About Empire Craft

9

Empire Craft Screenshot

I received this very interesting email:

Dear Bruce,

Greetings from Megan Liu, head of Overseas Business Department of Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI). I joined OPI just over one week ago and my responsibility is to lead OPI’s overseas business(game).

I happen to find your website: https://www.bruceongames.com/ and read some your articles. I respect your expertise and I already found many interesting points of view in your blog.

I bumped into a short comment you made on your blog (dated July 15th, 2009; subject title: Empire Craft, the next Evony). In you comments, you link Empire Craft with Evony. You then suspect that Empire Craft is malware. I would like to clarify that Empire Craft and Evony are in no way related or similar. I will share some facts about OPI and its products.

OPI is one of the leading (browser-based) webgame developers and operators in China. OPI has reputable venture capital funding from Softbank (Japan) and General Atlantic, Doll Capital Management. Last year Softbank invested over $US430 Million and Son Masayoshi now sits on our board of directors. The company and development team are not associated with either Evony or Eric Lam. Empire Craft is developed by OPI and has no hidden agenda or malware to gain revenue. None of OPI’s products are malicious. OPI is targeting long term growth, has expanded into overseas markets and is trying to attract loyal players. It also developed The Secret of Heavely Book (http://t.mop.com/) which won the 2008 ChinaJoy Jinling Game of Year and is gaining popularity.

I understand some game operators might use inappropriate or deceptive marketing information to increase their market and profits. This short term strategy always leaves a bad taste in players’ mouths and negatively impacts the serious industry players such as OPI.

I admit there are areas of improvement in OPI’s current English product offerings e.g. the User Agreement that you found so similar to Evony’s. I am determined to help OPI to improve these areas so that we can introduce a wonderful, enjoyable webgame experience to players outside China. I really admire your background and marketing experience and I hope we can keep in touch and to see if we can find some potential opportunities to cooperate in the near future.

For more information about OPI please check: http://www.oakpacific.com/english/about.htm

For OPI games in China please check: http://www.imop.com/

If you have further questions about OPI and our products, please feel free to contact me. I’ll be very glad to assist you in the future. .

Best regards,

Megan Liu (刘春华)

Overseas Business Department – Game Center
Oak Pacific Interactive
No.8 North Third Ring Road East, Chao Yang District ,Beijing, P.R.China Zip Code: 100028

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9 Comments


  1. still sounds fake to me…why use the lame “hithere.com” instead of using its real name as your domain…are there other alternative domains besides hithere? you just joined OPI just over one week ago…hmmmm…hmmmm..okay..what happened to the old head? just wondering…


  2. http://digg.com/design/HiThere_com_A_cool_website_to_sell_your_designs

    This is a new attractive site, where you can use your own designs to create products like T-shirts, e-card, buddy icon etc. It’s FREE to set up a store and create products. You can earn commission on products you sell while needn’t pay anything. You also can create widget for your store, and add it to your profiles and blog pages for promotion.


  3. HitHere.com Whois Record
    ( Hit Here )
    Change Word Breaks

    ICANN Registrar: HICHINA ZHICHENG TECHNOLOGY LTD.
    Created: 2003-07-21
    Expires: 2012-07-21
    Updated: 2009-07-02
    Registrar Status: ok
    Name Server: NS1.MF518.COM (has 8 domains)
    Name Server: NS2.MF518.COM (has 8 domains)
    Whois Server: grs.hichina.com


  4. more juicy news about this shady Oak Pacific Interactive…

    Charges by Internet company Qihoo that Oak Pacific Interactive vice president and DoNews founder Liu Ren had blackmailed Qihoo resulted in Liu’s arrest, reports National Business Daily quoting a Qihoo senior executive. According to the executive, several companies have sued Liu for tens of millions of Yuan for using his DoNews.com articles to blackmail them, and the Beijing-based Internet company turned Liu in after he requested Qihoo pay a “publicity protection fee.” Qihoo has paid a significant amount to prevent Liu from writing articles damaging to Qihoo, said the report quoting unnamed sources.

    Source: http://www.jlmpacificepoch.com/newsstories?id=134099_0_5_0_M


  6. The real name of the English based company, or whatever you would call it, is ‘HiThere’. Odd name, but that is why the game is at ec.hithere.com. HiThere.com is the main page for all their English games (and the ones to come).


  7. Looking at the Empire Craft ad to the right of this article, I have no doubt that as “leading (browser-based) webgame developers and operators in China” there is an interest in money, potentially gold-farming.

    After all, if they were trying to design a game, I would think they could design their own bloody graphics!


  8. 1) “刘春华 megan” in Google.
    2) Translate this page.
    3) 2006-7-10 17:03:00 text / Source: IT.com.cn (IT World Network)


  9. Can Google write a game MMOPGH like evony for us.GOOGLE u can make money. MAKE A GAME FOR US ALL TO PLAY with little cities and armies and such. HELP US GOOGLE.

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