Niko News on China's Video Game Market
Volume 31
 March 2010

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Weekly Twitter Posts

More outbound investment by Chinese game companies this week. But still no major reports of inbound investment to China http://bit.ly/dbQ5jm 8:50 PM Mar 26th via web
  
williambaobean: on the soapbox... nytimes "China's Booming Internet Giants May Be Stuck There" http://nyti.ms/d0nba5 10:43 PM Mar 23rd via Seesmic Retweeted by nikochina

The exit of Chen as Pres of The9 may allow it to launch its post-WoW existence. We expected this post ChinaJoy09 speech http://bit.ly/abvubA 7:14 PM Mar 22nd via web

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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 70 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.
GAPP recently announced 48 online game operators who have violated domestic content rules by operating games with obscene content. The list provided on its website has the name of the games and the operators, along with 18 mobile phone games and 9 flash games. No big operators are on the GAPP list. In 2010 both GAPP and MOC have been flexing their muscles with regard to regulation of game content.
It seems logical for Amazon.com to launch a business line for the digital delivery of games. The company has a strong mechanism, wide reach, great e-commerce ability, and has proven digital delivery strength through the Kindle and its e-book sales. When we read this article, the analyst mentioned seems to think Amazon is poised to start such a service. We thought that it was about time for such an announcement to happen. Amazon would compete against Valve's Steam, and both companies should consider market entry into China and emerging markets for the purpose of digital delivery of games.
Giant Interactive is having a tough time. Not only was it one of two publicly traded Chinese online game operators to post an online game revenue loss for 2009 over 2008 (we expect the9 to be the second one when its financial earnings report for 2009 is released), but it also is having difficulty succeeding in the growing social networking service segment. Giant's Qule.com has been in closed beta testing but was recently closed all together, though the company says it will be reopened at a later date. China's SNS market has many popular competitors including Qzone, RenRen, and Kaixin001.
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