Garena Offers Online Social Gaming In A Buffer-Free Arena

Singapore, 25 July 2008 – Online Gaming has never grown at this magnitude. A subset of online entertainment, Online Gaming dominates the pie by clocking in over 50% growth since 2002; well ahead of online music and video.

In fact, the Online Games sector in Asia alone piled up to some US$6.3 billion in 2007 and expected to create a whirlwind of over US$7.5 billion by 2008.

Wind back three years and active gamers were sighted downloading games into their personal computers and playing it solo at home. Today, we witness a rapid shift in the gaming landscape dominated by hardcore gamers who are not contented with just proving their own play skills. On the contrary, this new breed of gamers is constantly challenging competitors from across the globe. Welcome to Social Gaming - where social networks meet online games.

Garena (www.garena.com) was quick to fill this Social Gaming vacuum by offering a convenient online gaming arena for social gamers to chat and pluck their opponents in a multiplayer gaming environment. Despite its young establishment in 2007, Garena has become the leading gaming platform in Asia and home to more than 6 million gamers across 180 countries.

The counter continues clicking and capturing 15,000 over new registered gamers every day.
Says Garena CEO, Forrest Li, “Garena strongly believes in providing great online gaming experience and shortening the waiting time for our gamers. Backed by our centralised servers in the States and across Asia, it is very common that you see Taiwanese gamers competing with their Brazilian counterparts in a real-time gaming warzone”.

Indeed, tracking at 600 over thousand unique gamers monthly, Garena offers nothing but smooth and lapse-free connectivity and performance – the key ingredients to seduce the elusive online gaming population.

Garena’s leadership move in integrating social networking with online gaming is unique in the marketplace, providing exclusive IM/chat service for its gamers ranging from 15 to 30 years of age, to share their digital conquests and odyssey.

Riding the strong forecasted growth for the Asia online gaming market, Garena has appointed Interactive Hub as its Media Sales Representative to head up its online media sales, covering 7 of Garena’s top gaming territories; namely, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

“Asia has shown to be the fastest-growing region for Online Gaming, fuelled by the robust household internet penetration growth and increased content development for online games”, says Kenniess Wong, Regional Managing Director of Interactive Hub. Garena now joins the ranks of premium web publishers like Friendster, ESPNsoccernet and Habbo Hotel; represented by Interactive Hub.

The total revenue for the Asia Pacific online gaming market is expected to hit the roof at US$21.1 billion by 2013. With the online gaming market in Asia Pacific growing in tandem with the significant increase in consumer internet use, hardcore gamers can expect a digital feast of improved gaming contents to satisfy their ever-growing gaming appetite.