China Online Games Market 2010

China has 400 million Internet users, a quarter of them avid gamers, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. Despite that enormous market, shares of Tencent, the Chinese market leader in Web-based games, has dropped 23 percent this year. Perfect World, another major operator, is off 47 percent, and Shanda Games (GAME) is down 42 percent.

With more Internet users in China than any other country, the Chinese game market seems ripe for growth. Two-thirds of Chinese have never been online and nearly half of China's Web surfers are under 25. Gaming companies have lot to worry about : while they see plenty of potential growth in poorer regions, it's getting harder to find players who aren't already online in Beijing, Shanghai, and other big cities.

The industry's revenues are likely to grow 22 percent this year, to $4.5 billion, that's far below last year's 40 percent. All that means the search for new hit games is urgent. This year, Chinese companies will launch 400 new titles, vs. 250 in 2009, competition is getting really hot. It's hard to stand out in the market because many operators have been churning out similarly themed medieval fantasies with titles such as Battle of Immortals and Dragon Power. Just search how many "3 Kingdoms" (san guo) MMO are there in China?

The there is the Chinese government new regulations to worry about, the Ministry of Culture on June 22 announced regulations setting guidelines for the look and feel of games and requiring that social gamers register under their real names. The ministry also set limits on sales to minors of items using virtual currency, or points earned playing online. But what's most scary is the poaching of games development teams that is happening in the Chinese MMO industry now. Companies are hiring head hunters to practically steal competitors or potential game development teams with x2 the salaries sometimes. Some are using unethical techniques to WIN at the game by way of obtaining source codes illegally. Such practises are what killing the industry today.

Gameforge to publish STAR TREK Browser-Based Games

German online game publisher Gameforge announced today that it had closed a licensing deal with CBS Consumer Products to create two browser-based free-to-play games based on the Star Trek license. These games will be casual offerings designed to complement the Cryptic/Atari subscription MMO Star Trek Online.

One of Gameforge's Star Trek games will be for Facebook and developed by an unnamed external German studio. Another unnamed external studio in California will handle development of a second browser-based Star Trek game. The games will be published simultaneously in the US and Europe. One will be based on the original Star Trek series while the other will be based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is not yet confirmed what type of game either title will be or how it will monetize.

*MOVIES ONLINE GAMES is becoming a trend now and we will see its streams of successes and also failures in 2011 to come.

Movies Online Games *MOG

February 2009 was the month I initiated "EUROWEB" a Flash MMO studio whom will solely concentrate on producing Flash base MMORPG online games based on top Chinese blockbuster movies. We were the 1st worldwide to produce Flash MMORPG online games based on movie IP and to launch a playable demo before the movie goes on the silver screen.

And now 18 months later the market is moving towards exactly the vision I had ...


THE MUMMY ONLINE

If the unique yet satisfying blend of horror, comedy and Brendan Fraser are your thing, then you're probably a big fan of The Mummy movie franchise. Nothing uplifts ancient Egyptian culture like making a mockery of their dead while looting their final burial place. In any case, Bigpoint and Universal Studios are teaming up to bring The Mummy Online, an action-RPG MMO, to gamers this fall.The title will be set in the same 1930's time period as the feature films, and will feature PvE and PvP play. Interested gamers should be pleased to note that it will be both browser-based (powered by Unity technology) and free-to-play, so there's no legitimate objection to giving it a try. Unless you're a scaredy-cat, of course.Universal's Bill Kispert chimed in with the announcement: "The Mummy franchise is chock full of exotic settings, supernatural enemies, exciting quests, and over the top action. It is ripe with gameplay possibilities, and we look forward to extending our relationship with Bigpoint to bring the world of The Mummy to life for gamers."

If these movie IP franchise works on Flash MMO then we will be seeing more MOG *movie online games concept mushrooming all over the world. What next ? I believe that movie IP on Facebook social games and iPhone / iPad games will become a bigger hit to come. YOU GUESS it RIGHT ! I m working on producing a Movie IP base game for the mobile in China as a new pet project with a friend.

81 NOTES : The Successful Entrepreneurs

What kind of entrepreneurs can succeed ?
From my personal experience I can see 2 types of successful entrepreneurs :

1.) The Born Entrepreneurs Type.

*These are people whom are born entrepreneurs, they cant work for anyone and they constantly have new bright ideas almost every week on what can be done to make money. Basically they just love making money as its in their blood stream. For many the roads ahead may not be easy as born entrepreneurs strive through lots of hardship sailing through failures after failures before reaching success. But they never give up hope for success and they know it is just around the next corner. Their experience is something that even Havard or Insead cant teach, their hardship in building a success enterprise whether big or small is something no case study can really tell you to the point.

