Games publisher Riot Games has closed a round of financing with venture capital firms, Benchmark Capital and FirstMark Capital, and the Chinese online services company Tencent. Although still nascent in western markets, Riot focuses on session-based, free-to-play, virtual item-based business model.

Changyou.com (Nasdaq: CYOU), an online game developer and operator in China, today announced that it has launched Blade Hero 2, the Company's new 2.5D martial arts-style fighting massively multi-player online role-playing game.

The MMORPG Ask Tao from Guangyu Huaxia has has proven to be an robust hit despite having relatively simple graphics. The title competes against games such as Netease's Fantasy Westward Journey and has a large following in China's second-tier cities.

Funcom announced the establishment of a new development studio in Montréal, Canada. Besides new hires, Funcom will also move a certain number of key personnel over to the new studio. Funcom has over 320 employees employed at the company’s offices in Norway, the US, China, and Switzerland.

The9's net revenues for the second quarter of 2009 decreased by 32% quarter-over-quarter and decreased by 37% year-over-year to RMB287.9 million (US$42.2 million). Net loss for the second quarter of 2009 was RMB79.2 million (US$11.6 million), a 69% increase from net loss of RMB46.8 million (US$6.9 million) in the first quarter of 2009. This also compares with net income of RMB99.0 million (US$14.5 million) in the second quarter of 2008.

NetDragon Websoft, an online game developer and operator in China, today announced its Interim 2009 unaudited financial results for the six-month period ended 30 June 2009. The company's revenues were 162.9 million RMB ($24 million), compared to 173.9 million RMB in Q1 2009, down -6.3% quarter-on-quarter. Profit was 17.6 million RMB ($2.6 million), compared to 48.8 million RMB in Q1 2009, down -63.9%.

Blizzard Entertainmen announced plans for the third expansion to World of Warcraft titled World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. The expansion pack will bring changes to the world of Azeroth as players will be able to adventure as two new playable races. The title was unveiled at BlizzCon, Blizzard's convention.

Giant Interactive's (NYSE: GA) net revenue for the second quarter 2009 was RMB364.1 million (US$53.3 million), representing a 2.5% decrease from RMB373.5 million in the first quarter 2009 and a 27.9% decrease from RMB504.8 million in the second quarter 2008. Net income for the second quarter 2009 was RMB231.9 million (US$34.0 million), which remained consistent compared to RMB231.9 million in the first quarter 2009 and is a year-over-year decrease of 33.9% from RMB350.6 million. The year-over-year decrease is attributable to the decrease in net revenue.

Total revenue for CDC Games during the second quarter of 2009 was $9.5 million. This represents a decrease of approximately 11 percent from the second quarter of 2008, but represents an increase of over 50 percent from the first quarter of 2009. EBITDA was $3.3 million in Q2 2009 compared to $2.6 million in the prior year.

NetEase's total revenues for the second quarter of 2009 were RMB872.1 million (US$127.7 million), compared to RMB781.7 million (US$114.4 million) and RMB715.9 million (US$104.8 million) for the preceding quarter and the second quarter of 2008, respectively.