Shares of Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子) yesterday plunged by the daily limit of 10 percent in Taipei trading, as investors cashed out after the company on Monday launched its biggest online game — Lineage M — for this year, dealers said.
Gamania’s stock price dropped by 3.5 percent to NT$99 on opening and closed at the day’s low of NT$89.1 percent, far below its monthly average of NT$104.62, Taipei Exchange data showed.
A total of 32.84 million shares changed hands during the session, the data showed.
The Taiwanese online game publisher in March announced that it had secured exclusive rights to distribute South Korean online game developer NCsoft Corp’s Lineage M in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
Shares of Gamania had been surging since Lineage M’s launch in South Korea in June. Its stock price ballooned 121.92 percent over the past six months, the data showed.
The online game was officially launched on both the iOS and Google Play platforms on Monday in Taiwan.
Dealers attributed the strong selling pressure on Gamania shares to investors’ desire to cash out amid a sluggish stock market.
Besides, there is no new positive information that could spur Gamania’s stock price in the near term, they said.
Gamania chairman and chief executive officer Albert Liu (劉柏園) on Monday said the company invested nearly NT$100 million (US$3.33 million) to purchase server equipment in anticipation of the large traffic when the online game hit the shelves.
Liu told reporters that he expects to see revenue contributions from the online game starting this month.
Gamania’s aggregate net income in the first three quarters of the year was only NT$36,000, as net losses of NT$80.039 million last quarter eroded its first-half earnings of NT$80.075 million, company data showed.
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