Though the online game industry is experiencing a turbulent year, with some firms laying off employees and smartphone games eating up market share, one game publisher is aggressively expanding overseas.
MacroWell OMG Digital Entertainment Co (OMG, 歐買尬), one of Taiwan’s top-three online game makers, on Thursday inked a deal with China’s HNA Group (海航集團) to license its game publishing technology and its first game title for the Chinese market.
The deal is expected to start generating revenue in the fourth quarter, OMG chief executive Calvin Lin (林一泓) said.
Under the pact, OMG will transfer its technical know-how in the online gaming industry to HNA to allow HNA to build its own online game platform and market OMG’s first game title, Luna, in China next year, he said.
HNA is a Chinese business conglomerate with annual revenues of about US$10 billion and more than 90,000 employees.
Its flagship unit includes Hainan Airlines (海南航空) and it has other businesses in the areas of shipping, tourism and entertainment.
Taiwan’s online game industry has had a lackluster performance this year, but Lin said the worst was over and momentum would pick up next year as more players — who were earlier attracted to games on smartphones or Web sites such as Facebook — return to online games.
“Nowadays, we don’t see many people stealing vegetables in Happy Harvest on Facebook or shooting birds in Angry Birds on smartphones. They need constant excitement and will return to online games next year,” he added.
Ding Yu (丁郁), a vice president of YH Entertainment, a subsidiary under HNA, said the pact with OMG marks the group’s first foray into the online gaming sector and that the new business was expected to generate between 200 million yuan (US$31.5 million) and 300 million yuan in revenue next year.
In addition, HNA plans to partner with OMG to manage game arcades for its upcoming leisure and entertainment mall to be launched in Guangzhou next month.
Such a partnership could benefit OMG, given YH Entertainment is planning to open between 300 and 500 entertainment malls in China over a 10-year period, Ding said.
OMG posted NT$119.57 million (US$4 million) in earnings, or NT$4.78 a share, in the third quarter, up 50 percent from the earlier three months and more than five-fold from the same period last year.
Peer Chinese Gamer International Corp (中華網龍) posted third-quarter earnings of NT$53.85 million, or NT$0.62 per share, down 52 percent from the prior quarter and a decline of 79 percent from the same period last year.
UserJoy Technology Co (宇峻奧汀) plunged into the red in the third quarter with NT$37 million in losses, or a loss of NT$1.1 a share. It earned NT$550,000 in the second quarter and NT$66.14 million in the third quarter last year. UserJoy said in September it was laying off 50 staff from its 460-strong workforce as profits plunged amid a lackluster reception for its new games.
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