Inside Social Games

Learning from one’s “elders,” as it were, the virtual goods market in China is one to watch and learn from for many developers around the world. To that end, we took a look at the released numbers from one of China’s popular gaming portals, Changyou. The company’s performance was unflinching against the stock drops it saw shortly after China’s new virtual currency laws, as the company has posted record financial highs over the course of the second quarter this year.

Long story short, Changyou saw $66.6 million in revenues this past quarter, with a net income of $34.5 million, representing an 8% increase over the portal’s Q1 revenues and a 39% increase over last year. The growth was at least partially due to the 5% increase in paying accounts for their two freemium MMOs, Tian Long Ba Bu and Blade Online, reaching a total of 2.39 million. In fact, the number of total accounts for both games increased to 69.1 million or 9%.

On the whole, Changyou saw a 4% increase in ARPU as well, averaging out to about $27.22 per person, yet, surprisingly, declined 2% in its average number of peak concurrent users, tallying in at 950,000. Nevertheless, the overall report is positive, and the Chinese company intends to keep it that way, predicting Q3 revenues between $67 and $69 million and net income of about $40 million.

Users can expect to see the launch of a new game, Blade Hero 2, the sequel to Blade Online, as well as another Tian Long Ba Bu expansion come Q3 and Q4 respectively. In addition, Changyou is also looking to expand further with Tian Long Ba Bu by releasing it within Korea around the same time (Q4), and is, in fact, currently working on an English rendition for a future release in North America. Beyond 2009, the developers have also announced the release of brand new games in 2010 called Immortal Faith in Q1, Legend of the Ancient World in Q2, and Duke of Mount Deer in Q3.

[via Virtual Goods News]