2.) The Worker Entrepreneurs Type.

*Very often we see most new entrepreneurs whom had almost immediately achieved good initial success are those from this category. They often spend many years working in a company and along the way acquired the know-how of the business they worked day in / day out. When they finally decided to throw in the towel and venture into the business world, some smarter ones will actually initiate the same business similar or an exact copy of their employer. Some would even take a client or two with them when they start. These entrepreneurs have with them the know-how and mechanics of the business so initial success will be easier. But taking a business beyond what you have already known is the big challenge to come.

Successful entrepreneurs must have the never dying spirit inside themselves to succeed. When the going gets tough the tough gets going on ...

Once a friend told me about his problems back in Malaysia about how he also want to drive a Mercedes like me and how he wished he also could do business, make money and owns several apartments. We looked into what he could do and what he knows + how much he have and whether he is suitable for the entrepreneur life of hardship and sometimes you'll probably be worse off than when you are working a stable 9to5 job.

We found that he knows only what he is doing now best and we studied his employer business model and its often not surprising that it can be mimic and his clients are more than supportive for a lower price point. And so he took the 2nd road towards entrepreneurship and made lots of money along the next 4 years, drives 3 cars and purchased 4 apartments. All great entreprenuers are not just born lucky, well some are but many are carved out by themselves or someone along the road towards success. My friend business later failed and he lost all his money, cars and apartments today. But most important of all he also lost his confidence of becoming a success again. As an entrepreneur you can lose everything but never your confidence in yourself to come back up again.

FIFA heading to Facebook with Playfish

May 11th 2010
Social gaming giant Playfish is developing a Facebook title based on Electronic Arts’ world-conquering FIFA franchise. The project – called FIFA Superstars – is the first to be unveiled since Electronic Arts bought Playfish late last year in a deal worth up to $400 million.
Playfish had in the past revealed its enthusiasm in working with EA’s most high profile and lucrative franchises on the Facebook battlefield. Yet the studio clarified it would still be working on its own IP.
EA Sports boss Peter Moore said the integration of FIFA and Facebook made sense.

“Our FIFA products connect fans from all over the world who share a common passion for the sport, and soon our partnership with Playfish will allow us to bring the FIFA brand to the growing Facebook community,” he said.
“Leveraging our football gaming knowledge and marrying it with the social gaming expertise of our partners at Playfish is sure to provide more great opportunities to bring hundreds of millions of new fans to compete against their friends to win the FIFA World Cup through an engaging interactive football experience.”
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This story originally appeared on Develop.

NOTE : Just as predicted by me in early 2009 that all big brands and games Co. will be moving into Facebook with their big IPs. And these big brand names will need probably more sophisticated game play that better reflects their existing game IP and play mechanics. Otherwise we will see a sub-brand culture appearing on Facebook such as - QFifa or FBFifa !

Virtual Goods industry going UP. 虚拟商品行业持续上升

A new study by virtual goods provider Viximo suggests that by 2011, sales of virtual goods will amount to 20 percent of U.S. game software revenues. According to the report this forecast is predicated on the expectation that virtual goods will grow faster than the overall gaming software industry. In 2009, U.S. retail sales of console, portable, and PC game software generated revenues of $10.5 billion, an 11 percent decline over the $11.7 billion generated in 2008. In the meantime, virtual goods revenues are expected to hit roughly $1.6 billion in 2010 and grow further in 2011 to more than $2 billion or roughly 20 percent of the market revenue.

The interesting thing here is that there is a new revenue streams available for games - social games while the traditional consoles take better advantage of Internet connectivity providing beyond home console play mechanics now and consumers continue to embrace bite-size purchases, there is potential for virtual goods to provide sustained revenue stream to games company.

*Predictions from me :
We would see social games moving upstream into the mainstream pretty soon and huge IP names coming into the social games and virtual worlds (*or I would prefer to call it today - virtual MMO) for virtual worlds are going through a revolution to becoming more game like rather than just a virtual community. *Mainstream do not mean that social games will be replacing or becoming core AAA games. But social games will be going through a new change as it will get more sophisticated, more expensive to produce and we will start to see big branded names label on new social games coming up soon !

