Web Games All The Rage In China
China's Internet game makers are expected make $250 million this year, earning respectability for an industry once "despised and scorned," the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.
The companies are riding the surging popularity of online games among an estimated 40 million of China's 78 million Internet users.
Its games produce another $1.4 billion in business for telecoms and other industries, Xinhua said.
Online games are now part of China's national science and technology program and the government offers makers tax breaks and other support, the report said.
"China's online game industry, which had been despised and scorned as a regular industry, now has achieved the support of the Chinese government," Lei Jun, president of Beijing-based software company Kingsoft, was quoted as saying.
The industry's revenues are up from just $38 million in 2001, Xinhua said.
Online gaming is especially popular in China because game console makers such as Nintendo and Sony have shunned the Chinese market for fear their games will be pirated.
Internet cafes are often filled until the early hours with gamers competing against each other on linked computers or against scores of other competitors online.
The industry's growth parallels China's surging Internet use, despite bans on online gambling and pornography and monitoring of the Web for dissident political commentary.
China has about 500,000 Web sites and 30 million computers hooked to the Internet, according to the Internet Society of China.
Yet Chinese game makers' profits are limited because foreign companies developed about 80 percent of games, especially those from South Korea, Xinhua said.
It said local companies hope to close the gap with new products and training programs for gaming professionals in Beijing and elsewhere, it said.
The country's first department of game software has been established at Sichuan University in the southwestern city of Chengdu, integrating programs in literature, arts, English and software development, Xinhua said.
Among Chinese success stories, Shanda Networking has attracted 300,000 users for its "The World of Legend" since the game was released in July.
Kingsoft plans to challenge South Korean giants with "JXOnline," a game that combines "Chinese martial arts and modern love," Xinhua said. After three years of development at a cost of $1.8 million, the company plans to begin offering the game online this month.