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CDC Games Launches Popular Manga-Style Online Video Game in North America Lunia Is Now Commercially Available
BEIJING, ATLANTA , Feb. 22, 2008-- CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation and pioneer of the .free-to-play, pay for merchandise. model for online video games in China, announced today that its CDC Games International (CGI) business unit has launched Lunia, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the popular manga-style comic art form, for commercial availability in North America. Lunia, 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. To play Lunia, visit the CDC Games portal at: www.12FootTall.com. Lunia and the 12 Foot Tall site are powered by IBM servers and hosted at a state-of-the-art Terremark data center that provides direct access to the core of the North American Internet. Unlike many other MMORPGs currently on the market, Lunia is played much like an action arcade game, allowing players to move around using a keyboard's arrow keys, rather than a mouse. The game can also 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 North America. In Lunia, 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 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 four main characters: the Knight (Sieg), the Healer (Eir), the Wizard (Dainn), and the half-Elven Thief (Tia) on their adventures, often being required to complete certain tasks (for example, 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, having received excellent user ratings from various game and fan sites. .We are excited to strengthen our partnership with CGI through the licensing of Lunia for the U.S. market,. said Jong Myoung Lee, president of ALLM. .We expect Lunia to be well received in the North American market and we look forward to expanding our relationship with CGI in the future." "We are very excited to launch our first online video game in North America," said Jeffrey Longoria, president of CGI. "With the launch of Lunia , we now have games operating in three major markets - China, Japan and North America. We intend to continue working aggressively to expand our commercial portfolio this year, as we plan to launch additional exciting new games in the coming months." "Lunia 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 is less complicated to operate than the typical MMORPG because Lunia is designed to be played like console games that are widely familiar to gamers. With the popular manga-style of animation and the strong crossover potential with console players, we expect this game to be well received in North American." Lunia 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. About CDC Games CDC Games is one of the market leaders of online and mobile games in China with more than 100 million registered users. The company's hit title Yulgang was among the first "free-to-play, pay-for-merchandise" online games in China and has received the "Top 10 Most Popular Games" award from the China Game Industry Annual Conference (CGIAC) for three consecutive years, in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Currently, CDC Games offers six popular MMO online games in China that includes: Yulgang, Shaiya, Special Force, Mir III, Shine and Eve Online. In March 2007, the company announced the formation of CDC Games Studio to establish strategic relationships with selected games development partners to accelerate the development of new, original online games for China and other targeted global geographies. CDC Games anticipates being able to deploy up to $100 million for CDC Games Studio investments through contributions from CDC affiliated companies, external partners and its internal resources. In August 2007, CDC Games formed a new subsidiary called CDC Games International (CGI) and CDC Games USA to launch new games internationally and to position CDC Games as a global publisher of online games. For more information on CDC Games, visit: www.cdcgames.net About OGAAP The Online Games Alliance Against Piracy (OGAAP) is a non-profit organization founded by CDC Games and other leading online games developers, with sponsorship from the China Government, to fight the piracy of online games in China. 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; lobby relevant government bodies and lawmakers to enact anti-piracy legislation; 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. Founding members of the OGAAP alliance include CDC Games; 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. About CDC Corporation The CDC family of companies includes CDC Software focused on enterprise software applications and services, CDC Mobile focused on mobile applications, CDC Games focused on online games, and China.com focused on portals for the greater China markets. For more information about CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA), please visit www.cdccorporation.net. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Investor Relations Public Relations  |