Niko News on China's Video Game Market
Volume 41
June 2010

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Weekly Twitter Posts

MOC announced rules aligned with GAPP's to ban harmful content from Chinese gamers under age 18 http://bit.ly/bDSeJq 7:00 PM Jun 25th via web

If only the US govt would support US game companies at China Joy as the Chinese govt supported its own at E3 this year http://bit.ly/c5trzH 7:08 PM Jun 23rd via web

To open China's game mkt to more foreign co's would improve the mkt for gamers and companies in China and WW http://bit.ly/a0q8WE 1:50 PM Jun 20th via web

Overall, China had a very big presence at E3 this year with many F2P MMOs and new game developers represented #e3 *MC 10:50 AM Jun 19th via CoTweet

At Chengdu's E3 booth, 4 companies from the same area were represented: Chengdu Shize Tech, Aurora, MediaTech & CPSoft #e3 #chengdu *MC 10:10 AM Jun 19th via CoTweet

Winking, another Taiwanese developer at E3, showcased its 3D MMORPG XAOC that's scheduled to come out next year #e3 #winking *MC 9:10 AM Jun 19th via CoTweet


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More regulations were announced this week for China's online game industry. One of the two new regulations that stands out most to Niko is the banning of sales of virtual currency transaction services to minors by virtual currency platforms (such as 5173.com.) The online game operators will still be able to issue virtual currency to minors playing their games however, so they should be relatively unaffected. The other new regulation is that SNS games will now be monitored the same way that online games are, and the SNS game companies must adhere to the same rules as the online game operators. There were other regulations announced this week by the Ministry of Culture, yet many of them have already been in effect under the GAPP so are not considered to be new (such as real name registrations.)
Shanda continues to extract life from its long-term hit Legend of Mir franchise. The company launched Mir 2 in September 2001 as its very first online game in China, and it is known as the first online game to gain any popularity. It was the spark that caused the flame, as it were. Shanda will launch a new version of Mir 2 today (6/25) as well as begin testing a new version of Mir 3 (the 2D sequel to Mir 2).
Kudos to Tencent for ascending to become one of the three largest Internet companies in the world, based on market cap.  Tencent's online game division is a big money earner and the company earns more online games service revenue than any other Chinese online game operator. Its games dominate the Top 10 lists in recent quarters, and their games are a mix of licensed and self-developed thanks to more than 1,000 in-house developers. They have a big, bold new headquarters building in Shenzhen too, so lets hope that is not the kiss of death that so many Silicon Valley firms suffered after building "shrines" to themselves in the late 90s. We at Niko doubt it will be, the company appears very strong even with a decline in its stock price this week.

Niko News is just part of the market intelligence experience offered by Niko Partners 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.
If you have any questions or if you have a project that could use our assistance, please let us know at info@nikopartners.com or contact Megan Carriker at 336-326-5595 or megan@nikopartners.com