China’s online game players to reach 59 million in 2008

With more and more online games creeping into China, it seems that the country is welcoming it with the way the number of online game players are increasing.

In a “Netguide 2008” survey, results showed that China will have more than 59 million online gamers in 2008. The survey was conducted with websites, enterprises and personal interviews. More information on the survey in the full article.

As more games make their way into China‘s territory, more and more people are accepting them. This can be particularly seen with the results of the “Netguide 2008” survey that begun in January 2008. It was able to show that China’s online gamers to reach about 59 million by this year.

The “Netguide 2008” survey was conducted by the Data Center of the China Internet (DCCI) and Internet Society of China (ISC). They were able survey more than 300 websites, 270 enterprises and roughly 50, 786 interviewees in the country.

In addition to the growing number of the online gaming community in China, the survey also showed that the market value of 2007 has been able to experience a 57 percent increase to 2006’s market value of 9.36 yuan (US$ 1.2 billion).

One of the major factors for this is that Free-to-play online games services are still dominating the market with an estimated 80 percent market share unlike the fee-based model.

With companies such as Shanda Interactive, NetEase, Giant Interactive offering more online games to China’s public, it’s seems that the online gaming community of the country will grow even more.