Chinese online game provider Shanda Interactive Entertainment is launching a new acquisition campaign that may have a capital scale of up to 2 billion yuan to reinforce the company's capability to develop new games.

Shanda plans to spend the funds to purchase emerging local gaming companies whose products have strong potential or have been proven successful in the market, reported Sina.com, citing an anonymous source.

The news came after Shanda announced last Friday the 100 million yuan acquisition of Chengdu Aurora Technology Development, which makes the "Fengyun Online" game.

Zhuge Hui, Shanda's spokesman, refused to comment on the company's acquisition plans, but noted that if any online game producers in China have developed games of an equal quality, influence and user scale to Fengyun Online, Shanda will be willing to pay 100 million yuan.

"The game itself is not the only concern when we consider purchasing a game company," said Zhuge, who noted that the development team is also very important.

Established in December 1999, Shanda emerged as one of China's largest online game operators by licensing the "Legend of Mir II" from South Korean online game company Actoz Soft in 2001.

In 2006, Shanda's share in China's online gaming market reached 20.1 percent, sandwiched between market leader NetEase and The9, according to domestic research firm iResearch.

Liu Bin, chief analyst from consulting firm BDA China, said Shanda's aggressive acquisition effort is due to the company's thirst for game-development talent.

"Shanda does not have a strong ability in research and development because it has a long history of licensing games from other companies," said Liu. "But as the company continues to grow, it is craving to build up a powerful development team."

Running games that have been proven mature and successful in other markets is a much safer way for online game companies to succeed, rather than taking on the burden to develop their own concepts.

(China Daily July 10 2007)