Perfect World VP Takes Over Company's Gaming Subsidiary

21st Century Business Herald, 10/21/09

At Beijing-based online game developer and operator Perfect World's (Nasdaq: PRWD) launch ceremony for its new MMORPG "Fantasy Zhu Xian," Zhu Qi, formerly senior vice president of Perfect World Network Technology, was announced president of Perfect World Interactive Entertainment. Perfect World Interactive Entertainment was established this year, and is responsible for Perfect World's entire online game business, including 10 game development workshops across China and its online games' operations.

Perfect World currently has two other subsidiaries - Perfect World Cultural Communication and Beijing Huanxiang Zongheng Network Technology, operator of Zongheng.com. The former is responsible for movie-related operations, while the latter operates a Chinese literature, comics, and animation website. Zhu has said that they may be split off and listed separately in the future.

Outside of its online gaming business, Perfect World's other main source of income is from motion pictures. The company has already produced two movies this year - one was Zhang Ziyi's "Sophie's Revenge," and the other was the supernatural costume drama epic "The Warrior and the Wolf." The former grossed nearly RMB 100 mln in box office receipts, and the latter is still in theaters.

According to Zhu, Perfect World plans to do one movie every three months. Its next movie, "Xiao'ao Jianghu," is due out in the second quarter of 2010, and will cross-promote with an online game of the same name to be released in the first quarter of next year.

For its movie production business, Perfect World has adopted an alliance model. Zhu said that production and distribution is best done by specialized companies, and that Perfect World is currently only involved in the investment phase of the production cycle.

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