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Comment (The market value of online games in China is projected to have an average annual growth of 30% to 25 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) by 2010, according to market research firm IDC.
A recent official report shows that the online games industry in China has recorded massive growth in 2006, with revenues up 73.5 percent over 2005 to a total of 6.54 billion Yuan ($839 million), 65 percent of which came from domestically developed games. Apart from the 4.24 billion yuan brought in by domestically developed games, $20 million in revenues was recorded for Chinese games exported overseas in 2006. Casual games were also reportedly responsible for 18.8 percent of the yearly growth, with a total revenue of 1.23 billion yuan.
Online game industry keeps growing step by step in China. A few years ago, there were only a few enterprises making profits, while the majority was foiling, and the profits of enterprises are quite different from each other. China currently houses 90 online game development companies, 25 in Beijing and 20 in Shangai alone. Market research has estimated that revenue from the Chinese online game market, which hosts an estimated 31 million players, will grow 30 percent annually to 25 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) by 2011, according to a newly released report by China-based market research firm IDC.
The annual users' arrival rate, which is the proportion of online gamers to China's total netizen population, was 73.47 percent in 2006, with a total customer scale of about 100 million people. In the breakdown, QQ games posted the highest arrival rate in the year, followed by ourgame.com and Shanda. It is estimated that QQ games lured more than 50 million netizens in 2006, while ourgame.com and Shanda attracted about 27 million netizens respectively. MMORPGs (massively multi-player online role-playing games) have become the mainstream game type in China.
In light of the large potential market, several Taiwanese companies have stepped into the mainland China market by offering self-developed online games for operation by representatives in the mainland, according to industry sources in Taiwan.
