In March 2009 more than 800,000 people were logged into one game at the same moment. The game was Tian Long Ba Bu, built on a kung fu novel by Louis Cha that generations of Chinese readers grew up on. Its owner, Changyou, was the online game arm of the internet portal Sohu. Wall Street was still reeling from the financial crisis, and almost no one was going public. Changyou filed anyway, betting that Chinese gamers would keep paying through the downturn.

Two Licensed Flops, Then a Hit

Sohu started an online game unit in 2003. Its first two games were licensed from outside developers. The first, Knight Online, came from Korea and never caught on. Sohu then built its own. Tian Long Ba Bu launched in May 2007, drew more than 400,000 players at once in its first month, and ranked among China's most popular games that year. In August 2007 Sohu set up Changyou as a separate company to hold the game business.

Sohu Takes It Back

Changyou priced 7.5 million American depositary shares at $16 each on April 2, 2009, and listed on Nasdaq as CYOU. Half the shares came from the company and half from Sohu. Changyou kept Tian Long Ba Bu running for years and added new games, but China's players moved to phones and the old PC titles faded. In April 2020 Sohu bought out the other shareholders, and Changyou left Nasdaq.

Cover: Ma Lin (Tettekisen Barin), from the series "One Hundred and Eight Heroes of the Popular Water Margin", Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a hero of Chinese martial legend (the martial arts epic).