BEIJING, Jan. 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — KongZhong Corporation (NASDAQ: KONG), a leading provider of digital entertainment services for consumers in the PRC, was granted three awards at the Golden Plume Awards 2013 ceremony held on January 9th in Hangzhou, China. The Golden Plume Awards, held by the ChinaJoy Committee, also known as the Chinese Industry’s “Game Oscar”, are the most influential gaming awards in China. At this year’s award ceremony, KongZhong Internet Games received the “Players’ Most Favored Online Game” and the “Best Foreign Online Game” awards for World of Tanks, and the “Game Most Anticipated by Players” award for World of Warplanes.
World of Tanks has now won Golden Plume Awards three consecutive years in a row. In 2011, it was granted the “Best Foreign Online Game” and the “Top 10 Players’ Most Favored Games” awards. In 2012, it continued its industry recognition to hold the “Players’ Favorite Game” award. And in 2013, World of Tanks once again won the “Players’ Most Favored Online Game” and the “Best Foreign Online Game” awards.
World of Tanks, developed by Wargaming and published by KongZhong in China, is a team-based massively multiplayer online action game dedicated to armored warfare, which includes more than 200 historically accurate armored vehicles from military history. Till now, more than 60 million players globally have registered for World of Tanks, making it one of the most popular 3D military online games in the world.
World of Warplanes, a military flying aircraft online game from the upcoming three-part War Saga series, also developed by Wargaming, won the “Game Most Anticipated by Players” award in 2013. This award demonstrates the strong market expectation and support by Chinese players. The localization work for World of Warplanes has largely been completed and the game will begin another round of closed beta and open beta testing likely in the first half of 2014. The Company believes that through World of Tanks’ successful operation and large accumulated military genre game user base, it has a strong existing foundation from which to launch World of Warplanes to commercial success.
As the most prestigious gaming awards in China, the Golden Plume Awards are also known in the industry as the “Game Oscars”. Awards are selected by China’s tens of millions of game fans, highlighting true market demand and underlying support by Chinese game players. In this year, more than 500 games and 80 media competed for 13 categories awards including PC games, Web browser games, Mobile game and Media awards.
Through KongZhong’s close partnership with Wargaming and Wargaming’s upcoming War Saga series, which will consist of World of Tanks, World of Warplanes and World of Warships, the Company has established itself as the leading player in the military and armored warfare online game category in China.
As a key growth driver for 2014, besides World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, KongZhong also has plans to begin closed and open beta testing of a strong diversified portfolio of market leading PC games, including Guild Wars 2, Auto Revolution Club, Blitzkrieg 3, Master of Meteor Blades, etc., as well as a fast growing portfolio of high-quality smartphone games. Through this strong portfolio of high quality PC and smartphone games, KongZhong’s goal is to bring the best online game experiences to millions of Chinese online gamers in 2014 and years to come.
About KongZhong
KongZhong (NASDAQ: KONG), listed in Nasdaq in 2004, is one of the leading providers of digital entertainment services for consumers in the PRC. We operate three main business units, namely WVAS, mobile games and Internet games. Within Internet games, KONG has the exclusive publishing rights for World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, World of Warships, Guild Wars 2 and other titles in mainland China. Since the acquisition of our proprietary smartphone game engine platform in 2011, KONG has expanded our smartphone game development team across 4 cities in China currently developing over 10 smartphone games across various genres, including MMORPG, RTS, military, and fantasy.
SOURCE KongZhong Corporation