AFP – At one of Beijing’s many Internet cafes, near-silence reigns: headphones on, eyes glued to the screen, web users play games online en masse, helping to make China one of the industry’s top markets. Young men crowd around terminals for role-playing adventure games while women gamers tap away to keep troupes of dancers in line – and international companies want part of the action.
In 2009 the industry raked in nearly 26 billion yuan ($3.8 billion), up 39.5 percent over the previous year, according to government data. But experts say the booming market will mostly benefit home-grown firms, whose products are more closely tailored to the tastes and preferences of the more than 380 million people using the Internet in China.
“Foreign game developers are having a tough time competing in China,” said Daniel H Vlad, a senior analyst specialising in the online games and e-commerce sectors for research house JLM Pacific Epoch in New York. “So far only one Western game, World of War craft, has really succeeded in China. Chinese users spend significantly more time playing games than their Western counterparts. Foreign games typically fail to deliver enough content. Chinese gamers eventually lose interest and move on,” he added.
The online games sector is charging ahead thanks to the exponential growth of China’s web community, now the largest in the world. Cheap computer products and relatively inexpensive Internet access have also fuelled the trend. The online market research firm iResearch says the sector will remain “at the heart of the Internet economy” for years to come, with annual growth of about 20 percent. afp
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