Chinese Online Game Giant Perfect World Buys Majority Stake in US-Based Runic Games
In today’s Q1 2010 earnings release Perfect World announced today that it has acquired a majority stake in Runic Games, a Seattle-based game development studio. Perfect World, which already has a deal to publish an MMORPG version of Runic’s “Torchlight“, says it paid “consideration of approximately US$8.4 million” for the majority stake.
From Perfect World’s release:
We recently made a strategic investment to acquire a majority stake in Runic Games, Inc. (“Runic Games”), a top-tier game development studio based in the U.S., to further strengthen our R&D capabilities. By collaborating more closely with Runic’s professional team, we seek to combine their creativity and expertise in game development with our deep understanding of the online game market to create global titles.
As I wrote a few months ago, the Chinese game companies are coming into the US market, as both publishers and investors. Their cash is certainly appreciated by many US game studios. But is it fair that American game firms are generally blocked from in online gaming in China?
Please tell me what you think in the comments.
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“But is it fair that American game firms are generally blocked from in online gaming in China?”
Of course its not fair, but that's the reality. China is generally hostile to foreign firms operating in the country. “We will let you in, but we just might kick out… after we steal your stuff.”
Gross generalization, I know. But seems to sum it up.
Localization of games from Chinese-to-English just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Working on my 4th MMORPG now. Are they only going into the “US Market” though? The way I see it, they're going into the English-reading market because most of these games are available in many countries. I even did one in British English (to the best of my ability).
To answer your question, it really doesn't seem fair that foreign companies aren't given more access to the Chinese market!
have you worked on localizing any of the perfect world games? which market
is their biggest?
No, not on their games.