Online game publisher Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子) yesterday said it expects to benefit this year from the growing popularity of its biggest online game, Lineage M, which hit several regional markets on Dec. 11.
“The number of Lineage M’s registered members exceeded 3 million as of Wednesday in Taiwan and we believe the number would continue to grow. The product is expected to be a major growth engine this year,” Gamania chairman and chief operating officer Albert Liu (劉柏園) said at the firm’s headquarters in Taipei.
Gamania owns the exclusive rights to distribute South Korean online game developer NCSoft Corp’s Lineage M in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
The game’s daily active users has reached 1.11 million, with more than 400,000 simultaneous online players, a new record in Taiwan’s online gaming industry, Liu said.
Gamania’s revenue ballooned 150.01 percent annually to NT$1.66 billion (US$56.15 million) last month, the highest since the firm was founded in June 1995, he said.
“About 60 to 70 percent of last month’s revenue came from Lineage M,” Liu said.
The company’s annual sales rose 1.7 percent year-on-year to NT$8.48 billion last year.
The number of app users at Gamania’s game points distribution subsidiary, Gash Co Ltd (樂點), grew 58 percent to 1 million last month from November, Liu said.
The company’s on-demand content streaming subsidiary, Coture New Media Co (酷瞧), also reported more than 10 million accumulated views in two shows related to Lineage M, he added.
“Lineage M is a precious opportunity for Gamania to largely expand the operational scale of its subsidiaries this year... My ultimate goal is to see every subsidiary turn profitable this year,” Liu said.
Gamania has secured 108 booths at the Taipei Game Show and will be focusing on Lineage M, Liu said, adding that all of Gamania’s subsidiaries would be at the annual game show from Thursday next week to Jan. 29 at the Taipei World Trade Center.
The company has spent more than NT$100 million purchasing 60 servers to support the game, he said.
An additional 10 servers will go online before Feb. 15 to ensure sound connection quality during the Lunar New Year holiday, he said.
The company has not yet reported earnings for last quarter. In the first three quarters, net profit totaled NT$36,000, compared with a net loss of NT$348.66 a year earlier, data showed.
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