CDC Games, a business unit of CRM vendor CDC Corporation and vendor of the "free-to-play, pay for merchandise" model for online video games in China, has announced that CDC Games USA, its North American business unit, has launched its Skull Island Expansion for Lunia.

 

With the Skull Island Expansion, CDC Games has added more than 10 percent to its Lunia game content. Lunia is an action arcade MMORPG based on the manga style of Japanese comics. The Expansion is free to play except for the final stage which requires an in-game micro-transaction purchase.

 

The Skull Island Expansion enables all the players of Lunia to fish in various bodies of water, and adds several new non-player characters that offer quests centered around this new fishing ability.

 

Since its launch February 22, 2008, Lunia has grown steadily in popularity. As of April 21, 2008, there were more than 65,000 actual players of Lunia, a 55 percent increase compared to 42,000 players at the end of March 2008.

 

"The Skull Island Expansion is the first of a series of expansions that we intend to launch in the coming months," said Ron Williams, General Manager of CDC Games USA.

 

Lunia was developed by Korea-based ALLM, and is played much like an action arcade game, allowing players to move around using a keyboard's arrow keys, rather than a mouse. In each stage of the game, the players accompany the four main characters: the Knight (Sieg), the Healer (Eir), the Wizard (Dainn), and the half-Elven Thief (Tia) on their adventures in the land of Ramancha.

 

The CDC family of companies includes CRM vendor CDC Software (News - Alert) focused on enterprise software applications and services, CDC Games focused on online games, and China.com focused on portals for the greater China markets.

 

Earlier this month CDC Software announced that the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada has reported "record-breaking revenues and cost savings" attributed to CDC Software's Pivotal CRM.

 

"The annual operating savings are easily in the six figures," says David Arbuthnot, vice president of IT, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. "Six years ago, we raised $80,000 online; this year, we'll raise over $6 million."

 

The MS Society of Canada receives roughly 85 percent of its funding through donations and special events, but its "customers" extend well beyond the donor. The society also solicits corporations, foundations and government bodies for donations and event sponsorship.

 

With more than 120 offices and many different systems and processes to track customer information, ranging from spreadsheets to simple databases to more robust standalone fundraising systems, the society's data was disparate and fragmented, MS officials said. Much of the customer information gathered was not maintained from year-to-year.