Webzen ‘Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN)’
Voted ‘Most Anticipated Online Game’ at China’s ‘Best Online Game Selection’
- Named ‘奇迹世界’ in China, is receiving high expectation from Chinese gamers
(2006-04-25) Webzen Inc. (CEO, Man Ju Kim, www.webzen.com) Webzen’s blockbuster MMORPG Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) has been selected as the most anticipated online game at the 2nd Annual
‘Best Online Game Selection’ in China.
“Best Online Game Selection” is an event sponsored by ‘互动游戏(Hodong Yoo-Hui)’ and ‘Sina Utalk(http://www.utalk.com.cn)’, and is in cooperation with China’s largest game distribution company Junnet and daily newspaper ‘北京晨報(http://www.morningpost.com.com)’. In this event, the best game was selected from 4 criteria such as product, design, marketing, etc., and from 15 categories.
Hosting its second event this year, 10 leading medias and 30 game related companies participated on a large scale. Also, newly founding the ‘Most Anticipated Game’ category, votes from general gamers were gathered from February 14th to March 25th through the community portal site ‘SINA UC (http://www.51uc.com).
(Event website: http://event.51uc.com/ut/060218060331kxcb/zjyx.html)
As a result, putting aside games such as Turbine’s ‘Dungeons & Dragons Online’ (US), Koei’s ‘Dae Hang-e Shi Dae’, (Japan), NP Cube’s ‘Dark and Light’, (France), Webzen’s ‘SUN’ was selected as ‘Most Anticipated Game’. After have being voted as most anticipated game on the influential game webzine www.17173.com, the expectation from the local gamers was once again proved. ‘SUN’ was licensed to one of the largest Chinese game publishers, The9 at a stunning amount of US $13 million last February.
Webzen’s CEO, Nam Ju Kim stated, “I am very pleased that ‘SUN’ has been recognized among various other foreign games”, and added “China is ‘SUN’s first overseas launching market and also one of our global bases in which we have our subsidiary, so we will continuously devote our efforts to successfully penetrate in that market.”
In the meantime, ‘SUN’ will be serviced through the Chinese game publisher ‘THE9’ as 奇迹世界.
- 2nd Annual ‘Best Online Game Selection’ ‘Most Anticipated Game’ category rank
Rank Developer Game Name
1 Webzen Inc. (Korea) 奇迹世界(Soul of the Ultimate Nation (‘SUN’)
2 SOFTSTAR ENTERTAINMENT (China) 仙剑奇侠传 Online
3 Turbine (US) Dungeons & Dragons Online
4 Kingsoft Corp (China) 剑侠情缘网络版III
5 Hanbitsoft (Korea) 卓越之剑 (Granado Espada)
6 TengWu Digi (China) 功夫Online (Kung-Fu Online)
7 CCP (Iceland) EVE Online
8 Koei (Japan) 大航海时代 (Dae Hang-e Shi Dae Online)
9 NP Cube(France) 黑暗与光明 (Dark and Light)
10 Wayi (China) 新石器时代
