BEIJING, November 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- KongZhong Corporation (NASDAQ: KONG), a leading provider of digital entertainment services for consumers in the PRC, announced today its strategic partnership with well known British car racing game developer Eutechnyx, where KongZhong will have exclusive rights to publish and operate the simulated car racing game <Auto Club Revolution> ("ACR") in Mainland China.
Auto Club Revolution is a free-to-play simulated online racing game and car enthusiast community built in collaboration with the motor industry. Featuring officially licensed cars from over 50 of the world's leading motor manufacturers, including BMW, Ford, VW, McLaren, Toyota and others, it delivers a best-in-class racing experience to the free-to-play market while providing a social platform for owning, customizing and enjoying cars online.
Through Kongzhong's success with World of Tanks, the partners believe the demand for a free-to-play online car racing simulation game, playable on the PC, will be high in the mainland China market where there is limited selection for Chinese players due to the lack of console game platforms. Where World of Tanks is a team-based massively multiplayer online action game dedicated to armored warfare, which includes more than 200 historically accurate armored vehicles from military history, ACR will bring hundreds of cars and race tracks with realistic detail and accuracy similar to other car simulation racing games that can only be played on the consoles. Moreover, the partners believe that as China has become the largest automotive market in the world, the interest for ACR should be high.
As the market leader of military genre online games in China, KongZhong is always strategically positioning itself to expand into new under-served market segments. According to CNNIC, by the end of 2012, the China online game market revenues reached 60.13 billion RMB with 336 million game players. However, to-date, there has never been a world-class free-to-play simulated car online racing game in China and through this partnership, KongZhong and Eutechnyx will seek to fulfill this significant gap in the market place.
Through this partnership, KongZhong also expects to bring innovations to Chinese online game and automotive cross marketing. In their overseas operation and marketing, ACR has cooperated with many of the world's top car brands by leveraging the realistic graphics of vehicles in ACR to supplement auto shows, auto showrooms and car portals by allowing players to "test drive" the newest sports and racing cars. With over 25 years of car racing game development experience Eutechnyx has gained the trust of the world's leading car manufacturers and this partnership will seek to leverage the car content in ACR to explore and create a new business model in China with these manufacturers.
Eutechnyx's CEO, Mr. Darren Jobling said, "We are excited to have KongZhong, as one of the leading online game providers in China, be our partner to introduce the first free-to-play simulated car online racing game to China. This is indeed a great honor for Eutechnyx. Eutechnyx has very good partnerships with many of the world-class auto brands and is always striving to bring the best product to Chinese players. Through our close cooperation with KongZhong, Eutechnyx hopes ACR can bring Chinese players the best online car racing game experiences."
KongZhong's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Wang Leilei said, "Eutechnyx is a world-wide famous game developer with many of its games published by the console game industry's leading players. Leveraging on Eutechnyx' 25 year racing game development experience and KongZhong's mainland China operation and marketing experience, we believe ACR will have great success in China by bringing Chinese players the first free-to-play simulated online racing game."
About Eutechnyx
Eutechnyx is the world's leading independent racing game developer & publisher. With a history spanning over 25 years, the studio has won numerous awards for its million-plus selling titles and garnered exceptional acclaim in the business sector. As well as its headquarters in the Gateshead (UK), the company has studios in Hong Kong, Chengdu (China) and Charlotte (USA)
For more information, please visit www.eutechnyx.com
About Kongzhong
Kongzhong (NASDAQ:KONG), listed in Nasdaq in 2004, is one of the leading providers of digital entertainment services for consumers in the PRC. We operate three main business units, namely WVAS, mobile games and Internet games. Within Internet games, KONG has the exclusive publishing rights for World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, World of Warships, Guild Wars 2 and other titles in mainland China. Since the acquisition of our proprietary smartphone game engine platform in 2011, KONG has expanded our smartphone game development team across 4 cities in China currently developing over 10 smartphone games across various genres, including MMORPG, RTS, military, and fantasy.
