Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Potential For Chinese Online Gaming Market Huge

Posted by simoniker on from the lots-of-possible-customers dept.

Thanks to GameGossip for pointing out the NPD article discussing the swift growth of online gaming in China. According to the piece, "In 2002, China's online game industry pocketed 910 million yuan(about US$110 million), compared to 310 million yuan (about US$37.34 million) in the previous year.", and "the number of online game players... doubled from four million of the previous year." In related news, since most Chinese online gamers don't have their own PC, CNET is reporting on the consolidation of Net cafes "under the management of larger, mainly state-owned companies."

28 comments

  1. Reminds me of Arcades by vasqzr · · Score: 3, Insightful



    In related news, since most Chinese online gamers don't have their own PC, CNET is reporting on the consolidation of Net cafes "under the management of larger, mainly state-owned companies."

    Reminds me of arcades here in the USA. They were incredibly popular because the home gaming consoles were so far behind coin-op hardware. They could have a huge boom over there, with net-cafe's instead of arcades. Does Nolan Bushnell know about this? Better start opening up some Chinese Chuckie Cheese's.

    1. Re:Reminds me of Arcades by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chinese Chuckie Cheese: Where a chink can be a chink.......

    2. Re:Reminds me of Arcades by Troll+the+Bones · · Score: 0

      Does Nolan Bushnell know about this? Better start opening up some Chinese Chuckie Cheese's.

      If he isn't part of China's "larger, mainly state-owned companies", he doesn't stand a chance.

      --

      So this is where the chess club wound up.
    3. Re:Reminds me of Arcades by YanceyAI · · Score: 1

      Might drive technology changes in the way we LAN, too, if demand is that strong.

      --
      Can I bum a sig?
    4. Re:Reminds me of Arcades by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod me down, but the Games.slashdot.org/ article headline is really screwing up for me for some reason.

      Im using Opera 7.0 on Windows XP professional, and Its squished over into a little column.

      The comments are setup normally, though

    5. Re:Reminds me of Arcades by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's fucked...same problem with current versions of both konqueror and firebird. I've seen this with increasing frequency too.

    6. Re:Reminds me of Arcades by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Same thing here with IE 6.02

    7. Re:Reminds me of Arcades by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      has anyone else had the experience of typing up a ./ comment, hitting the preview button and going to "page could not be displayed dns error" page, thereby losing the content of your (potential) post? methinks that slashdot is starting to "crack" under the strain of it's ever growing popularity, and since they've moved their servers to California...

  2. Subject Obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Potential For Chinese Online Gaming Market Huge"

    Translation: There are lots of people in China.

  3. Chinese videogame... by pmz · · Score: 1


    would that be like America's Army but the opponents are religion, knowledge, and representative government?

    --
    Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
    1. Re:Chinese videogame... by MMaestro · · Score: 1

      China's Army? Seems silly, but if the technological barriers can be overcome, a MMOFPS game (ie. Planetside only better) would be pretty sweet.

  4. Crazy table sizing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone else seeing crazy table sizing in the games section?

    1. Re:Crazy table sizing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, the ad seems to be sized horizontally instead of vertically. Checked it on both IE 6 and Firebird. Really screws things up.

  5. Triads by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    The Chinese Government is going to have a heck of a fight on their hands trying to keep the Triads out of the action...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  6. Great form of Population control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just give your population a virual game to live out those democractic fanstanies. It's a game. You can try out those dangerous ideas there, and found out how very bad thay are...

    Could you envision the Chinese version of OU nudity protests? I'd foresee big tanks rolling over the protesters or dragons coming and eating them.

  7. OT games.slashdot ad by realdpk · · Score: 1

    It's screwing up the HTML rendering, so that the article is pushed all the way left. The comments are all OK though. Anyone else see this? Mozilla browser, of course.

    1. Re:OT games.slashdot ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same here

    2. Re:OT games.slashdot ad by theNote · · Score: 1

      Its messed up in IE also.

    3. Re:OT games.slashdot ad by simoniker · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thanks for the heads-up, guys, a rogue horizontal ad got into the vertical ad-space and caused havoc, havoc, I tell you. We're looking at it.

    4. Re:OT games.slashdot ad by aftk2 · · Score: 1

      While you're looking at it, why don't you take a look at the questionmarket ads that are still causing popups? ("Still" as of yesterday evening).

      --
      concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
  8. Wouldn't rampant piracy hinder this? by johannesg · · Score: 1

    It may be a huge market, but if nobody ever pays for his games it isn't actually worth much...

    1. Re:Wouldn't rampant piracy hinder this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having been to China, I'll tell you that

      1) Legitimate stores sell shrinkwrapped versions of pirate software that work great
      2) Shady stores sell jewel boxes of pirate software that usually work
      3) Sketchy dudes on the street will sell you pirate software that works...OK
      4) Actual copies of legitimate software are only in the nicest overpriced stores.

      And after you get used to the pirated prices, the retail prices are just silly. An expensive copy of XP would go for 100 yuan, $12US, and the cheapest retail version is what, $150 US or 6000RMB. Hahahyeahright.

      Also an infamous Chinese FOSI ISP had its own Ultima Online shard, its own Battle.net server, tons of counterstrike servers... so pooh-pooh to serial numbers and monthly fees.

      However, people ARE used to paying more for games than for CDs which go for ~20RMB ($2.50) ... I mean, selling games at $10US a piece is common. Damned if you or your publisher will be getting that money though....

      Blah blah blah WTO things getting better biggest piracy crackdown... as long as there's such a huge floating population in the PRC, there'll be pirates willing to cheapify software.

      Ain't it grand!

      S[0o0]2

    2. Re:Wouldn't rampant piracy hinder this? by KD5YPT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Online gaming might actually help hinder this, since the servers that connect the game can check whether its a pirated copy or not (CD-keys and etc). Sure it might not be fool-proof, but it would help.

      --
      In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
  9. Odd... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Odd, I thought the average size of the member of a chinese male wasn't that large. Not much growth potential here that I can think of.

    Oh wait...gaming market not = male prostitution market?

  10. What type of games? by antdude · · Score: 1

    Are they the same games we play in U.S.A.?

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  11. News at 11 by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are over one BILLION chineese.

    Potential for EVERYTHING is huge is china. Talk about non-news.

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  12. Eh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some comparison to opium is begging to be made, here... :P