Want CNET to notify you of price drops and the latest stories?
No, thank you Accept
X
Apple WWDC: What We ExpectBest Mattress DealsAssessing Viral Sleep HacksNetflix Password SharingMeal Subscription vs. TakeoutBest Solar CompaniesVerizon 5G Home InternetBest Credit Cards

Chinese online gaming nears $3 billion annually

Online games in China are big business. When will the US catch up?

headshots_Dave_Rosenberg_140x100.jpg
headshots_Dave_Rosenberg_140x100.jpg
Dave Rosenberg Co-founder, MuleSource
Dave Rosenberg has more than 15 years of technology and marketing experience that spans from Bell Labs to startup IPOs to open-source and cloud software companies. He is CEO and founder of Nodeable, co-founder of MuleSoft, and managing director for Hardy Way. He is an adviser to DataStax, IT Database, and Puppet Labs.
See full bio
Dave Rosenberg

Pearl Research reports in its latest Online Games Market in China study (PDF), that the Chinese online gaming market reached $2.8 billion in 2008, an increase of roughly 63 percent over the previous year. The study predicts that the Chinese market will reach $5.5 billion by 2012.

Tencent, Changyou, The9, Netease, Shanda, and Giant all surpassed the $200 million revenue mark in 2008 and continue to grow as the Internet and mobile phones become more widely available.

It's a bit hard to tell how this compares to US online games, but the best I could find from cursory research is that there are only a few online games (World of Warcraft most notably) that are beyond $100 million in unaudited revenue.

This not only exemplifies how far behind we are, but the enormity of the online gaming opportunity.

Roughly 70 percent of China's 298 million Internet users are under the age of 30, which Pearl believes will continue to drive the online gaming market.


Via Game Daily News

Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom