China has launched a training program for talented online games developers and designers -- a group of professionals that the government has identified as being in short supply.
   
The gaming college of Beijing Huizhongyizhi Tech Co. Ltd. was named by the Ministry of Information Industry as the first gaming talent training base on Wednesday.
   
According to a forecast report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the market volume of online games in China will reach 8.03 billion yuan (about US$1 billion) in 2006.
   
China is striving to enhance its domestic game development capability to compete with gaming products imported from the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea, which currently dominate the Chinese market.
   
The effort is backed by Chinese educators, who say computer games have a marked influence on the characters of young people. Competing for the games market is not only about competing for economic interests, but also cultural interests.
   
"We should produce healthy games to disseminate fine traditional culture and modern civilization among the young people," said Shen Jiangying, editor of the weekly newspaper China Netizen News.
   
She expressed deep concern over the influence of violence and sex in many imported games on young Chinese.

(Xinhua News Agency June 30, 2006)