A Chinese game industry report shows that last year the trade churned out US$ 9.67 billion (RMB 60.28 billion) in sales, up 35% from a year earlier.
According to the report, Chinese game market consisted of three major genres of games, including online games, mobile games and console games that accounted for 94.5% (RMB 56.96 billion), 5.4% (3.24 billion) and 0.1% (75 million) of the market respectively.
chart 1: China 2012 Game Market Break-down
Online gaming, which took up the vast majority (94.5%) of the market then can be subcategorized into client games, web game and social games, each contributed RMB 45.12 billion, 8.11 billion and 3.73 billion to the subsegment.
In terms of growth, client games grew at a slower pace at 23% in sales yoy while web games at a steady 46.4%. Mobile games and social games, aided by the mobile and social product proliferation, picked up pace growing at 90.6% and 101.6% respectively. Given the fact that some traditional game company with client game as strong suits – Perfect World, for instance – showed both their interests and determination to ride on the trend of web game, we believe that client game market will grow at even slower pace and experience more challenges in the coming years as web games edge up and eat some of the former’s cake.
That’s probably why even client game is still a cash cow – pulled in RMB 45.12 billion last year compared to web game’s 8.11 billion – for the time being, companies like Perfect World, Kingsoft, Shanda, Juren and many more are getting prepared for the future shift with extensive web game strategy announced over the past year. A VP from Kingsoft claimed that “web game is the new blue sea, blue like hell, the profitability is no less than client games”. CEO of LionKing echoed the claim by referring the segment to the supposed last dividend in Chinese PC internet market.
The report also shows that Chinese game companies got out 440 titles last year while southern Guangdong province contributed to 150 of that. There’re a bunch of web game businesses headquartered in Guangdong.
a game titled Divine Comedy, developed by 7Road, the web game subsidiary of Changyou via stake acquisition