Abandon Mobile And CDC Games Join Forces To Bring New Cross-Platform, Multiplayer IP, Freaky Creatures, To Global Markets
New Business Venture Supports Cross Platform Approach and Expansion of IP Across Multiple Channels
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York, USA and Beijing, China - March 7, 2007 - Abandon Mobile, a leader in cross-media interactive entertainment, along with CDC Games, a business unit of CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA), today announced a joint venture for the upcoming multi-platform, multiplayer game, Freaky Creatures. Freaky Creatures is the first community-based game of its kind to combine user-created content, strategy, simulation and popular trading card game elements.
The partnership aligns world class designers, developers and publishers of Abandon Mobile with the publishing and licensing expertise of CDC Games across multiple platforms and channels. As part of the joint venture, CDC Games will market and distribute Freaky Creatures in China and Southeast Asia, including India and Vietnam, while Abandon Mobile will market and distribute the game in North America and Europe. Freaky Creatures is an innovative IP allowing users to create a completely unique character and interact with players on PC or Mobile. Choose from one of ten distinctive species and hundreds of parts and skills designed to fully customize your experience. Then, take your creature on an intergalactic adventure, unlocking your creature's power to defend territory and confront evil corporations. The person who has the most powerful creatures and the best trainers ultimately determines who will rule the resources and the planets.
"Freaky Creatures is a completely new idea, but contains key elements of traditional online game play, including persistent characters, a diverse universe, addictive mechanics and total ownership of your creations," said Jamie Ottilie, President and COO of Abandon Mobile. "Our partnership with CDC Games significantly enhances our ability to foster community and bring this exciting property to mainstream audiences around the world."
"Freaky Creatures is a great example of a compelling new license that has huge community appeal," said John Lee, President of CDC Games. "As we add to our growing base of registered users, publishing high-quality, innovative titles like Freaky Creatures is fundamental to the growth of our games publishing business and to increasing our presence in new and expanding markets."
Developed and published by Abandon Mobile, Freaky Creatures is designed with specific features to engage a growing, tech-savvy teen/tween market. The Freaky Creatures online community is a place where creature creators and battlers alike can find everything from strategies to special member contests. Online and Mobile Comics, message boards, developer chats, custom tournaments, webisodes, wallpapers and leader boards are also a part of the Freaky Creature community.
About Abandon Mobile
Abandon Mobile, a partnership of Abandon Entertainment and GF Capital Management and Advisors, develops and publishes entertainment content for multiple distribution channels. The company and its principals have a longstanding record in the game segment including investing in Mythic Entertainment and co-publishing the hit online game, Dark Age of Camelot, along with Mythic which was recently sold to Electronic Arts (ERTS). In late 2005, after entering into an exclusive worldwide partnership with NBC sports to market mobile games, Abandon Mobile acquired Lucky Chicken Games, an established game developer that is leading the team on Freaky Creatures and other content creation initiatives of the company.
About CDC Corporation
The CDC family of companies includes CDC Software, focused on enterprise software applications and services, CDC Mobile, focused on mobile applications, CDC Games, focused on online games, and China.com, focused on portals for the greater China markets. For more information about CDC Corporation (NASDAQ: CHINA), please visit www.cdccorporation.net.
About CDC Games
CDC Games is one of the market leaders of online and mobile games in China with over 45 million registered users. The company pioneered the "free-to-play, pay-for-merchandise" online games model in China with Yulgang, which has received the "Top 10 Most Popular Games" award from the China Game Industry Annual Conference (CGIAC) for two consecutive years, in 2005 and 2006. Stone Age 2, from CDC Games, also received the award for "Most Anticipated Game of 2007" from CGIAC. In August 2006, the company announced its Games Developer Partner Program, funded by US$20 million, to establish strategic relationships with selected games development partners and accelerate the development of new, original online games.
CONTACT:
Audra McIver / Quinn Wageman
Kohnke Communications
C: 805-453-1652 / C: 646-326-9266
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