COMMENTS BY PANELISTS

Comments by SINA:
Launched onlgame this year: "complexity is increasing and 3D is becoming a norm"
China's ONLgaming industry is too crowded, 150200 games, consolidation has begun, and quality will raise
Game developers out China don't understand situation in China even if you explain
40% of casual game players are women, at lunch time the highest usage, not just for one hour, they play 3 hours
At casual game friends meet friends, and game sells accessories and players comment each others "game items"
Onlgames development cycle is shifting from 2436 months towards 816 months, which then gets piratecopied in 4 months...
about payment methods:
best would be payments by mobile, but it's not allowed
prepaid by calling 0800 or 0900 number is common
prepaid card is possible but women don't want to go shops to buy them
Comments by Yahoo
• Casual Games are successful; in USA women 30 to 35 spent 25USD per pop • Expect casual games to be next big thing • Casual games are multiplayer, deeper than RPGs, and have community: money lies in the community • Strategy is to launch the game for PC and mobile same time • Gaming business traditionally is in no. of players, no. of page views, and time spent
How to bring OnlGame product to China market?
Product an online game
Distribution via Internet Cafes: this is critical, how to get your product installed? You must verify situation every week!
Internet Cafes may use stolen games, pirate servers, because they get paid by playtime
Chinese way towards pirate gaming, once found: "pay me a little bit, not need it all, lets work together..."
Marketing to be done via the key gaming channels /Internet
Focus on existing game's service level: it must be good to attract gamers' friends to join, word of mouth
Good in Chinese Programmers
In China, SCALE is needed, its expensive if games goes down if too many concurrent users
Chinese have an advantage to understand the realities of scale (vs. Koreans and others)
Problems with Chinese Programmers
Have no project management
Chinese see a new feature and want to produce same but be cheaper
Have unrealistic expectations about getting rich and fast
Have no confidence on their own ideas
Regulations
China Mobile CMCC, Ministry of Information Industry MII, Ministry of Culture MoC ... and finally Police for pirates...
Ministry of Culture controls the onlgames content, their model for control is expected to expand over mobile content, too
In bigger organizations there are senior people from government, everywhere, this is Chinese tradition
Policy risks exist in China
Other
Rapid growth experienced with MMORPGs and next big thing for China will be casual games
If you license an onlgame you need to have own studio to make changes to it: culturalization, localization, scale
PC games' piracy is a problem; good cardgame gets copied overnight
Gametalents are hard to find in China "If you are one, come talk to me!"
Choosing the right partner: partner evaluations as usual, but especially verify integrity, trust, transparency
Koreasourced games also need constant changes; flipflop to Korea and back, much work and cost
Robotic Players, BOTs, based on protocol sniffing, play while human player sleeps or is at work: trouble with flatrated onlgame's "balance"
Playing online games can be compared to TV viewing; a program with lots of new episodes
Community is KEY is MONEY; Shanda is successful because it manages to keep it's base of users
Above: Reallife game at Beijing Grab Island, May 2005: "Where are we?"
Panel Members
Bill Bishop, CEO, Red Mushroom
Geoff Graber, General Manager, Yahoo! Games
Hurst Lin, COO, SINA Corporation, Nasdaq "SINA"
John Lee, Executive Director, Turbine Games
Michael A. Fong, Regional Manager, China, Vivendi Universal Games
Yuzhu Xiong, Consultant, Piper Jaffra
Moderated by Paul Waide, Founding Editor, Pacific Epoch
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