online games

Disney Set to Acquire Top Indian Game Developer Indiagames

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on October 6, 2011 at 1:21 am PT

Disney is close to finalizing the acquisition of Mumbai-based Indiagames, one of India’s leading developers and publishers of online and mobile games.

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Zynga, Lady Gaga Discuss Promotional Deal

Nick Wingfield and Ethan Smith, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 21, 2011 at 12:00 am PT

Zynga Inc. and singer Lady Gaga are in discussions about a partnership to promote the singer’s upcoming album to Zynga’s huge audience of online game players, according to people familiar with the matter.

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First, Give Away the Game

Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on July 30, 2010 at 12:00 am PT

More videogame companies, angling for larger audiences for big-budget online games, are making their products free to play in the hopes they can make more money by charging players for virtual goods. Videogame makers in Asia, who years ago figured out how to make money from free services by began charging players for virtual goods on free services, like weapons and outfits. Now that approach is catching on in the U.S., even among makers of big-budget online games.

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China's Tencent to Buy Stake in Russia's DST

Loretta Chao, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 12, 2010 at 12:10 pm PT

China’s largest Internet company, Tencent Holdings Ltd., is purchasing a 10 percent stake in Digital Sky Technologies Ltd., a Russian investment firm that holds a stake in Facebook Inc. Shenzhen-based Tencent, which popularized instant messaging in China and operates an online game portal and other Chinese Internet services, said it will invest approximately $300 million in Moscow-based Digital Sky, also known as DST.

Plurk Plundered! Microsoft Pulls Plug on Pilfered Property Posthaste [UPDATED]

John Paczkowski in Social on December 15, 2009 at 10:37 am PT

If Microsoft didn’t know what a Plurk was before, it knows now. The software giant has suspended MSN Juku, its Chinese microblog site, “indefinitely” after confirming that the vendor that developed the site did indeed, as Plurk charged, copy design and code from Plurk, a Twitter rival popular in Taiwan and Indonesia.

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China to Claim Half of Online Game Market, Report Says

Juliet Ye, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on November 23, 2009 at 10:15 am PT

Videogames are serious business in China. The country’s online game market will reach 41 billion yuan ($6 billion) by 2010, accounting for half the global market, according to newly released data from Cnzz.com, a Beijing-based data analysis firm. The Cnzz.com report says that almost two-thirds of China’s 338 million Web users are now online gamers. The online-game industry, which currently accounts for more than half of the total Internet economy, will see strong annual growth at a rate of 20 percent in future years, the report says.

Wi-Fi on Wheels Is Steady, but Has a Speed Bump

Walt Mossberg in Personal Technology on November 12, 2008 at 6:04 pm PT

Wi-Fi wireless Internet connectivity has become nearly ubiquitous. Whether you’re at home, in a coffee shop, or even on some commercial airliners, you can get online with a Wi-Fi-equipped laptop, smart phone or portable game machine. Now, Wi-Fi is making its way into your car.