The World Trade Organization recently ruled that China may not invoke culture-based censorship in order to block foreign media imports.

The WTO ruling against China for digital media and books will certainly impact the video games industry as well. It will be important to follow any regulatory changes that could extend to games. The Entertainment Software Association, the US trade association for the video game industry, intentionally stayed out of the WTO proceedings for this topic in spite of its relevance.

OnLive and Gaikai are set to launch later on this year. These new services are both ways to counter piracy and provide easily-accessible gaming experiences to people with low-end PCs.

Cloud computing might be the answer to China's piracy problems for PC offline games and the potential of China's game console market assuming it ever becomes legalized.

An unnamed source with JLM Pacific Epoch has stated that Apple has chosen NetDragon to run China's application store for the iPhone.

NetDragon is really working hard to get important contracts with North American companies. So far this year the company has secured contracts with Disney, EA, and now Apple. This should benefit the company that had taken its lumps in recent years with one hit title (Eudomons Online) but lots of operating issues.

Chinese online game operator Giant will be partnering with 51.com for a new casual MMORPG, My Sweetie.

SNS companies are emerging as alternative channels to online game operators. Niko anticipates that the GAPP will soon regulate the games operated via SNS companies to be more tightly regulated than they currently are, even though most content is benign and the games are simple to play.