Sohu.com (SOHU)

We may fail to launch new games according to our timetable, and our new games may not be commercially successful, or may attract game players away from our existing games.

We must introduce new online games that can generate additional online game revenues and diversify our online game revenue sources in order to remain competitive. We have three games in the pipeline, DMD, IF and LAW. We expect to begin open beta testing of IF and DMD in the second and fourth quarter of 2009, respectively, and of LAW in early 2010. We are developing DMD in-house and we have licensed IF and LAW from local third party developers. We will not generate any revenue from a game until it enters open beta testing. However, we cannot assure you that we will be able to meet our timetable for new game launches. A number of factors, including technical difficulties, lack of sufficient game development personnel and other resources, and adverse developments in our relationship with licensors of our new licensed games could result in delayed launching of or new games. In addition, we cannot assure you that our new games will be as well received in the market as TLBB, and you should not use TLBB as an indication of the commercial success of our future games. There are many factors that may adversely affect the popularity of a new game. For example, we may fail to anticipate and adapt to future technical trends, new business models and changed game players’ preferences and requirements, fail to effectively plan and organize marketing and promotion activities, or fail to differentiate our new games from our existing games. If the new online games we introduce are not commercially successful, we may not be able to recover our development costs, which can be significant.

In addition, our new online games may attract game players away from our existing games. In particular, DMD is also an MMORPG based on a novel written by Louis Cha, the same author of Tian Long Ba Bu, based on which we developed TLBB. We cannot assure you that our TLBB game players will not be attracted to play DMD instead of TLBB after DMD’s launch. If this occurred, it would decrease our existing games’ player bases, which could in turn make these games less attractive to other game players, resulting in decreased revenues from our existing games. Game players of our existing games may also spend less money to purchase virtual items in our new online games than they would have spent if they had continued playing our existing games, which would have a significant adverse effect on our online game revenues.

We may fail to launch new games according to our
timetable, and our new games may not be commercially successful, or may attract game players away from our existing games.

We must introduce new
online games that can generate additional online game revenues and diversify our online game revenue sources in order to remain competitive. We have three games in the pipeline, DMD, IF and LAW. We expect to begin open beta testing of IF and DMD in
the second and fourth quarter of 2009, respectively, and of LAW in early 2010. We are developing DMD in-house and we have licensed IF and LAW from local third party developers. We will not generate any revenue from a game until it enters open beta
testing. However, we cannot assure you that we will be able to meet our timetable for new game launches. A number of factors, including technical difficulties, lack of sufficient game development personnel and other resources, and adverse
developments in our relationship with licensors of our new licensed games could result in delayed launching of or new games. In addition, we cannot assure you that our new games will be as well received in the market as TLBB, and you should not use
TLBB as an indication of the commercial success of our future games. There are many factors that may adversely affect the popularity of a new game. For example, we may fail to anticipate and adapt to future technical trends, new business models and
changed game players’ preferences and requirements, fail to effectively plan and organize marketing and promotion activities, or fail to differentiate our new games from our existing games. If the new online games we introduce are not
commercially successful, we may not be able to recover our development costs, which can be significant.

In addition, our new online games may attract game
players away from our existing games. In particular, DMD is also an MMORPG based on a novel written by Louis Cha, the same author of Tian Long Ba Bu, based on which we developed TLBB. We cannot assure you that our TLBB game players will not be
attracted to play DMD instead of TLBB after DMD’s launch. If this occurred, it would decrease our existing games’ player bases, which could in turn make these games less attractive to other game players, resulting in decreased revenues
from our existing games. Game players of our existing games may also spend less money to purchase virtual items in our new online games than they would have spent if they had continued playing our existing games, which would have a significant
adverse effect on our online game revenues.