SHANGHAI, CHINA- MySpace, the world's most popular social network, today announced the official launch of the first ever Pan-Asian game applications competition TheGame08.

Beginning today, MySpace is inviting developers in China, Japan, Korea, and India – the four Asian powerhouses in gaming entertainment – to showcase their talents by creating the most innovative gaming application for the newly launched MySpace Developer Platform.

MySpace announced the TheGame08 competition at a press conference at ChinaJoy, one of the largest gaming expos in the world, to introduce and familiarize the international gaming community with the MySpace Developer Platform and will also be leading a Keynote discussion on the rise of casual gaming on social networks. The Game08 competition underscores MySpace's commitment to embracing and cultivating the burgeoning developer communities around the world and enriching the user experience through a myriad of application offerings.

"This is the first large scale cross-border contest for the MySpace Developer Platform in Asia and truly exemplifies MySpace's commitment to building a strong and collaborative business presence in this region," said Sung Lee, vice president of Asian Operations for MySpace. "ChinaJoy is one of the largest gaming expos in the world and provides a great opportunity to showcase the incredibly talented gaming developers in Asia and how they are engaging in social networks."

TheGame08 starts from July 17 2008, through September 14, 2008 and is open to developers who are legal residents of China, India, Japan or Korea and are at least 18 years of age. The contestants can submit their applications online at the MySPace website for TheGame08.

Once all applications have been received, each region will choose a semi-finalist to be judged in the finals by a panel of today's most influential names in the online space including Tom Anderson, Co-Founder and President of MySpace. The winning gaming application will be announced on October 9, 2008 at this year's Tokyo Game Show, one of the world's most respected gaming events, and will be translated into English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, making it available for download by the global MySpace community of more than 117 million users.

MySpace launched the MySpace Developer Platform to give software developers around the world the chance to deeply integrate with MySpace. The MySpace Developer Platform Site allows developers large and small to come together and easily build creative, user-enriching applications for MySpace. MySpace is committed to the developer community, and actively works to help developers monetize and promote their applications. MySpace is dedicated to leveraging the OpenSocial standard to support community-driven innovation and promote a more collaborative Web.