Niko News on China's Video Game Market
Volume 3, Edition 1
 July 2009

Niko Partners logo
"Niko Partners provides in-depth, comprehensive data and analysis on all aspects of the Chinese games industry. No other company covers the offline, online and console sectors to the extent that Niko does or spends as much time on the ground understanding the market. The research reflects the high-integrity of Niko as a
whole."
- Electronic Arts

Twitter Feed

Surprisingly EA's booth at ChinaJoy has 3 Wiis w/ WiiFit for gamers to demo what a console is like-China has banned game consoles since 2000
11:30 Jul 23rd from web

At China Joy, the head of The9 said the dispute is over & GAPP approved the closed beta for WoW under NetEase yesterday
10:40 Jul 22th from web

Lisa is en route to Shanghai for China Joy. Contact info@nikopartners.com for a meeting
6:12 PM Jul 20th from web

Follow us on Twitter
Links
Join Our Mailing List

Welcome to Niko News, just part of the market intelligence experience offered  to help you better understand the thriving video game market of China.

Niko Partners is the premier provider of market intelligence and custom research services on China's video game industry. There are more than 50 million Chinese gamers eager to play hit titles on systems with the latest technologies. With Niko Partners market intelligence services, you can get to know these gamers, find Chinese partners, and use our actionable market data to build and execute your strategic plan.
Picture of hands at a computerAfter weeks of being offline, World of Warcraft will soon be relaunched in China under the Chinese operator NetEase.

Niko was surprised by the suspension of World of Warcraft in China and we hope that the announcement of closed beta for the game under NetEase will actually result in gamers getting to resume play of the game in the very near future. It is very unfortunate that the gamers are the major party to suffer from the politics of the transfer of World of Warcraft from one online game operator to the next.
The9 reported to multiple government departments that NetEase and Activision Blizzard had set up a joint venture in China. China does not allow joint ventures to operate games online.This was reported by Chen at the Seventh China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference on July 22.

Niko feels that the speech by Ms. Xiaowei Chen was one of the most provocative to ever have been given during a China Joy summit meeting. Her passion and drive behind her comments were palpable, and we are confident that the remarks were "off script" from those that would have been acceptable by the government standards for such speeches. It was, however, quite exciting for Niko's Lisa Hanson to witness in person.
Shanda has released a new version of its very popular MMORPG AION. Levels have been increased to 50 and new items have been added.

The game AION has been very well received by gamers in China. It is interesting to note that Shanda's chief executive proudly declared a couple of years ago that all of Shanda's games would become free to play (item based sales), and they would not use the subscription model any more. This game is run using the subscription model.

If a game is known to be a AAA title then some operators will hope to operate it using a subscription model because it is more predictable for operations than the item based model. It seems that Shanda is implying that this is a superior game that can command the subscription model, and therefore it is okay that they have shifted away from purely item based sales.
If you have any questions or if you have a project that could use our assistance, please let us know at info@nikopartners.com