According to the latest report from the China Internet Network Information Center (confusingly called CNNIC for short), the numbers for China’s gaming market have grown across the board in the last six months. As you can see in the chart below, the country’s total online gamers now number 368 million, according to CNNIC, and mobile gamers are at nearly 252 million, with both markets having picked up tens of millions of new users in the last six months.
When it comes to China’s gaming market, the numbers are often so vast that it’s difficult to really even get a sense of the scale. So here’s a comparison for you: you could replace every single person in Western Europe and Middle Africa with a Chinese online gamer, and you’d still have several million gamers left over. For its part, China’s mobile gaming population is very close to overtaking the population of Indonesia (the world’s fourth-largest country by population).
I don’t imagine anyone following the industry would have any doubts about China’s massive power at this point, but with hundreds of millions of gamers already online and millions more joining every month, China is fast becoming a market that designers ignore at their peril. That has real implications for game design, in part because of the censorship required of foreign games in China, and in part because Chinese gamers simply have different tastes from the Western public triple-A devs have been courting for the past couple of decades.
(via Sina Games)
Don’t be fooled by the stereotypes either, China’s online gamers are independent and creative. Check out this original song and music video put together by some Chinese gamers, for example:
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