Leading games operator in China, The9, is to develop more than one game of its own for release each year.
After reports earlier in the week that The9, operator of games including World of Warcraft and Fifa Online 2, is to begin developing its own MMO, it emerges that it indends to release at least two or three games every year.
According to Chinese site qq.com, from the one expansion pack and five games that the company intend to release this year, one third of those will be developed in-house. 100 new staff will be hired by the end of 2009 to meet this demand, bringing the development team to around 400 people, says The9 president Xiaowei Chen.
Although The9 has a lot of work to do before it makes anything to rival the games it already operates in China, will games developers now think twice before renewing their contracts with The9 due to a possible conflict of interest?
