CDC Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of China.com, a business unit of CDC Corporation, announced its Online Games Developer Program, which includes US$20 million earmarked for investment in strategic game development partners. CDC Games will establish strategic relationships with selected franchise partners to accelerate the development of new original online games targeted specifically for the China market.
China.com will select participating developers from Japan, Korea, China, the United States as well as Europe, India and Australia with long-standing, successful track records in the development of top quality and successful online games, and the vision and innovative skill to develop games from the ground up that will be cultural attractive to the vast and growing China gaming user base.
"China is just at the very beginning of its evolution of developing its entertainment, and gaming sector, and we believe the next step is in providing games that are culturally aware, entertaining and educational to the millions of online game users in the China market," said Fred Wang, Chairman for CDC Games and independent director of CDC. "We will also use our substantial cash reserves to help fund the development of online games in partnership with our game development partners, to bring unique titles to the China market as well as export them to the world, which would supplement in the long term games that we license from our partners today. We believe that this strategy will increase our operating margins over the long term as we will be part owners of the intellectual property rather than just a mere licensee. This program is based on the franchise partnership rolled out by CDC Games' sister company, CDC Software, earlier this year which has been very well received in the enterprise software market".
Through direct cash investments, equity investments, lines of credit or a combination of these, CDC Games will invest up to US$20 million in selected game development partners on a case-by-case basis. The investments will be used to help these partners build China culturally aware titles, and will be complemented by market research and game research from CDC Games experienced marketing and research team.
CDC Games has over 30 million registered users, which allows it to data mine for specific likes and dislikes among users, to help provide the research to support the selected development partners in building titles that will appeal to the China market.
''Recently CDC Games has visited potential game development partners in Japan, Korea, China and the United States and we were impressed not only by the continual innovation of PC Online games under development for their home and overseas market, but the willingness and eagerness for developers to tap specifically into the largest PC online game market in the world,'' said Antony Yip, Vice Chairman for CDC Games and independent director of CDC Games. ''We believe that this is one of the most innovative programs aimed at fostering game development for the China market by encouraging the distribution partner and developer to work side by side through the development cycle. We believe it will greatly increase the value add to our partners and the chances of success for their titles in the China market.''
Source:佚名