Shanda is China’s biggest online game company
The numbers behind this company underline the scope of the opportunity. As many as 2.5 million people are online playing one of Shanda’s MMOs at any given time. The scope of their operations is impressive, as described in this November 28th, 2005 FORTUNE magazine article by Stephan Farris:
In another wing sit 300 telephone operators, who field questions from callers 24 hours a day. They are testimony to Chen’s view of the industry. “Online gaming is not a product, it’s a service,” he says. “The first month we got profitable, we invested in the call center.” In another room, technicians monitor real-time digital graphs that track how many users are logged on to Shanda’s games. (The company has a network of 14,000 servers that can accommodate as many as 5.9 million users at once.) “A lot of people think of games as whoever has the hottest product will be the winner,” says Zhou Donglei, head of investor relations. “But it’s really not. It’s who has the most stable platform.” Or, as Chen puts it, “If you want to live in a house, first it should be strong enough. Then we can add the decorations.”
