Shanda is pulling another big move in a bid to get back on track. This time they are buying into a Korean online game called ArchLord. The Koreans seem to be wizards at creating killer online games, so Shanda probably thinks they can’t lose. Time will tell as Shanda has been pulling some lousy moves lately.

Korea is currently the number 1 producer of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. ArchLord is a product of NHN Games. Strangely enough, throughout the NHN webpage, they have a pictures of westerners. That’s weird? Hmm, trying to appeal to rich foreign investors? I don’t know if China counts as “foreign” though. NHN owns such products as www.naver.com which purports to be Shanda’s #1 internet portal, as well as www.hangame.com which claims to be “the worlds #1 internet game site”.

Shanda themselves run several very successful MMO games such as Legend of MIR II, The World of Legend, The Sign, as well as many others. So one has to wonder, what are they up to now? Why would a company that is very successful in the Chinese MMO market all of a sudden be spending money to buy a Korean MMO game to bring to China? Apparently they want to “freshen up”. Tianqiao Chen, CEO of Shanda, had this to say:

“We are very pleased to add ArchLord to our diversified MMORPG portfolio, is a fresh take on the MMORPG genre, mixing unique new features with already popular elements.  We believe this game will appeal to both new and established MMORPG players in China, thus broadening the user demographic base for our home strategy.”

We will see what happens as Shanda continues to make their moves as their stock continues to slip. I am still waiting for my Shanda shampoo.