April 18, 2006
Oh Shanda, what will we do with you? Shanda is making very questionable moves once again. The9.com, following on it’s highly successful World of Warcraft partnership is now negotiating with Blizzard Entertainment with the expansion pack. This is very coherent to the9.com strategy and within their core business of interactive entertainment and online gaming. Here’s a summary:
Vivendi Universal subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment announced on Friday that it has invited Chinese online game company The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY) to negotiate the expansion set to World of Warcraft (WoW), The Burning Crusade. The9 is Blizzard’s current partner for WoW in mainland China, and also owns 30 percent of the company operating WoW in Taiwan. According to the release the expansion is currently planned for 2007 in mainland China, whereas previous expectations had the expansion hitting China in late 2006. According to several industry analysts, The9’s contract with Blizzard for World of Warcraft already gives The9 the rights to operate any expansion of the game in mainland China.
Meanwhile, after Shanda’s foray into countless incongruous decisions. This time they are going crazy, launching an e-magazine with an American company based on a kart racing game entitled “Crazy Kart”! Right, now there is a sorely needed product, that I am sure everyone is clamouring for. This has gone too far! I think someone is purposely trying to drive this company into the ground, or the people at the helm are drunk.
Why don’t we tally up the strange and mysterious the big S has made inpast months:
This is by no means a complete list, but it seems they need to do a bit more thinking in the decision making, wouldn’t you think. Any business shoudl stick to it’s core business, or else they should chage their core business to what they are doing. Shanda doesn’t seem to know what kind of company it is.
February 20, 2006
Usually we hear about some credit card company or another having some hackers come in and swipe their database of users. This time the hackers were Chinese and the hackee was the online game “Lineage” in South Korea. About 4000 accounts were stolen through the use of malware installed by some suspicious websites. No you will not get free nude pictures of Britney Spears if you click on that link!
Taking the “thief” character class to the next level, the hackers obtained both personal and account information of those affected. The information is not easily used for identity theft, but the virtual identity of the person is easily whisked away.
Another aim of these hackers was to steal the “virtual items” of the players. Yes, we are at a point in this world where people go to great lengths to steal items that don’t exist. There are even full scale “farming” operations where people are paid to play the game to obtain rare items that can be sold for a profit.
One way or another, online gaming is becoming it’s own industry, even it’s own world with benefits and pitfalls. More and more we are seeing online games emerge with their own communities and even economies. Many people are even making a living off trading in these games as well, especially in such socially oriented games as Second Life.
The9 Inc. has been making all the right moves, especially with it’s World of Warcraft franchise. This is in stark contrast to Shanda which has been making very questionable decisions lately. A recent article outlines The9’s situation:
NetEase competitor The9, also reporting this week, will hope to fulfill investor expectations of a strong quarter. The9 operates runaway hit World of Warcraft, which was developed by Vivendi Universal’s (V) Blizzard Entertainment division and should continue to see healthy growth as it gradually expands from a solid base in the major urban centers of China’s east coast into second and third tier inland cities.
These smaller cities are experiencing just as much growth as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, but are relatively untapped by the big entertainment players, allaying fears that China’s Internet games market is approaching saturation. Of the top game operators, The9 appears to have the most reliable pipeline of future game offerings, with two major Korean titles to be launched during 2006. If all goes according to plan, World of Warcraft will still be earning for The9 when “Grenado Espada” and Webzen Inc.’s (WZEN) “Soul of the Ultimate Nation” launch commercially in China.
Shanda, currently with the biggest market share does have an advantage, but The9.com is very smart in expanding to the second and third tier cities. As Shanda flouts their grandness, The9 seems poised to pull the rug right out from under them! While Shanda is busy working on it’s drinks, buying up other people’s games, trying to sell online music, and dissing Microsoft.
February 17, 2006
It seems that Internet cafes have been deemed as “unfit and potentially corrupting environments” for China’s youth. Yes, it seems they are right down there with the illicit massage parlors, gambling mahjong houses and unfiltered search engine results. It seems China’s Government is going insane over elevating computer games to the level of tobacco and alcohol. In short, these “dens of villainy and corruption” are no longer open to teenagers. Yes, we have finally reached the day, when the bouncer IDs you at the door so you can go in and play Bubble Bobble.
This is of course hot on the heels of the major net companies coming under fire for seceding to government demands and blocking certain content within the mainland. China is a stickler for controlling what their citizens see and do:
…the establishments will be prohibited from displaying “audio and video products and electronic games” that threaten national security or disparage other nationalities or races. Specifically, the entertainment may not “damage China’s unification, sovereignty, or territorial integrity,” referring to the dispute over the status of nominally independent Taiwan.
Does this sound like big brother to you? I am sorry how my control over fictitious characters slaying monsters and demons using magical powers threatens the very basis on which the motherland of China was founded.
The next targets of threat to the state we can expect to be McDonalds restaurants, old age homes, and churches. Yes, Big Macs are a threat to national obesity! You must be an adult to realize the consequences of ingesting such food!
February 10, 2006
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.
February 5, 2006
Yet another rumor has hit the air. Apparently preparations are being made to produce a “World of Warcraft” motion picture in China. Don’t get too excited yet, as it might be at least 5 years before we see this on the big screen. There have been rumors both serious and ridiculous, but the decistion to move forward seems to have been made.
Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Morhaime was talking about how he wants to have feature length films released for not only Warcraft but Diablo and Starcraft as well. He expresses that he thinks that the game worlds will appeal to both gamers and non gamers alike.
This is not unprecedented, as Blizzard has worked before with Coke, to produce a World of Warcraft Coke Commercial. The9.com, which is the company that handles the Chinese distribution for World of Warcraft, will probably be involved in the movie production. I think we might even see the SMG group get involved in this one.
January 24, 2006
Just a strange tidbit of news I picked up: apparently a Japanese company considers Shanghai to be just a game. Literally. In fact it is called Super Shanghai 2005 and you can get it for Playstation 2. It is basically some sort of puzzle strategy game.
Great, now I can play Shanghai virtually as well as in reality, planning my strategy, and hopefully winning rewards. Unfortunately the game does not dispense these rewards in the form of RMB. Too bad.
January 22, 2006
Shanda’s bigwigs are at it again. Seems president of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Jun Tang has something to say about the X-box. After their decision to start selling music online in an environment saturated by piracy, and developing health food and drinks, they have decided to denounce Microsoft’s Xbox 360 release in China. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Xbox 360 is Microsoft’s next generation console, to compete with Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Revolution.
He claims the poor popularity of FPSs and sports games in China is one of the reasons. Sure, but perhaps Chinese people might actually play other games? While Xbox 360 has a decent library of games that will only continue to grow.
The other reason he cited was that the device would be too expensive for Chinese people if there are no games for it. I really don’t think that is much of a problem. I put Chinese electronics consumers into 2 groups- those able to buy an Ipod and those who cannot. There does not seem to be much of an in-between.
I think this move is probably because of Shanda’s recent big losses and Microsoft’s plan to invest 100 million dollars per year in China’s internet market, putting even more pressure on Shanda’s weakening position. Perhaps they took this chance to take a few cheap shots at Microsoft’s strategy. While the big “M” has already has a history of poor performance in China, they do learn quickly. Given the moves Shanda is making, I would not put too much credibility in their analysis right now.
