Kotaku Australia » shanda

Shanda Bans Player, Sued For Causing ‘Emotional Distress’

Maggie Greene — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:40:00 +0000

Poor Shanda. Poor Chinese game companies! A surprising number of suits have been brought against them in the past year, but this — for a more reasonable 11,000 RMB ($US 1600) — takes the current cake. Shanda froze the account of a Legend of Mir player (for unspecified reasons), who is now suing for emotional distress and the return of his virtual items:

Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA) is being sued for RMB 11,000 in emotional damages by a gamer of its licenced MMORPG “Legend of Mir” for freezing the player’s game account, reports West China City Daily. In addition to monetary compensation, the gamer is asking for the return of his virtual items. The Chengdu Jinniu District People’s Court began hearing the case on Sunday, said the report. The9 (Nasdaq: NCTY) was ordered to pay court fees and return game characters and tools to World of Warcraft gamer by the Shanghai Pudong New District People’s Court on August 13.

I know people are attached to their MMOs, but really. Emotional distress? Really? This sounds like one of those ridiculous lawsuits people always use to point out the flaws of the US legal system — clearly, China is not immune either. I’ll be curious to see the outcome; as Steve at PlayNoEvil notes, this type of precedent could be really injurious to game operators.

Shanda Gamer Sues For Emotional Damages After Game Account Sealed [Pacific Epoch via PlayNoEvil]

China’s Gaming Market Going Up, Up, Up

Maggie Greene — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:30:00 +0000

In totally unsurprising news, China’s game market continues to climb — numbers just posted for the second quarter of 2008 show an 11.2% increase over first quarter, and a nearly 66% increase from the same quarter last year (!). In terms of market share, Shanda leads the pack with a 17.9% share, with other big companies hovering below that.

The current market is estimated to be worth 4.43 billion yuan (around $US 645 million), and with no predicted slowdowns, one wonders what we’ll be seeing this time next year (or even fourth quarter of ‘08). And with companies like Perfect World making a foray into Western markets, we’ll just have to wait and see where China’s industry is heading long-term.

China market: 2Q08 online gaming services valued at 4.43 billion yuan [Digitimes via GamesIndustry.biz]

Should Virtual Item Loss Be Classed As Real Life Theft?

Maggie Greene — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:30:38 +0000

A short and sweet and mildly thought provoking piece over at Terra Nova asks the question: “Why not qualify the taking away of virtual objects as theft?” The author speaks in reference to Dutch law specifically, but a few cases have cropped up in recent months (Shanda getting sued after forgetting to return some virtual items; the case that this post was based on, where virtual theft in Habbo Hotel led to a real life arrest) that raise the question of what do you do with virtual items when they’re stolen? Slap a pair of real life cuffs on the thief’s wrists? Ignore it, since the items never left the virtual space they inhabited?

Is it relevant for the qualification as theft whether the stolen fortune stays officially in game? Well, not to me. I see no reason for distinguishing between virtual and physical theft. The original owners of the stolen Habbo furniture obtained the items after they bought credits with real money, and do attach value to those items. As long as the original owner looses something of value (such as virtual items) due to the act of another individual who gains possession over the item, it should in my opinion be qualified as theft, no matter whether the locus delicti is in the physical or the virtual world.

I love this virtual law stuff, so many areas are so vague – I do wonder what sort of changes are going to be going on the books in the next decade or so.

Why not qualify the taking away of virtual objects as theft? [Terra Nova]

Shanda Introducing NCsoft’s Atrix To China

Maggie Greene — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:30:11 +0000

NCsoft’s Atrix, a casual online game that NCsoft describes as “a lively action fighting game,” is making its way to China after being well received in Korea last year. Shanda has gotten the exclusive license to operate Atrix on the Mainland, part of the alliance between the two Asian giants announced this past November. I wonder if having a ’strategic alliance’ will preclude any of the messy and protracted legal battles we’ve seen between Chinese and Korean companies? You can expect the game to be popping up on PRC PCs in 2009; full press release after the jump.

Shanghai, China – February 19, 2008 – Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited (Nasdaq: SNDA), or Shanda, a leading interactive entertainment media company in China, announced today that it has entered into an agreement for exclusive license with NCsoft Corporation (KSE: 036570.KS), or NCsoft, Korea’s leading online game developer and publisher, to operate Atrix in mainland China. Atrix is expected to begin commercial operation in China in early 2009.

Atrix, created and published by NCsoft, is an online casual war game featuring exciting combat and breath-taking scenery. The game began official operation in Korea in June 2007 and has been well received by players.

Atrix is the second game to come out of Shanda’s strategic alliance with NCsoft, which was announced in November 2007. At that time, Shanda announced the exclusive license for the highly anticipated MMORPG AION: The Tower of Eternity, which is expected to begin close beta testing in China in the second half of 2008.

“We are pleased to partner with NCsoft to introduce Atrix to China. We expect long-term success from both Atrix and AION, based on our strong integrated platform and expertise as the leading online game operator in China,” said Tianqiao Chen, Chairman and CEO of Shanda. “We will continue to work closely with NCsoft to introduce additional high quality and exciting new titles to China.”

“We are excited to cooperate with Shanda in Atrix, which marks our entry into casual games in China,” said Kim Taek Jin, NCsoft’s CEO. “Our strategic partnership with Shanda is an important part of our plan to become a truly international online game company, and we believe it will benefit both companies well into the future.”

