When WOW took off among five million Chinese fans, game companies from across the world were instantly overwhelmed by the appeal of China’s game industry.

In fact, this huge market (for online games) was worth as high as RMB 25.8 billion by the end of 2009 and this is merely a total of operating revenue from players, excluding that from export or other sources of profit making.

Now China boasts 65.87 million online game players, 37.15 million of which are paid users.

It may seem that any game, as long as it is fairly good, will reap large profits in China.

However, the road to success is not as easy as it may seem: game companies from all over the world will have a chance to discover the ultimate secret to success at this July’s CGBC International Cooperation Forum. Invitations have already been sent to the top industry players like Tencent, Shanda, Perfect World, Giant, Kingsoft and The9. The big names in the game industry will get together to discuss the hottest topics, including exporting game products and foreign agencies, as well as share their views on the development and trend of international cooperation in this sector.

As CGBC is drawing near, its Organizing Committee, together with Duowan, compiled The Games Dead in China, listing those games that suffered failure in the Chinese market for the past ten years and, after careful analysis, presenting seven reasons for their sad story.

?The content below is the summary of the “Games Dead in China.” For more information of the “Games Dead in China” please contact: Candice_lu@howellexpo.com.?

• “Climate sickness”: half of the games that are imported from Europe and America to China fail to win the heart of game players because of this; in fact, this has proved to be a challenge for nearly all introduced games, even for those from Korea.
• Wrong agency: of the 123 failed games listed in this report, 37 of them did because of shortage of fund by the operator. Contributing reasons include wrong marketing strategies and wrong choice of agency.
• Game-Cheats: as we know, this has become the death wound for Korean games; however, it does not mean that games from other countries are safe from it. Nearly all operators spend a huge sum of money and time to address this.
• Game update: the biggest difference between online games and console games is that the former, through updating, can continue to offer new content of games. As remarked by Wang Feng, CEO of Linekong, “Online games are like TV drama: as long as they are good, they will continue to appeal to players.” Of course, when a game no longer updates, the players will choose to quit it and perhaps never replay it.

Qiu Bojun, CEO of Kingsoft, once noted that game agency is like “serving as a foil.” For agencies, it will be an ultimate nightmare if they, for any reason, lose the right to the coming updated versions.

• Bad playing experience: it is beyond dispute that many of the games fail because of irresolvable problems in program optimization, breakdown of servers or bad translation.
• High requirements for configuration: when developing a game, a good balance should be kept between gaming experience and gaming cost.
• Wrong positioning: segmentation in today’s game market has been heightened; as a result, targeting at the wrong segment will lead to the low number of players and in turn end of operation.

Mr. Tan Yunpeng, spokesperson for the Organizing Committee of CGBC, noted that, in spite of the immense opportunities in China’s game market, business risks are also plain to see. Therefore, it is crucial to, before entering, understand the Chinese market. In fact, this is what will be shared and discussed at the CGBC International Cooperation Forum: key game operators in China will sit together and discuss how they, hand in hand with their foreign partners, avoid or resolve the above problems. It will be very helpful for anyone who wishes to set his foot in this industry. At the same time, considering the overseas success of Chinese games and the fact that China has become the world’s No. 1 producer of online games, the conference has invited major developing companies, like NetDragon and Snail Game to share their secret to success. It will also be a golden opportunity for communication and exchange within the industry.

About CGBC:

China Game Business Conference (CGBC) is organized by the Organizing Committee of ChinaJoy, which is one of the serial events of the biggest game show in the world. CGBC is the biggest size and highest standard business event in Chinese game industry, held in every July, in Shanghai International Convention Center. With 7 years steady growth of CGBC, the forums have been various and flourish, the brand and communication atmosphere have been constructive and positive. CGBC has been a platform for communication, mutual study, experience exchange, corporation enhancing in Chinese game industry. The upcoming CGBC 2010, will continually enlarge its coverage and size, topics and delegate pool, including: the Summit Forum, the SNS & Social Game Forum, the Investment & Financing Forum, the Media Marketing Forum, the International Cooperation Forum, the Webgame Forum, the In-game Advertising Forum, the Mobile Internet Entertainment Forum, the Serious Game Forum.

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