英国金融时报
作者：Richard McGregor
陈天桥，中国快速发展的网络游戏行业的代表人物，他即将推出的最新产品将成为公司发展的又一个飞跃。
《新传奇》有着史诗般气质，正合衬它所具有的中世纪背景。在一片名为新传奇的大陆上,在这片大陆上，充满着吸血鬼僧侣和变成怪兽的人类，为了摆脱这堕落的世界，三个古代国家要向东方神秘大陆，去寻找复兴的希望之路。
陈天桥的上海盛大网络公司，希望能借5月28日，这款新游戏的发售走上一条复兴之路，至少是独立之路。
不论是对于陈自1999年便创立的这家公司还是中国游戏行业，这次发售都象征着一个里程碑。
《新传奇》是盛大第一个自主开发的游戏，这终结了对韩国开发商的依靠，而这个依靠早就被财务纠纷所笼罩。
“这个决定对我们很重要，一年前，没人相信我们可以在这么短的时间内开发出游戏”，陈说。这个30岁的经济家有着光荣的成长历程。1993，他在声誉极高的复旦大学被选为“优秀学生”，而且他提前一年毕业，这在学校的历史里只有18个人能做到。
1999年，在工作一段时间后，他和他的大学朋友集资了50万人民币(60400美金)组建一家科技公司。他们开始试验虚拟社区和互动娱乐以及其他的一些时髦的玩意儿，最后他们决定开始网络游戏的平台建设。
中国的年轻人，就像全世界的年轻人一样，迷恋于游戏。但由于普遍的盗版软件，世界的游戏行业巨头几乎没有一家在中国发售它的游戏。这样的结果是成千上万的玩家玩网络游戏，从而使得中国在网络游戏方面形成了独立的行业。
下面的数据是令人叹服的，盛大拥有超过一半的市场份额，拥有8000万注册用户和每月300至400万的收费用户。在任何时间，都有接近80万的玩家在玩盛大的游戏。
在中国，巨大的销售数量中仅仅有很少的部分可以转换成利润，因为激烈的竞争以及可能不存在的利润空间。不过，盛大已经有了良好的利润纪录--在2002年5000万美金收入中的2500万是利润。“今年我们认为利润和收入都可以翻番”，陈说。
网络游戏回避了政治风险，正是这些风险遏制了电影与音乐产业。网络游戏指明了一条可行的收费方式，这也提供了投资者足够的信心来投资像盛大这样的公司。作为一家私营企业，盛大没有像上市公司那样公布详细数据，但已经足够吸引软银在3月份投资4000万美金。
网络游戏行业的成长也吸引了三大门户网站Netease网易，Sina新浪和Sohu搜狐投身其中。Netease网易在过去18个月中最出色的表现是在网络游戏方面，它既是运营商也是开发商。“玩家事实上非常符合我们门户网站的人口统计，用户的65%集中在15到25岁年龄群,这也正是网络游戏玩家的年龄群”Ted Sun，Netease网易的执行CEO。Netease网易和盛大现在都在开发自己的游戏，这意味着他们都不再需要韩国开发商的照顾，而这些开发商已经开始提高代理费用。
“当我们当初签传奇的合同时，分成费只有净收入的27%，现在已经上涨到毛收入的35%”，陈说。盛大原来的韩国伙伴，Actoz，宣称中国公司不支付分成费，并且终止了合作关系。
盛大还有面临着一些其它的麻烦，例如政府不喜欢网吧用户过于集中在青少年，而最近由于SARS的原因，很多网吧被迫歇业。
不过，盛大现在在现金方面非常充裕，正寻找相关的人才来发挥这些优势。陈说他看重软银的经验胜过那4000万美金。
A new legend of the game
Shanghai Shanda Networking is set to revolutionise China’s booming gaming industry,wirtes Richard McGregor, FINANCIAL TIME
If Chen Tianqiao, the precocious poster boy for China's rapidly-growing video game industry, wanted to be perverse, he could pitch his latest product as an allegory for his own company's development.
