The Chinese online game market has achieved remarkable performance in recent years due to growing availability of the Internet, the government's policy support, and the emergence of mobile game consumers.
According to a report released by MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), a Taipei-based ICT research institute, China's online game market finally broke the 100 billion RMB (US$16.1 billion; US$1=6.223 RMB) mark in 2014 with the value reaching 114.5 billion RMB (US$18.4 billion) for 37.7% year-on-year growth. For the first time, mobile game sales surpassed desktop PC game sales at 27.5 billion RMB (US$4.4 billion).
"China is expected to overtake the United States in 2016 as the world's largest online game market," says MIC. "With a market value of US$22 billion, the United States remained the No.1 online game market worldwide in 2014, but driven by accelerated expansion of the mobile game market, prosperous development of the console game market, and the emergence of the post-90's generation (also known as the "two-dimensional generation"), China's online game market value is projected to exceed 150 billion RMB (US$24.5 billion) in 2016."
With mobile devices becoming the mainstream device for Internet access, mobile games have created "blue oceans" of untapped new market spaces for the game industry. Worldwide mobile game market value is expected to hit US$35 billion in 2017 from US$20 billion in 2014 with an increase in its market share from 25% to 35%.
