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Businesses Entertainment Games

Chinese Online Games To Be Worth 1.7 Billion 15

Posted by Zonk from the that's-a-lot-of-players dept.
Now that the Chinese Government is backing online gaming, analysts are predicting the industry to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.7 Billion by 2010. From the article: "Because of piracy concerns China has been forced to pioneer new business models for video games ... The game market in China is all about online play and charging by usage. There is even a growing market for the items used in games like weapons and characters."
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Chinese Online Games To Be Worth 1.7 Billion More

Chinese Online Games To Be Worth 1.7 Billion

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  • will give way to All you can eat for a flat fee?

    Speculating here that the reason it is pay per use is the lack of long term competetive markets - though they will have them as time goes on. The situation recalls the original US ISPs that charged on a per-hour basis - and then as one raised the bar by offering all-you-can-eat, the others followed suit. By the time MMORPGs had rolled into the market, this was established as the only model consumers wanted to accept.

    Or am I wrong?

    • Re:Pay By Usage.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by patio11 ( 857072 ) on Thursday September 15, 2005 @07:34PM (#13571973)
      Here is the trouble with that: in the Chinese context, there isn't yet the legal or financial infrastructure to support country-wide deployment of a subscription based service. Outside the coastal big cities access to credit cards and other means of proving identity and automating payment online is too low to permit most players to actually play. Pay per usage, on the other hand, is easy -- you just have the player pay the Internet cafe operator and then collect the charge from him.

      Now, they might decide to go the Japanese route. Credit card adoption in Japan is also far below the US, which has resulted in there being a plethora of microcurrencies for use in buying things on the Internet -- you can generally buy them at convinience stores (walk four feet in any direction in Japan and you will hit a convinience store, so this works out fairly well for folks who use it -- I just use my credit card). In the Chinese case, however, investment in making a microcurrency provider is awfully risky -- if someone figures out how to print your microcurrency like they print CD keys thats literally printing money out of your pocket, and there are any number of steps in the distribution chain where they're vulnerable to attack (e.g. at every stage at the Internet, at the end retailer, at the distributor, on the truck from the distributor to the retailer, in the database, etc).

  • You think it's going to be that big in a country where you're restricted to three hours of online play per day? I have my doubts.
  • will still be interesting, to say the least. For example, in Doom3, when surrounded by Americans, (aka- evil zombies for the American gamer) you will be able to hit the "OH SHIT RESCUE" button triggering the following response.

    [GAME]: Mao Zedong and his undead Communist revolutionary army come to your rescue, destroying the evil American capitalist forces and ensuring peace and prosperity.

    Lousy joke aside, does anyone think China won't use gaming as propaganda?

  • China Discovers Home Gaming (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lorelorn ( 869271 ) on Thursday September 15, 2005 @08:01PM (#13572119)
    What's happening in China now is similar to what happened in the US and Europe in 78-84 - an explosion in home gaming.

    As then, piracy is rampant, which provides a disincentive for developers and publisher to enter the market even though it's rapidly growing.

    Fortunately (from a developer/publisher) point of view, they have the technology now to make all gaming online only. When you can charge subscription, piracy becomes irrelevant.

    It doesn't really matter what model they use - flat-fee, metered, ISP tie in. In fact I expect all these models will be used, and will be appropriate in their own space.

  • 1. Make the most addicting online game imaginable and make it to Chinese languages only.

    2. Turn all Chinese computer game players into mindless zombies that can't do their day jobs as government sponsored crackers.

    3. US/EU maintains world domination.

    4. ???

    5. Profit!!!

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