Chinese Gaming Firm Hosts With Terremark

The Chinese gaming portal CDC Games will host its U.S. online infrastructure with Terremark Worldwide (TMRK), the companies announced today. The deal positions Terremark to benefit from the enormous growth of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and virtual worlds in China. CDC's gaming operation will be hosted on IBM hardware in Terremark's facilities.

CDC Games is part of CDC Corporation (CHINA), which has 120 million registered users in China for its online and mobile games. CDC Games is now expanding into the U.S. market, and has just launched a Manga-style online portal that allows American players to access its online games with a single login.

The CDC deal marks the second major customer win in international gaming for Terremark, which on Jan. 31 announced that it would host the Latin Interactive Network, the first Spanish-language MMO platform. Late last year Terremark launched an Interactive Entertainment Group to provide managed infrastructure solutions for virtual worlds and social networking sites.

"With Terremark's advanced network topology, our gaming infrastructure will be located at the core of the North American Internet, which will help to deliver the best user experience for our gamers," said Jeff Longoria, president of CDC Games International, a unit of CDC Games. "IBM offers us very reliable, competitively priced products built on innovative energy-saving green initiatives that will help us become one of the premier publishers of online games in North America.

"Performance, connectivity and availability are critical for CDC's online games portfolio, and our robust, utility-enabled technology platform and comprehensive suite of IT infrastructure services, along with IBM's industry-leading servers, will provide all of those qualities to CDC's MMOG users," said Marvin Wheeler, president of Terremark's U.S. Commercial Business Unit.

The IBM System x servers helps gaming companies use less power and provide ideal platforms for virtualization, helping clients develop games faster and at a lower cost. "IBM aims to consistently provide the highest level of service level agreements and quality to games and Virtual World companies," said Daniel Witteveen, East Coast executive, IBM Games & Interactive Entertainment. "We are pleased to be working closely with Terremark to deliver their world-class managed hosting infrastructure for games built on IBM's leading hardware. Together, we're enabling CDC to deliver outstanding experiences to millions of gamers."

CDC Games pioneered the "free-to-play, pay-for-merchandise" online games model in China, and in 2007 launched the first FPS (first person shooter) game in China to embrace that model. The new FPS, Special Force, has consistently ranked in the Top 10 downloaded games in China and becoming the top revenue producer for CDC Games. CDC Games also offers six popular MMO online games in China that include Yulgang, Shaiya, Mir III, Shine and Eve Online.