Netease CEO Reveals Game Pipeline
Sohu IT, 5/20/10
William Ding, CEO of Chinese internet company Netease (Nasdaq: NTES), said at an analysts' meeting following the release of the company's quarterly financial report that Netease is currently making some changes to its MMORPG Fantasy Westward Journey. Work on the revisions has been ongoing for more than a year, Ding said, and the company expects that it will release the revised game content around July of this year. To this end, Netease has set aside a large budget for advertising and promotion of the new gameplay and content.
Ding also said that ARPU for Netease's 3D MMORPG Tianxia II has stabilized at RMB 100 per month, which he said the company was "quite satisfied" with. Ding said that ARPU for 2.5D martial arts MMORPG Heroes of Tang Dynasty is comparable.
Netease also plans to begin public testing of persistent user accounts for its 2.5D MMORPG Ghost, allowing users to continue games between sessions, and will release the game Legend of Fairy in H2 of this year.
Editor's Note: Gaming news site 17173 quotes William Ding as saying that Netease plans to release expansion packs for Westward Journey Online II and Westward Journey Online III in Q3 of this year. Heroes of Tang Dynasty began operation in April after successfully passing content review, and a new expansion pack for the game is slated to be released in Q4. As part of the company's anniversary celebration in September, Netease will also release a new expansion pack for Tianxia II, and will launch a series of promotional activities.
Keywords: online gaming Legend of Fairy Fantasy Westward Journey Ghost Tianxia II Westward Journey Online II William Ding Netease ARPU Internet pipeline Heroes of Tang Dynasty expansion pack NTES Westward Journey III
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