I try to report relevant news here and make insightful comments on it. So, sorry citizens of the "people's republic" of China. No Lotro for you.
"In September 2006, CDC Games licensed the exclusive rights to distribute, in China, Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (LOTRO), a MMORPG based upon the Lord of the Rings trilogy. For the past several years, CDC Games has experienced significant delays in the continued development and launch of this game. Since initially licensing this game, CDC Games has invested approximately $10.0 million in licensing, development and other costs related to it, including a $4.0 million initial non-refundable license fee."
After all that investment, they failed to launch the product. A product somebody else had made and their only real job was to translate it into Chinese. I'm surprised anybody gives money to them anymore. I feel bad for the Chinese consumers, who's only real quality MMO on offer is WoW. This is not only a huge loss for Turbine monetarily and a setback for MMO companies in penetrating the Chinese market, but its also a good example of how outsourcing doesn't always work. In fact more and more people are insourcing instead of outsourcing since outsourcing often produces poorer quality due to communication difficulties and control/qa problems.
source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cdc-corporation-reports-results-for-six-months-ended-june-30-2011-2011-09-02?reflink=MW_news_stmp
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The wording in that link is so hard to follow, but it sounds like they didn't have the resources in their company to pull through and it might get picked up by someone else, if I followed it right.
It is possible that they won't give up after this. I guess :) It doesn't exactly inspire other companies to try to translate themselves via Chinese companies though.
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