WSJ – China Real Time Report

Games are serious business in China. The country’s online game market will reach 41 billion yuan by 2010 ($6 billion), accounting for half the global market, according to newly released data from Cnzz.com Inc., a Beijing-based third-party data analysis firm (related report in Chinese here).

The Cnzz.com report states that almost two-thirds of China’s 338 million Web users are now online game players. The online game industry, which currently accounts for more than half of the total Internet economy, will see strong annual growth at a rate of 20% future years, the report says.

The mainstream remains the awkwardly named sector of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). In October, six out of the 10 most popular online games in China are MMORPG games, according to the report. World of Warcraft (WoW) by Activision Blizzard, Inc. still tops the list with the most registered players and peak simultaneous online users. But the current government regulatory fighting over its Chinese license, held by Netease (NTES), may yet have a negative impact on the game, according to the report.

Casual games – simple games such as card games — take second place with three ranked among the top 10 game list., while Web page games – such as Tencents’ QQ games– are emerging as a new growth area. According to the report, by the end of Octover 2009, there were 1.54 million users playing the top five Web page games, with each user playing for an average of 30 minutes a day.

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