only in china
Giant Online Revenue Falls, Still Rockin’ the Chinese Market
3:30AM Maggie Greene | Despite declining stock value, Giant Interactive — the company behind the intriguing MMO Zhengtu Online, which is a mix of MMO, gambling, real money transactions, and gold farming — is still tearing up the Chinese market. Steve of PlayNoEvil has some interesting analysis up of some recent numbers, which have indicated the the average revenue per player has dropped to around $US66 (RMB 282). Giant is moving to encourage ’steadier’ playing, instead of simply buying up cash shop items like there’s no tomorrow, so the drop was expected. Still, the money being made is pretty impressive for a domestic game (drop and all): More »
Moving Beyond the Neon Lights in Chinese Gaming
5:30AM Maggie Greene | In China, it’s the glitzy cities that get the attention — Shanghai in particular is the city that garners the most attention in scholarship (and frequently in the press). I was somewhat relieved to see that this is not confined merely to China specialists, but game industry watcher types as well — the most recent ‘China Angle’ column at Gamasutra looks at games outside of the publicized hotspots, where large portions of the user bases are found. Giant Interactive, developer of Zhengtu Online, recently purchased a stake in one of China’s largest social networking sites, in an attempt to grow their market. But that’s not the only way companies are trying to acquire ever greater number of players, oh no: More »