一个由虚拟物品供应商Viximo新的研究表明，到2011年，虚拟商品销售将达到美国的游戏软件收入的百分之二十。根据该报告这一预测是基于预期的虚拟商品的增长速度将高于整体游戏软件产业。 2009年，美国零售销售游戏机，便携，电脑游戏软件产生的105亿美元，比2008年的11.7美元产生的11亿美元下降百分之收入。在此期间，虚拟物品的收入预计将达到大约16亿美元的2010年和2011年进一步增长到超过20亿元，市场收入约占百分之二十。有趣的是，这里有一个新的收入来源的游戏 - 而传统的社会游戏机需要更好地利用国际互联网连接之外提供游戏机玩力学家现在和消费者继续拥抱一口大小的采购，有潜力的虚拟货物提供持续的收入来源，以游戏公司。从我*预测：我们会看到社会的游戏成为主流上游移动很快，有大量的知识产权名称纳入社会游戏和虚拟世界（*未来或我宁愿呼吁今天的虚拟世界 - 虚拟网络游戏）正在经历一个革命将会越来越小游戏像，而不是只是一个虚拟社区。*并不意味着主流社会的游戏将取代或成为核心AAA级游戏。不过，社会的游戏将是一个经历，因为它会得到更复杂，成本贵很多and我们将开始看到大品牌的名字很快就来up new社会games标签的新变化！

Rumours : Second Life IPO coming soon !

My earlier blog suggested about "The End of Virtual Worlds" just around the corner for majority of the virtual worlds players. And also hinted on what kind of virtual worlds could succeed. There were times when both me and my partner were pitching to our clients on : Client-download virtual worlds VERSUS Flash-based virtual worlds. Always we would cite Second Life, There.com, Vivaty, Metaverse and the others.

Todays biggest news or rumour which could just be true is SECOND LIFE is going for an IPO really soon. Rumour is that it will happens in 2010 or 2011. In the 2009 LA Games Con, Benchmark Capital mentioned that Second Life is doing very well reaping in new revenues thus giving much hope to the virtual world community all over the world.

How is Second Life doing today ?
It seems the mother of virtual worlds ( *Habbo could be the father of virtual worlds as both Habbo and Second Life started in 2000 ) is well alive and secretly growing under the radar. Second Life virtual economy is adapting to the new business model of virtual goods. Last year, in the midst of the recession, Second Life’s virtual goods economy in user-to-user transactions was $567 million, up 65 percent from the year before. San Francisco-based Linden Lab is announcing today that March user-to-user transactions topped $57 million. For the quarter, user-to-user transactions were $160 million, up 30 percent from a year ago. The company’s monthly unique user number peaked in March at 826,000, up 13 percent from a year ago.

Second Life has continued to thrive because it nailed a particular kind of customer: the creative class. These are the artistic people who have fun creating avatars, or virtual characters, goods, and homes inside the virtual world. They put those goods up for sale, making the world more fun and the economy more vibrant. There are people whom quit their real world job to work on a Second Life business full time simply because there is real money involved. There is 250,000 virtual objects a day and are uploaded for sale in Second Life.

The key chance came sometime last year for Second Life, Linden Lab poured more marketing resources ( MONEY ) into attracting new users and making improvements in its user interface ( *a new viewer, which is used to view the world and designed it to make 3D browsing feel more comfortable for new users and to make it easier to find places in Second Life ), which was never user friendly to the mass users. And the most important change element was mimicking what Habbo did by - offering homes to new users. With a single click, a user could move into an incredible Japanese home or a cabin in Lake Tahoe.

Inside Second Life, lots of companies left ghost towns. But about 1,400 businesses remain, and the online voice chat they engage in generates billions of minutes of usage.

According to Mark Kingdon, chief executive of San Francisco-based Linden Lab :

Facebook grows past 400 million –dwarfing the numbers of Second Life — more than half of Linden Lab’s customers report that they are active on Facebook. Hence, Kingdon argues that Second Life is complimentary to other social media, which generates traffic for the virtual world.
Linden Lab has 350 employees, but they aren’t creating virtual goods for the company to sell. Linden Lab leaves that up to its Residents, while most of the company’s employees work as developers or in customer support. The developers are hard at work on ways to connect Second Life to the social Web more explicitly, so that content created in Second Life can flow into other places.

“Our strategy is to bring more of Second Life out to the Web,” Kingdon said. “The distinctions between Second Life and the Web will blur more and more.”

Linden Lab came a long way but learned the hard way, the new formula seems right as its been proven by Habbo and IMVU to be highly lucrative.

NOTES of The Day : Light of hope for virtual worlds companies ? Lessons learned - even the dead can rise ! Users experience is key important and always know where the money mechanics are + monopolise a niche' group that is big enough to grow the business. BUT can ghost towns and good commercial business tactics make an internet virtual world company IPO ? MMO is all about the users and not commercial business deals, so maybe I do have lots of lesson to learn from Second Life afterall.