Niko News is a filter of the most important news items and bits of information concerning the games markets of China and Southeast Asia uncovered by Niko each week. Our multilingual analysts review dozens of news sources from several countries, and as a team Niko reduces the long list of articles to 3-4 "must read" items for you. We then provide our Niko analysis to these items, making them relevant and highlighting the importance for the market. This service is one of the many ways we help distill the confusing, conflicting information about the games markets of Asia for our clients and readers. 

Niko found an Internet café report from Loc-cn.com via a weibo post stating that I-cafés are most relevant for gaming. Their report says that 89.4% of customers go to I-cafés for playing games, up from 76% in 2011. Other activities that are hot are movie watching and music listening. However, Niko also collects data on I-café gaming every month from 400 I-cafés in 34 cities. In our July data we learned that only 39% of the visitors to the cafés we tracked were playing games. It makes sense to assume that the majority of people going to I-cafés in China are using them for games, but in fact our data shows that it is not always the case. Email, web searching, movies, e-commerce, and music area all important. Online video has surpassed gaming as an Internet app in China (at least 2 years ago), and people tend to enjoy online videos at I-cafés too. 

According to industry insiders, the "Quan'e Bao" service may be similar to Chinese third-party payment processor Alipay's "Yu'e Bao" account balance investment service, adapted for the online gaming market. The "Quan'e Bao" service may also look to introduce other value-added services in addition to online gaming transactions. 

Garena is a leading regional online game operator in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, and has enjoyed huge success by licensing League of Legends in the region. Garena has announced it will launch a localized version of LoL run on locally operated servers in Indonesia, one of SEA's most intriguing growth markets for online games.