Lunia Is Now Commercially Available
ATLANTA & BEIJING --(Business Wire)-- 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: http://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 120 million registered users. The company pioneered the "free-to-play, pay-for-merchandise" online games model in China with Yulgang and launched the first free-to-play, pay for merchandise FPS (first person shooter) game in China with Special Force. Launched in July 2007, Special Force has consistently ranked in the Top 10 downloaded games in China and becoming the top revenue producer for CDC Games. Currently, CDC Games offers six popular MMO online games in China that include: Special Force, Yulgang, Shaiya, 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. Through its CDC Games International (CGI) subsidiary, the company launched Minna de Battle in Japan in December 2007, and 16pounds in Thailand in January 2008. In February 2008, CDC Games USA launched the http://www.12FootTall.com portal to showcase online games in North America, sell virtual merchandise and promote collaboration among players. Also in February 2008, CGI launched Lunia, its first game in North America, and is planning several new games for Southeast Asia, further strengthening its position as a global publisher of online games. For more information on CDC Games, visit: http://www.cdcgames.net
About CDC Corporation
The CDC family of companies includes CDC Software focused on enterprise software applications and services, 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 http://www.cdccorporation.net.
