JAN. 29, 2009 • China’s Perfect World came to an agreement with KTH in South Korea to bring the former’s Chi Bi online RPG to Korean gamers. Chi Bi will be available through KTH’s All Start (allstar.paran.com) portal.

Impact: The China game market is soaring much the same way that the Korean game market exploded about five years ago. However, with the growth in Korea came an overabundance of companies focused solely on the domestic market.  Today Korean companies are trying to expand on an international basis. A similar trend could start to occur in China and Perfect World is one of the leading Chinese companies focused on global expansion. Perfect World saw revenue grow significantly in the first part of 2008.  Total revenue for 2008 could be close to $200 million versus only about $100 million for 2007. At the same time, it appears that quarterly revenue growth as started to level off.  Thus, Perfect World is looking hard at international expansion, including not only Korea but translating products to English.