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Chinese MMO market gravitating toward hardcore and competitive titles
China has something of a reputation in the online gaming world as the land of many MMOs, but it looks like things may be changing soon. Gamasutra reports that a study by Niko Partners, an Asian game-market analytics firm, shows that "Chinese players are showing an increased demand for hardcore browser-based web games." According to the study, PC game revenue in China has grown by 37% in 2012 while online game operators' revenues have increased by 26%. The disparity in growth between the two suggests that the Chinese online gaming market is losing steam. Interestingly, Gamasutra notes that the only outlier in the data is Tencent, operator of a number of traditional MMOs as well as the wildly popular League of Legends. That studio has managed to grow significantly. Niko Partners notes that this growth is a direct result of non-traditional titles like the MOBA it publishes in China. As Niko rep Lisa Cosmas Hanson noted, "For several years Niko has cautioned that the repetitive theme of cultural mythical history MMORPGs in China was beginning to bore gamers, and that new types of games would be necessary to revive waning demand for those games." If you consider the size and importance of the Chinese online gaming market in the grand scheme of the industry, this paradigm shift could be a look toward the future of the MMO genre.
Report: 64% of Chinese gamers spend money on online games
Gaming in China is serious business, especially once you consider that a strong majority of players dish out money to support their habit every month. Analyst group Niko Partners polled 500 Chinese gamers and found that 64% of them dropped money on online titles monthly, including many free-to-play and MMO games. Considering that China has 180 million players and a $5.8 billion gaming market, the country continues to be watched closely as a major economic force in the online realm. And while MMOs still account for a good portion of the income, they've lost some ground to other types of games, according to Niko Partners Managing Partner Lisa Cosmas Hanson. "Online games revenues are now more distributed among various platforms and genres than they have been in past years, when MMORPGs compiled the vast majority of domestic revenue," she said. Other interesting details from this report include the news that players are spending less time per week on games and that one in 10 players in the country is over 40 years of age.
Burnout: Report says Chinese gamers losing interest in MMOs
Is there a point at which oversaturation, cultural prominence and old habits collapse under their own weight? According to a recent survey by Chinese market analyst Niko Partners, trends are shifting away in China from hardcore MMO gaming to more casual fare like social networking games. GamesIndustry.biz reports that self-defined "hardcore" gamers in one of the largest MMORPG markets in the world have grown tired of the thousands of carbon-copy MMOs out there and have rebelled against the monotony by taking their business elsewhere. Niko Partners' Lisa Cosmas Hanson sees a pattern to this trend: "We believe that the Chinese market has taken up SNS (social networking site) gaming in earnest, and that the hardcore gamers have shifted their preferences to include these games alongside the casual gamers who naturally appreciate them. The hardcore gamers are growing weary of the monotony of themes in the Chinese MMORPGs, and they want to extend their social interactions to games that attract a more diverse user base." By 2014, the analyst says that there will be 141 million online gamers in China, and the casual games market will grow from 23% to encompass 30% of all online revenues -- approximately $3 billion US.
China's online game market may reach $3.8b in 2009
Market intelligence firm Niko Partners projects that China's online game market will reach $3.8 billion in 2009. That's up a full billion over the $2.75 billion China's online market made last year. As PC penetration expands outside the major cities, Niko estimates the market will hit $8.9 billion by 2013.PC MMOGs made up 77 percent of revenue, with "advanced casual" and casual games making up the difference. The company notes that game console sales are on the rise, despite being banned in the country since 2000. There is no note about the financial impact of gold farming.
China's forgotten gamers
Frank Yu over at Gamasutra wrote a piece recently that didn't exactly slip through the cracks, but was certainly overshadowed by more pressing concerns that affected online gaming in Asia. Yu's 'China's Forgotten Gamers' -- from his China Angle column -- is a look at the invisible population of gamers in the country that industry demographics simply cannot account for. In North America and Europe, subscriptions, registered downloads and box sales provide an accurate picture of who's playing a given title; China is a different story altogether. Credit cards are nowhere near as prevalent among the Chinese as they are abroad; box sales have largely been a failure due to piracy. Added to the mix is the fact that not everyone can afford to play games legitimately, and so some Chinese gamers find ways to play outside of the system. Although the reported numbers of gamers playing the various titles in China are large, Yu says, "In China, we track game players by subscriber or registration numbers, or by the amount of money they spend giving companies revenue. If they don't register or pay money, they are somewhat invisible to the industry or, from the business viewpoint, irrelevant."
Explosive growth in China's MMO market
New information about the Chinese gaming market has surfaced through the work of Niko Partners, an Asia-focused research firm with a team spread throughout 35 cities in Mainland China. A recent Gamecyte interview with Niko Partners founder Lisa Cosmas Hanson shed some light on the surge in MMO popularity in China. 2007 proved to be a record year for MMO's in China, as a nation with more than 46 million gamers shelled out a respectable USD 1.7 billion for their online game time, a 71 percent increase over the previous year. Pre-paid game time cards are the dominant revenue model in the country's online gaming industry. Boxed MMO game sales are practically non-existent in Mainland China, largely due to rampant and normative piracy issues. This is compounded by the fact that the Chinese online gaming market caters to the tendency of gamers to sample multiple titles. While this 2007 figure is still dwarfed by U.S. gaming revenues, the growth potential for the industry in China is not being taken lightly by Western game developers and publishers.
