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EA Allies With Tianyue(Comtex Business Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BEIJING, May 12, 2006 (SinoCast China IT Watch via COMTEX) --On April 26, Electronic Arts Inc (EA), the largest computer game company in the world, announced in Guangzhou that it would entrust Guangdong Tianyue network technology co., Ltd as its solo agency in China. Long time before this, the industry spread the news that EA had reached agreement with Optisp, a network game company under CITIC Pacific, and would inject at least CNY 500 million into Optisp to pave its way to China. Obviously, EA found a new partner. On April 26, EA signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tianyue at the presence of a vice mayor of Guangzhou. From then on, Tianyue will solo sell POGO in China. POGO is a leisure computer game popular in Europe and America. People concern more about the fact that Yang Jing, the president and CEO of Tianyue, used to be the president of Optisp. There is news that some stuff in Optisp followed Yang Jing to Tianyue. "It is all my own money." Yang told the reporters. He said that the key to successful network game operation was to find good products. The operation cost was not high at all. So the company did not search for venture capital. Yang disclosed that Tianyue registered a capital of CNY 10 million, with over 30 employees. Most of them are IT and network game technicians. Yang believes that China's network game markets still have huge potential, leisure game markets in particular. It is not late at all to tap into the market right now. Citing the data released by IDC, Yang said that the capacity of China's game markets was CNY 3.77 billion in 2005, and the figure would reach CNY 17.23 billion in 2010. As to the rumor that Tianyue recruited talents from Optisp, Yang Jing responded: "It is not true. Only president Zheng Dongping is from Optisp." As a matter of fact , EA began to peep at Chinese markets long time ago. It set up an office in Beijing early in 1996. EA, headquartered in California, America, was set up in 1982. Its game products FIFA, Ji pin fei che have been a fad in Europe and America, and are also well-known in China. It listed in NASDAQ stock market in 1992. As the biggest game company in the world, its market value exceeds USD 17 billion now. According to the 10-K file EA submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, EA realized a turnover of USD 3.129 billion and a gross profit of USD 1.932 billion in fiscal 2005. Meanwhile it has 31 products sold worldwide with the sales over one million sets. EA expressed in the 10-K file that in order to increase its sales in Asia, it would input more resources to develop local R&D institutions and train local talents. In China, it would set up branches by way of acquisition or establishing joint ventures to tap into more Chinese markets. This February, EA located a computer software company in Shanghai Zhangjiang high-tech park. Erick Hachenburg, the vice president of EA's global distribution division, disclosed that EA set up a Chinese studio aiming at R&D of localized content not a long time ago. From 21st Century Economic Herald, Page 1, Thursday, May 11, 2006 [email protected] |