Niko has long said that China is leading the world in the digital distribution of games, and that the PC offline games sales would not succeed there until a business-led solution including digital distribution (along with some needed regulatory changes) was firmly in place. In 2009 we estimated approximately 79 million illegal digital downloads of PC games - piracy is totally rampant. But that should be the impetus for companies to solve the burning needs of gamers: to digitally download quality games for offline use at a very low price point. If, as EA Sports' Peter Moore says, the traditional games sales model is a sinking ship, then perhaps if a successful solution is found for China it can be exported worldwide.

Giant Interactive has taken its hits in the past year, ever since the government deemed that some of the monetization functions within ZT Online should be considered as gambling, which is illegal. They had to take out those features and the game suffered for it. Now Giant will launch a "green" version of the game to please the regulators and hopefully please additional gamers too, but it is likely not targeting the gamers they lost in the original version of ZT Online.

Perfect World continues to pursue its global strategy by announcing a Taiwanese subsidiary. This one is planned to handle R&D rather than operations, whereas the US subsidiary is handling development and operations. Perhaps Taiwanese operations will start in the future? The market is easier to enter than it is in mainland China because there are no rules about co-operation or game approvals, much like in the US.