China's No. 1 Internet firm to publish Lineage series

By Kim Young-gyo
HONG KONG, June 13 (Yonhap) -- Tencent Holdings Ltd., China's No. 1 Internet company by revenue, has signed an agreement to publish "Lineage," a popular South Korean online game series, in the world's most populous country, company officials said Monday.
Tencent, widely known for running the world's third-largest instant messenger program QQ, said it will re-launch Lineage I and Lineage II in China. Both of those online games were developed by South Korea's NCsoft Corp.
The two online games are currently run in China by Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd., a Shanghai-based operator of online games. Shanda announced earlier that it will discontinue its service of the Lineage series within two months.
Details regarding the scheduled re-launch of the game series have yet to be announced, Tencent officials said.
Tencent has a high user base, drawing 140 million users at its peak for its QQ instant messenger program during the first quarter of 2011.
Tencent saw its first-quarter profit jumped 61 percent on-year, boosted by its new online games. Net income climbed to 2.87 billion yuan (US$442 million) from 1.78 billion yuan a year earlier.
NCsoft, the South Korean maker of popular role-playing online games such as Lineage and Aion, posted a net profit of 34.5 billion won ($31.6 million) during the first three months of this year.
ygkim@yna.co.kr