Inside Perfect World Entertainment
North American gamers probably aren’t too familiar with Perfect World Entertainment, beyond their association with Runic Game’s Torchlight and the handful of Asian MMOs the company is trying to bring to North America. But this seemingly small MMO company is really quite big in China and analysts that pay attention to the sector (and like to invest money) have got their eyes all over Perfect World, despite its challenges – in China, of course.
Perfect World Co. Ltd. went public roughly 4 years ago and has beaten earnings estimates for most of its existence, carving out its own little niche in the lucrative online gaming space in China. Perfect World is no small player either, with a $2 billion market capitalization and a long-term plan to have a global presence – hence its North American and European operations. In the latest quarter the company raked in $86.4 million in revenue, compared to $55.9 million the same quarter last year. That’s pretty amazing for a company most North American gamers know nothing about.
But the company, like many others that have a business model that relies heavily on the lucrative Chinese MMO market, faces some serious challenges. Those challenges include government oversight and possible censorship of content, a rather crowded field of competitors (CDC Games, Shanda Games, The9, NetEase, etc.) and an unknown level of growth in China. Here and in places like Europe it faces the challenge of getting Western gamers interested in MMOs that are decidedly Asian in style. One secret weapon the company has is the upcoming Torchlight MMO, which will also serve the Chinese market if it can get by the Chinese Ministry of Culture.
In North America the company has 3 free-to-play MMOs in operation (Ether Saga Online, Perfect World International, and Jade Dynasty) as well as Runic Games single player action RPG, Torchlight. You can learn more about the company and all these games by visiting perfectworld.com.
