Domestic

Games developer plans to double workforce in China

By Edmond Lococo (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-13 11:00

A worker at the headquarters of games company Electronic Arts Inc in Redwood City, California. [Bloomberg]

BEIJING - Shanghai-based Spicy Horse Games, a content developer for Electronic Arts Inc, aims to double its workforce as it looks to tap the online games market in China, the world's largest by users.

The company, whose Alice: Madness Returns is nearing completion for release by Electronic Arts next year, plans to double its number of employees to around 160 in the next 18 months, founder James McGee, 37, said in an interview on Friday.

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Spicy Horse aims to tap demand in the domestic games market, which is projected to double to $10 billion by 2014. However, the company will need a local publisher to help it meet Chinese laws that bar foreign-owned companies from directly operating online games, McGee said.

"The whole reason I came to China was that I could see six years ago that the Western game-development and publishing model was starting to break down and malfunction," the former Electronic Arts game designer, who founded Spicy Horse in 2006, said.

The developer has hired Wedbush Securities Inc. to explore financing options for its expansion in China, McGee added.

Designed in China

Alice: Madness Returns will be the first console game entirely designed and developed in China for export and is a sequel to American McGee's Alice that was released by Electronic Arts for personal computers in 2000 and sold more than 1.5 million copies.

Spicy Horse has received about $11 million in advances for developing the Alice games and American McGee's Grimm.

Alice: Madness Returns was produced for about half the $30 million that such a title might have cost to produce in the United States, where the original title was developed, McGee said.

Facebook Inc game developers Kabam and Zynga Game Network Inc said last month they will increasingly turn to Chinese software designers to make games..

Currently Kabam has 35 employees at a studio in Beijing, Zynga acquired XPD Media with its 40-strong Beijing workforce.

However, both companies have said they won't try to operate their games in the highly regulated local market for the time being.

Multiplayer games

China is home to Tencent Holdings Ltd, the world's biggest online games company by market value. The most popular title it operates, Crossfire, is licensed from South Korea's Neowiz Games Corp.

NetEase.com Inc, China's second largest online games company, is the local operator of Activision Blizzard Inc's popular World of Warcraft.

McGee is convinced there is room for others.

Spicy Horse has recently begun developing its first online multiplayer game targeting the China market, he said, without disclosing any details of the new game.

According to research company BDA China Ltd, the value of China's videogame market is set to double to $10 billion by 2014.

About 280 million Internet users play games online. They will generate revenue of $5 billion this year, the Beijing-based firm said last month.