Forbes counted 09 The world's top ten most lucrative online games of Warcraft

According to foreign media reports, Forbes website recently published a "The next FarmVille," the article, which lists the world's hottest online games in the 2009, which are all over Asia and the United States, where Chinese online gaming accounts for about half of it.

In North America, people are accustomed to buying virtual cows and growing cabbage in online games, but now these are replaced by virtual kimchi. In the United States, Blizzard Entertainment's "World of Warcraft" and Zynga's "FarmVille" are known for their high income through games. In fact, online games have been around for years in China and South Korea, and the popular games in both countries are hitting the American coastline. For example, from China gaming company NetEase and perfect Time and space "dream West Tour" and "Perfect World", as well as from South Korea nexon "Maple Valley".

In China, Internet cafes are the standard place for most Internet users to play online games, so Chinese game companies pay much attention to the on-line experience. "In addition to World of Warcraft, American game developers don't pay much attention to PC online gaming," says Lisa Cosmas Hanson, Niko Partners partner. But in China, game companies have been watching online games for a long time. and has formed a set of experience. ”

China's "Perfect World" and "wow" in some ways very similar, such as fantasy theme and game environment, but in how to make money, the "perfect World" is similar to Farmville: the sale of virtual goods. According to analysts estimates, the 2009 Chinese virtual Goods market size reached 5 billion U.S. dollars. Inside Virtual hereby reported that in 2009, the U.S. market for fictitious goods was about $1 billion trillion.

In recent years, Chinese game companies have brought free gaming experience to the United States and achieved some results. September 2008, the perfect space-time U.S. subsidiary to the Western players released the flagship game "Perfect World international Edition." Over a short period of 1.5, the company is expected to have revenue of around $50 million this year, and the number of registered users of the main games has reached 1.5 million. The company plans to launch two new games in the North American market in the coming year. At the same time, South Korea Nexon Company also set up a subsidiary in North America Nexon america,2009 revenue reached 47 million U.S. dollars, mainly from the popular game "Maple Valley" International edition.

But even the biggest online game in Asia cannot defeat the originator of World of Warcraft. The game last year's revenue reached 1 billion dollars and is very popular in China and South Korea. Not every game is the same as "World of Warcraft" based on the charging mode of operation, the game's users pay monthly fee. While free games in Asia have a small annual income, this model is gaining the attention of North American gaming companies because it is a good way to quickly get gamers, after all, many people don't want to spend money on games at first. DFC analyst David Cole says the free game model has been very successful in Asia and there are indications that the model is expected to succeed in the US as well.

While social games in Asia are still less developed than in the US, such as Facebook's global momentum, that will change. The China farm game "Happy Farm" currently has a daily active user of up to 23 million, almost as much as Zynga's popular games. "Happy Farm" by the Shanghai game developers five minutes development. Five minutes The company recently released a game in the United States, the game's daily active users have reached 300,000 people. Last December, five minutes of the company won the Silicon Valley VC company Draper Fisher Jurvetson 3.5 million dollar investment.

Driven by the desire to succeed in the world, Asia's hottest gaming companies will continue their plans for a westward expansion. The Perfect World co-founder, Yoon Im, said, "It's great to be ranked first in China, but if it's the best in the US, it means being the world's first." ”

The following is Forbes ' 2009 World's top ten most lucrative games rankings by revenue:

1, "World of Warcraft", Blizzard Entertainment (USA): 1 Billion USD

2, "Dream West Tour", NetEase (China): 400 million U.S. dollars

3, "Perfect World", perfect time and Space (China): 300 million USD

4, "Heaven I" and "II", NCSoft (Korea): 270 million USD

5, "Tianlong Eight", Swim (China): 250 million USD

6, "Eternal Tower", NCSoft (Korea): 230 million USD

7, "Maple Valley", Nexon Company (Korea): 200 million yuan

8, "Journey", Giant Network (China): 190 million U.S. dollars

9, "Legendary World", Shanda Interactive Entertainment (China): 150 million USD

10, "Final Fantasy XI" Square Enix Company (Japan): 117 million USD