New Legend has an epic quality befitting video games in an era of hobbit revival and middle-earth chic. Monks are turnedsintosvampires and men become beasts, before the three ancient states of the New Legend kingdom seek redemption in a journey east to a mysterious, tranquil landswheresthe beasts disappear.
Chen's company, Shanghai Shanda Networking, is hoping to chart a similar path to redemption, or at least independence, with the release of New Legend on May 28.
Although the company's tale is not quite the good-versus-evil saga of this imaginary world, the release will represent a landmark for Mr Chen, the company he founded in 1999 and the Chinese computer games industry.
New Legend is the first significant game that Shanda has developed itself, and will allow the company to end its reliance on Korean gaming companies, with which it has been locked in a nasty financial dispute.
"This has been a very important decision for us - a year ago, everyone doubted that we could develop a game in such a short time," says Mr Chen.
The 30-year-old economist has had a stellar career. Selected as "an outstanding student" at Shanghai's prestigious Fudan University in 1993, he graduated a year ahead of schedule, one of only 18 to do so in the institution's history.
In 1999, after rising rapidly at the body developing the city's financial district and working, briefly, at a cigarette company, he and his university friends chipped in Rmb500,000 (,400) to form a tech company. They experimented with "virtual communities", "interactive entertainment" and other fashionable nostrums, before settling, with impeccable timing, on becoming a platform for online games.
Chinese youth, like their counterparts around the world, are hooked on video games, with one significant difference. None of the giants of the global industry has released its games in China because of pervasive software piracy. (Sony has promised to release the PlayStation later this year.)
As a result, the Chinese, in their tens of millions, play games for the most part online, a development which has paradoxically allowed the industry to flourish on a solid business footing.
The raw numbers, as ever in China, are dazzling. Shanda, which has a little over half the market, has 80m registered users and about 3m-4m paying players a month. At any one time, upwards of 800,000 people are playing a Shanda game.
Large volumes all too rarely translatesintosreal profits in China, because of cut-throat competition and tight, or often non-existent, margins. Shanda, for example, sells Rmb35 cards for 120 hours' online playing time, or Rmb0.29 (3.5 US cents) an hour. However, Mr Chen says Shanda already records healthy profits - in 2002 of m on revenues of m. "We think this year profit and revenue will double," he says.
The online gateway sidesteps the piracy issue, which has devastated the movie and music industries, and affords companies a sure way to collect money. That has given investors sufficient confidence to put moneysintoscompanies like Shanda, because they calculate they can generate a return from content development. As a private company, Shanda does not get the same scrutiny as listed enterprises, but its figures are credible enough to have attracted m from Softbank, the Japanese tech investor, in March.
The growth of the online game industry has also shown up in the books of China's three overseas-listed internet portals - Netease, Sina and Sohu - all of which are investing heavily in online games.
The best performing portal in the past 18 months, Netease, is the one that threw itself firstsintosthe online game business, both as a platform and as a game developer.
"The players actually fit the demographics of our portal very well - 65 per cent of our users are between 15 and 25, exactly the kind of players for online games," says Ted Sun, Netease's acting CEO.
For both Netease and Shanda, developing their own games means they are no longer at the mercy of the industry leaders in South Korea, who had been demanding ever-greater premiums for their games.
"When we signed the contract for the "Legend of Mira" [an earlier game from South Korea], the royalty was only 27 per cent of net revenue, but it was raised to 35 per cent of the gross revenue," said Mr Chen.
Shanda's former Korean partner, Actoz, accused the Chinese company of not paying royalties, and has terminated their relationship.
Shanda has other problems to deal with, not least the government's dislike of internet cafes,swheresmost of its customers congregate and which are now closed because of the Sars virus.
But for the moment Shanda is awash in cash, busily employing software engineers and searching for acquisitions.
Mr Chen, who owns more than half Shanda's shares, says he didn't need Softbank's money but thought the experience of outsiders would be valuable.