Chinese Game Industry Deals “Paralysed”

Maggie Greene — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:30:19 +0000

The Chinese game industry is hot hot hot, and money is burning a hole in the pocket of some of the big players like Shanda. Unfortunately, the hot market has led to plenty of companies overvaluing their worth, and despite capital burning a hole in the collective pocket of the big companies, they’re starting to realise that snapping up small companies for massive prices isn’t the giant payoff they’re looking for:

“Maybe they hit the wrong button on the calculator,” said a source close to Shanda regarding small and medium size gaming companies overshooting their values.
Ye Youzhong, CEO of Kaixin Investments, said that online game companies had recently overvalued themselves by over tenfold, making investments in them unprofitable when considering that the current price-to-earnings ratio of listed Chinese gaming companies is around 30. He said that if bought for a price of 12-15 times their real value, it would take a full three years–including the market listing process–before the investing company saw any profit. Moreover, he added, a lot of these companies had no chance to be listed in the first place.

I’m sure everything will balance out in the long run, and I can’t imagine this will have a huge impact on the speed with which the industry in general is growing. Still, it’s interesting to look at the inner workings of some of these big companies and what they’re worrying about.

Online Game Industry Deals Paralyzed [EEO]

Shanda Sued, Forced To Pay For “Stolen” Virtual Items

Maggie Greene — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:00:00 +0000

Shanda – one of Mainland China’s heaviest hitters in the MMORPG world – was asked by police to remove virtual items from a player’s account during an investigation into the sale of stolen virtual items. Shanda did – then forgot to give them back like the police had told them to. When the player discovered his missing virtual items, he flipped his lid and sued them. Shanda lost and has been ordered to apologize and pay a restitution of 5,000 RMB (a little less than $US 700) – but to add insult to injury, the player has even more lawsuits in mind:

The gamer surnamed Zhang discovered six virtual items, worth more than RMB1,500, missing from his game account on November 22, 2006 and contacted Shanda regarding the disappearance. Shanda said that the company had taken the items in accordance with a police investigation regarding the sale of stolen virtual items. According to the report, Shanda failed to follow police instruction and return the items after the investigation ended. Having spent much time away from the game, Zhang said he plans to take Shanda back to court. This time he plans to sue for the RMB150,000 he claims to have spent in the game during the past five years. Zhang sued Shanda in the Hunan Qiyang People’s Court.

Over $US 20,000 seems excessive, to say the least. Will it fly in a Chinese courtroom? I guess we’ll find out.

Shanda Pays For Stealing Gamer’s Toys [Pacific Epoch via PlayNoEvil]

In the Wake Of Free-To-Play, What’s Next For Traditional Models?

Maggie Greene — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:30:30 +0000

While the virtual asset/microtransaction/free-to-play models are met with suspicion and derision in some quarters, Free To Play has an interesting analysis up of the challenges facing more traditional channels in the face of declining profit margins and an up-and-coming generation of gamers raised on the Club Penguin and MapleStorys of the world. “North American game companies are taking the same “partner and acquire” approach that they’ve used to achieve growth and purchase innovation for the last two decades,” a model that doesn’t work when dealing with some of the Asian companies have theoretical purchase prices that are astronomical.

Shanda’s market cap today is $US2 billion. It’s not far-fetched to assume their purchase price might be close to $US3 billion. The only companies with that kind of cash on hand are EA and Microsoft …. Netease (NTES) has a market cap of $US2.06 bilion. The9’s (NCTY) market cap is $US1.14 billion. Nexon is privately held, but with $US235 million in revenue two years ago, they won’t be cheap either. The point is, there aren’t many deals left among the virtual goods establishment.

The billion dollar question is: Where will these numbers be next year? Or in 2-3 years?

My gut says that in two years, North American companies will be “priced out” of acquiring a leadership position in the global virtual goods market.

To avoid this fate, big American publishers need internally developed/wholly owned virtual goods projects or partnerships with newer, smaller virtual goods companies ….

Of course, there are plenty of games that are ridiculously popular in Asia that will never be able to make the leap to Western markets, and there are plenty of poorly-designed, cheaply produced games that aren’t going to provide years of revenue for their creators, but there is something to be said for ‘keeping up with the times.’ More traditional channels are never going to go by the wayside, but those free-to-play models around the margins are providing a challenge to the more standard fare.

US Publishers Can’t Buy Asia’s Virtual Goods Lead

Shanda’s Co-Founder On ‘Hard Choices’

Maggie Greene — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:30:09 +0000

Shanda is one of China’s biggest game operators and while they’ve been doing well recently (really, really well), they didn’t hit their stride for a few years. Chen Tianqiao, former real estate executive and co-founder of Shanda, talked with the Wall Street Journal about what it took to get Shanda off the ground and turn it into one of the dominant companies in the Chinese gaming market (we’ll ignore the lawsuits regarding copyright infringement):

When we first started, it really was very tough. Venture capitalists, investors – they didn’t understand this business model. Our colleagues told us it was all about page views, but our product was an online game client [software that didn't involve loading Web pages, as other Internet products including search Web sites use to attract advertising revenue]. So when page views are king, they said, ‘How can we give you money?’

It’s an interesting and short interview – a somewhat enlightening look at the inner workings of a company who won’t be going any time soon.

Shanda Co-Founder Finds Hard Choices Satisfying {WSJ]