Game companies look abroad

Visitors play online games at ChinaJoy 2012 yesterday, the first day the show was open to the public. Chinese game developers are trying to break into or make further gains in overseas markets after capturing a more than 70 percent share of the domestic market.

Photo by Zhang Suoqing

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CHINESE game developers are trying to break into or make further gains in overseas markets after capturing a more than 70 percent share of the domestic market, it was revealed at ChinaJoy 2012 in Shanghai yesterday.

Top game firms, including Shanda Entertainment, NetEase Inc and Perfect World, are attending the five-day China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference, also known as ChinaJoy. Though the expo kicked off on Wednesday, yesterday was the first day it was open to the public.

Among a total of about 600 games displayed at ChinaJoy, the country's biggest annual game fair, more than 400 games are developed locally.

"Homegrown games have become mainstream products in the domestic market," said Sun Shoushan, vice director of the General Administration of Press and Publication. "Now we are on the way to making Chinese games competitive globally."

In the first half of this year, Chinese game market revenue jumped 16.9 percent year on year to hit 23.5 billion yuan (US$3.7 billion). Among this, homegrown game revenue was 16.8 billion yuan, accounting for 71.6 percent of the total, according to the United States-based research firm International Data Corp.

Top firms have started to penetrate overseas markets through products and services. Beijing-based Perfect World expects overseas revenue to account for 30 percent of its total revenue this year, compared with 10 percent in 2011, said Chi Yufeng, Perfect World's chairman. Perfect World has set up facilities in Europe, the US and Japan.

Shanda has acquired a US-based game platform to promote its games overseas.

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