The Games Convention Asia Conference (GCA), held last week in Singapore, had some panels focused on mobile gaming. There is a lot of talk in the market leading up to the October 15 release of iPhone in China. Game developers at GCA had praise and criticism for the Apple way of approving and promoting iPhone games, but all recognize that it is the best way so far to get a game out there for mobile phones. If the iPhone creates a big wave of mobile phone gaming craze in China, Niko will surely start to track that market. We will be following the launch and continue to poll gamers on their mobile phone gaming usage.

Niko was surprised by the sudden relaunch of Blizzard's World of Warcraft through NetEase last Saturday. Congratulations to Blizzard for getting it done, especially ahead of the longer-than-usual upcoming National Day holiday week in early October, a time where gamers will have plenty of hours to get sucked into their roles and level up. The controversy over which ministry can approve the relaunch continues to baffle industry observers. Some say the GAPP should have had to approve the launch, others say that since it is an existing game the power rested with the Ministry of Culture per a statement released by the government the previous week that stated the regulatory authority of both bodies. For now the game is live and it is likely to remain live, but if GAPP is the one tasked with approving Wrath of the Lich King for Blizzard and NetEase, we may see a "delay" - lets hope not.

If NetEase launches a social networking product, as was mentioned in the news this week, it will join the ranks of Tencent and Giant who also have SNS sites along with companies owned by Oak Pacific and independent SNS companies. SNS sites are huge worldwide, and are quite relevant in China's social culture. They are essentially glorified online game portals in China though, and the simple SNS games on them are attracted ever more users to the gaming world. Niko will be watching to see if any companies seem to be moving to the head of the class in this area, but so far it seems to be an even playing field.