SNWT my personal most profitable stock of the year

According to a recent article of William Zhu, former VP of Shanda, he
said that Shanda has over XXX millions of pre-paid dollars in their
poll.... article in chinese, link: http://news.pcgames.com.cn/cyda/0910/1664234.html

On Oct 22, 3:36 am, usoon <usoo...@hotmail.com> wrote:

That's too long.  Is there anything an investor should worry about?

NOTICE: I know many int’l investors,  game industry professionals,
analysts will find this text relevant to their interests. The purpose
that I publishing this blog is trying to share the true and firsthand
regulation info to non-Chinese speakers. There are obviously lot of
misunderstanding and mistakes about the industry regulation
environment in China game market, especially on English media. Please
note that this translation analysis is just for information sharing
purpose, the author will not responsible for any consequences of
readers’ business decision based on this text, if you want to contact
the author, please email to horace.xiong at Gmail.com

I will publish another blog regarding the recent China government's
ban on foreign companies' operation in China.
www.horacexiong.com

—-

On June 26th 2009 China Culture Ministry published a Notice regarding
online games virtual currency regulation. Click here to see the
Chinese official version. Following  is my full text translation:

Most important clauses in red and Horace’s analysis in blue.

A.      Market entity regulation:

1. Definition: The Online game virtual currency(referred as “virtual
currency”) are countable virtual token/credit issued by game
operators, bought by game players with real money(RMB), stored on
billing system of game operators in digital format. Virtual currency
are consumed by players to buy online gaming service provided by game
operators. It exist as online game prepaid card, prepaid amount or
points, but NOT as in game item.

(Horace: so what this regulation will talk about is “service credit/
point issued by game operator that can be bought by customer using
real money, it’s not about ingame currency like Gold in WoW. You may
feel strange why they don’t include ingame currency to the definition.
The reason is because ingame item/currency is a too big(complicated)
thing for government to regulate in current status. It involved with
too many sophisticated fields and regulating departments. So the
government choose to start with a smaller definition. But this
definition missed one thing: what if game publisher allow players to
use the points to buy ingame stuff?—-actually that’s what most micro
translation game do. They all have 2 type of currencies in game, one
is old style ingame currency, the other is credits exchanged/bought
with RMB at a fix rate. Some salable ingame items have 2 price tag,
the other only have one. This regulation won’t talk about this, which
leave more uncertainties for the future)

2. Market Entry Conditions: “Online game virtual currency issuing
service” and “Online game virtual currency exchanging service” are two
different type of services. Entities want to provide these two type of
service to customers should submit application to province level
culture administration department. After initial review, the province
level culture administration department should submit the application
to Culture Ministry for approval. “Online game virtual currency
issuing service” means game operators issue virtual currency that can
be used by customers on their own gaming platform; “Online game
virtual currency exchanging service” means a service provider build a
platform to facilitate exchange activities among users. One entity
should not provide these two services at the same time.

(Horace: These rules raise the entry barrier for game operator who
want to establish virtual currency/point on their operation platform.
Besides, by making it clear that one company can’t have two business
at same time, China government, for the first time, officially
recognized the legal status of many virtual currency exchange service
providers  like 5173.com, even though they didn’t mention “ingame item
exchange” here. Such administration style exist widely in China: the
authority will not say I encourage (or don’t allow) you to something,
but only say you have to submit the application before you want to do
it. Of course another reason government don’t allow one company to
provide both issuing and exchange/trading service is to create a
shield between these two behavior. Well, publishers can still bypass
this restriction by setting up two independent companies. Another
controversial issue is: How culture ministry can regulate this? These
are definitely not “culture activity”, but more like “monetary or
financial activities”. Who give them the administration authority to
regulate monetary activities. China Central bank seemed to be a proper
regulator in this field. My guess is Culture Ministry just pick it up
as a big pie for their own interests while China Central Bank is busy
enough managing real banks)

3. Online game virtual currency issuing service provider should
prepare following extra information when submitting application
documents:

    * Virtual currency format(i.e.: in what way it exists);
    * Issuing scale;
    * Unit price;
    * Termination method (how player can get refund when the service
terminated);
    * Payment method(cash, bank card, online payment and such);
    * User right protection terms;
    * User account and genuine name bank account binding information;
    * Technical security protection terms;

(Horace: the purpose of these data requirement are mainly for risk
control and user right protection. Some insider said the China central
bank might even ask virtual currency issuer to pay deposit reserve
(very similar to how real bank works) to make sure when the publisher
bankrupt, customers can get refund.)

