejected print ad concepts."

Sure, the CDC didn't' approve the obnoxious ads, but let's face it, the images really get to the heart of what the CDC was trying to say. I wonder if the CDC realizes just how big a deal this is? Brian Crecente

CDC: We did not approve anti-gaming ads [Watercooler Games]

Back in February, Watercooler Games reported on the Centers for Disease Control's anti-ad campaign titled "Give Your Thumbs a Rest, Play for Real."

Well, Ian Bogost just got back from talking about games for health at the CDC in Atlanta, and they're saying they had nothing to do with the ad campaign that had their logo slapped on it.

Despite the denial, Bogost points out that the campaign can be traced back to ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, who did run a $125 million publicity campaign for the CDC back in 2002. Odd. Brian Crecente

CDC doesn't villify games, gamers? [Watercooler Games]