China's online gaming market now worth $1.8 billion
At GDC, we considered the possibility that Asia is the "Hollywood of MMOs." The Chinese online gaming market is getting bigger and bigger. Case in point: a new report says the market is now valued at around $1.8 billion. That's up 66% since last year -- curiously exactly the same number of points leading publisher Shandra's profits went up in a similar period.
And it's just getting started. The report (from a group called i Research) also predicts that the value will be more than $5 billion by 2011. These numbers are a bit more optimistic than the China View numbers we reported on a few weeks ago, but the consensus seems to be, in layman's terms: online gaming in China equals big bucks.
Recently the Chinese government launched a campaign of sorts to temper the popularity of online games because addiction has become a big problem. Will that slow the growth of the industry? Probably not.
[Via PlayNoEvil]
