Research says Chinese social games rise online users are shrinking

Multi-Play Network (compiler/wendy) Market intelligence company Niko Team released the "2010 Chinese player typical group survey report", the results show that the trend of Chinese gaming industry is gradually from online gaming to social games, in 2009, 88% of the players involved in the survey play the game on SNS. "Social games are not games in the traditional sense, and this type of game is more like entertainment," says a former Facebook executive. "Social games bring a whole new group of players, even people we don't think of." It's a gold-sucking machine.　　According to NPD, a research firm, up to 35% of social gamers said they had never played any number games before. Niko's report shows that as the online gaming market is saturated, social gaming is more accessible, leading to a drop in average player consumption. Niko Partners, Lisa Cosmas Hanson, told reporters: "Because of the large number of small games and social games, more and more gamers, when a large number of players into the market, the average consumption amount is reduced, but still maintain a high level of consumption." "In fact, there are few people willing to spend money on social games," he said. Equity analyst Attu Baga (Atul Bagga) estimates that only about 1% to 3% of social gamers actually spend money on the game. The figure is close to the social gaming company Zynga's estimate.　　The company found that potential paid players accounted for only 3% to 5% of the total number of players. The study also pointed out that Chinese players, especially those with personal computers, had less time to spend in Internet cafes than in previous years. Although the time spent in the Internet café is less, but Hanson insists that the Internet café is still the "key part" of the development of China's gaming industry, at least 65% of the players will play games in internet cafes. (Edit/Ming)