Another spin on online game business models has come out of Kingsoft, which says it will offer a discount for players who precharge their games during a fixed time period. Chinese gamers already effectively precharge by paying for prepaid cards for their game accounts, but this spin seems to be different somehow. The company will also charge players a daily rate even if they are not playing that day, which is probably going to be unpopular among gamers.

Executives at all game publishers are faced with a strategic decision regarding their pipeline of games in development: which business model should they employ? The answer is either subscription or free-to-play, both work well, and both are accepted worldwide. F2P is the future though, it seems.

Niko wonders whether the new Real Names Registration requirement for Chinese users to register real names on websites, rather than usernames, in order to post comments on bulletin boards or other sites will actually be enforced. A similar policy was promulgated for registration of gamers using real names, but it has been difficult to enforce and gamers have created their own work-arounds.