The new NetEase small game developer project is a departure from what brought NetEase to the height of its greatness: its excellent in-house development, attention to the details of technical distribution, and ability to release very popular games such as the long-standing hit Fantasy Westward Journey. When NetEase acquired the license for Blizzard's World of Warcraft in 2009 the company demonstrated its acceptance of licensing, at least for AAA titles such as that. Lately NetEase has expanded the genres of games in commercial launch at the pipeline to more suitably attract gamers from multiple skill levels. And now by targeting indie developers for "social" games that may be selected for play on the community platform iTown, scheduled for 2011, NetEase is opening its arms to even more possibilities for success.

Who knows, maybe all of those Chinese students who play online games are actually boosting their brainpower to be computer savvy and quick thinkers. One thing is for sure: the results of the latest PISA international standardized test the students in Shanghai outperformed those from the US and most other countries.

Niko's Li Jun attended GDC China 2010 and reports that the show was held in a good location, but attendance was small compared with the bigger summer exhibitions such as China Joy and the related conferences around China Joy. There was one expo floor with most companies appearing to be online or mobile phone game developers. The most popular lecture was on the topic of SNS games, given by the head of Zynga's Beijing studio - packed out the door, standing room only. SNS gaming is a big topic in China although Zynga has no games there yet. It is great news that UBM was able to launch GDC China again this year, and we hope that they continue to build a following for the strong brand that started in the U.S. We anticipate that many Chinese game executives will attend GDC in San Francisco in 2011.