4. Online game virtual currency exchanging service provider should
prepare following extra information when submitting application
documents:

    * Platform model;
    * Payment method(cash, bank card, online payment and such);
    * User right protection terms;
    * User account and genuine name bank account binding information;
    * Technical security protection terms;

5. Enterprises already involved in these business, should submit
related operation information to culture administration department
within 3 months.

B.      Issuing & trading regulation, market risk control.

6. Online game operator should issue virtual currency properly
according to business operation status and product condition. Issuing
excessive amount of virtual currency to collect real money is strictly
prohibited. Online game operator should submit total virtual currency
scale information to province level culture administration department
quarterly.

(Horace: this will force publishers to reduce activities like selling
too much prepaid card to take advantage of the abnormal cash flow. By
review all report, regulator will know the overall status of their
operation)

7. Real money purchase should be the only method that game operator
provide virtual currency to its customers. Game operator should not
provide virtual currency to its customers in any other way. Service
provider should store user transaction record for at least 180 days.

(Horace: this endeavor is trying to stabilize the exchange rate of
virtual currency and real money. Publishers in the future should be
more careful when planning any promotion plan or discount activities.
In operation practice, this can be violated very easily)

8. Virtual currency’s usage should be limited to purchasing issuing
entity’s own virtual service. It should not be used to buy any real
physical product or service from other companies.

(Horace: basically this is the second important clause in this notice.
It wipe out the dreams of many big publishers who plan to make their
virtual currency become hard currency across the whole internet
ecosystem. For some of them, like Tencent’s Q-money, already became
universal currency on internet. You can use it to buy all kinds of
stuff and service on China internet, including webcam strip dance.
(10-20q for 20mins btw) :)

9. Online game operator should prepare necessary petition channel and
customer service procedure to protect user’s legit right. Such
information and channel should be presented expressly on the service
official website.

10. If there is any dispute, user should present effective ID
information as the same with registration profile. Online game
operator should provide virtual currency transaction and transfer
record after ID authentication, and proceed with petition handling
procedures. Whenever user’s legit right are infringed, online game
operator should cooperate to provide evidence and help to resolve the
problem.

(Horace: these is quite time consuming effort for publishers to keep
all these data and provide timely feedback. Basically the government
are loading more responsibility  to publisher as policeman when
dispute arises.)

11. When online game operator plan to terminate the product operation
or service, it should publish the notice 60 days before the
termination date. Upon service termination, online game operator
should refund the unconsumed virtual currency to user in cash or ways
that accepted by users. Online games that are inaccessible by user
over 30 consecutive days because of technical problem or business
operation, can be recognized as “terminated”.

(Horace: previously there was no written requirement for online game
service termination reorganization or refund arrangement or time
limitation, this clause set the first government guideline. The most
obvious impact is it will speed up the death of some underperformed
product. i.e.: game publisher should refund the prepaid money to
players if the sever is down for consecutive 30 days.)

12. Online game operator should not change the unit price of virtual
currency. If want to issue new type of virtual currency, game operator
should submit application files to regulator according to clause 3.
...

read more »

Well.... market is never rational to begin with. It is driven by luck
more than fundamentals.
Most investor have never even play any one game of SNDA anyways.

I cannot really keep silent and have to say 'Are all blind?'. SNDA is
a perfect stock, why it drops so much?  I don't understand. If you
reject the stock like SNDA, what kind of stock can you buy? Is
everyone blind? SNDA is really a perfect stock which has good
potential.

CYOU was a spin off from SOHU.....Not SNDA.  True, they're more or
less both active in the same industry AND both companies are Chinese
owned and operated......however, that's where the similarities end

On Oct 15, 1:57 pm, Jas <jsp...@yahoo.com> wrote:

I haven't seen the amount of money GAME/SNDA has been making since the
release of AION.

But if we're talking about Blizzard-type growth within the first few
quarters, I'm hanging on.

On Sep 25, 1:34 pm, arif m <marif1...@gmail.com> wrote:

they seem to have removed all traces of it now, previously my
portfolio had a - where it *was* for that one day.  Now even the dash,
along with my transaction data has disapeared.  F Google

On Oct 6, 9:16 am, PJ <pjain...@gmail.com> wrote:

Actually, the did for 1 day and I do not see after that.

On Oct 5, 4:14 pm, Dave <dave.labovi...@gmail.com> wrote:

tis a good question

On Oct 5, 11:02 am, Jason <jasonj...@gmail.com> wrote:

why doesn't google cover GAME?

On Sep 27, 7:03 pm, josh <josshw...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Where can i see the real time data of GAME?

Oh China , why you treat us like this. It's starting to remind me of
GA ipo A real dog. :-(