CDC Games (web site in Chinese) maker of “free-to-play, pay for merchandis”model for online games in China, announced today it has completed a successful Closed Beta Test of The Lord of the Rings Online(LOTRO) which revealed users experienced an average playing time of 3.9 hours per session.In addition, LOTRO reported a registration number of 2.9 million users accompanied by a high activation rate. During certain weeks of the closed beta testing period, LOTRO has ranked in the Top 10 for highly anticipated games and most downloaded games in many of the popular games portals such as 17173.com and Baidu, China’s top search engine.
“We are very satisfied on our successful Closed Beta Test where we accomplished our goals of fine tuning the game for the China market,” said Monish Bahl, CFO of CDC Games. “The game went through extensive testing, and we are quite pleased that the game is now ready for the final phase of testing. We also believe that the value proposition of LOTRO, which incorporates our pricing strategy, is expected to help us increase our market share from other games in light of the current competitive environment.”
“The Closed Beta Testing gave us valuable feedback and we are confident that the changes we made to the game will position it successfully for the market,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. “Based on the competitive landscape and long holiday period in early October, we believe the timing of this launch gives us a significant competitive advantage.”
CDC Games is scheduling the Open Beta Test (OBT) of the highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LOTRO), in late October with the goal of maximizing the effectiveness of the launch and gaining higher initial receptivity for the game. Commercial launch is expected in November.
The company believes launching LOTRO after the upcoming China holiday season will help bolster the game’s marketing effectiveness. During the country’s upcoming holiday celebration of the 60th anniversary of Communist rule, it is expected that many people in China will travel during the eight day public holiday, which runs from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8. Many media outlets are expected to be focused on the holiday events during this period, and CDC Games believes this will be a significant distraction during the launch of the Open Beta Testing of the game.
In addition, since a competing game company recently re-launched an older version of a similar genre game in the Chinese market, utilizing a subscription pricing model, CDC Games believes that launching LOTRO later will help CDC games gain market share through the introduction of highly differentiated and new content.
