Oh my tommymoose I got pimp slapped with BBC too. Management even did a road show at Wackovia and lured in my brotherinlaw-broker with all their BS. Handcuffs anyone?
Nice point on the insider. It's tough to find insider info on the China plays...
Since the gossip is of a spilt off of the game side let's take a quick peek under the covers there-
Since its commercial launch in July 2005, Yulgang, the first free-to-play, pay-for- merchandise massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in China, has maintained steady growth and continuous popularity. The game encourages cooperation and teamwork between the players. Consistent with this successful theme, the v170 upgrade provides Chinese gamers with adorable and powerful virtual pets to further enhance their gaming experiences. Now gamers can buy the pets they love, interact with them, train them, and make them stronger with merchandises specially designed for pets. Besides enabling gamers to develop a bond with their pets, the upgrade also significantly improves the game's overall operation and attractiveness.
This upgrade has been highly anticipated by the continued growth of registered users of Yulgang, which now numbers 42 million, up from 37 million users at the end of the third quarter of 2006. More than 1 million registered users upgraded to the new version immediately. Recognized revenue on the first day of v170 launch was US$235,000, tripling that of the day before. During the first week of v170 launch, the average daily revenue was US$160,000, up 72 percent from the daily average revenue in Q3 2006.
Lets get this straight- stick some virtual pets into the game and daily rev spikes 72%! Boy the software tweak factor is huge here- what happens when they introduce virtual mistresses? Certainly you want to be in the stock for the next earnings report when the expand on the v170 upgrade and say how many gamers have upgraded.
CDC Games also has a growing pipeline of new online games. The company plans to launch its licensed game The Lord of the Rings Online(TM): Shadows of Angmar(TM), a MMORPG based on the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien, later this year, and has licensed two additional widely popular games in the Asian markets, "Special Force" and "Stone Age 2", both also planned for delivery in China later this year. CDC Games also recently announced an agreement with Gorilla Banana Entertainment to distribute their first game, Red Blood, a free-to-play MMORPG based on an immensely popular comic book series in Korea, in 2008.
Of those I would say Red Blood might be the big winner. So not only do you have a company that has raised guidance you know they could drop the spinoff bomb at any time- or raise guidance again. It's a little monster to be sure but with a very real and viable other software side providing the company steady income. The delay in 3G launch in China (yet again) could hurt their competitors more than CHINA I believe as their value add stuff is already being used and most of their action is web based not phone based. Price Target I would guess is around $13.....
Oh, by the way, I'm planning on signing up with AmeriTrade because of the special they have going, but Scottrade seems good too. Any ideas on this subject? Thanks again..