China will boast more domestic-made online games in the near future as more efforts by the Chinese government and enterprises are being made to boost this market of great potential.

This summer, two projects on online game technology development were listed in the "863" Hi-Tech Program, the national science and technology development program of China initiated March 1986.

"It is regarded as a strong signal that China's online game industry, which had been despised and scorned as a regular industry, now has achieved the support of the Chinese government," said Leijun, CEO of Kingsoft, a well-known software research and development company in China.

This move is driven by the great potential shown by China's online game market.

According to statistics, in 2002, the market value of China's online game business, which was only 310 million yuan (about US$37 million) in 2001, rose to 910 million yuan (about US$110 million), with an increase rate as high as 187.6 percent. And it is estimated that this value will be over 2 billion yuan (about US$240 million) this year.

The value brought by the online game business to other industries is more enormous -- 10 times of that produced by online game business itself. In 2002, the direct contribution of China's online game industry to the telecom, IT and publishing industries was 6.83 billion yuan (about US$820 million), 3.28 billion yuan (about US$395 million) and 1.82 billion yuan (about US$219 million) respectively.

But such a big market is mostly held by foreign companies.

"Nearly 80 percent of game software in China's online game market are foreign developed, especially by the Republic of Korea (ROK). Without the intellectual property, most of China's market profits lose in this way," said Li Wuqiang, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology.

"That's why we listed online game technology development in the'863' High-Tech Program," Li said.

Since its landing in China in 1999, online games have won over 40 million users. But specific personnel in online game development were only about 1,000 in 2001 and this gap in numbers between users and programers has kept growing since then.

This October, as a response to the demand for online game professionals, Sichuan University in Chengdu, capital of southwestern China's Sichuan Province, set up the department of game software, the first of its kind in China.

Lessons in literature, arts, English and software are all considered to be necessary in the new department as online game programing requires encyclopedic personnel, said Lu Li, an official with the department.

"China's training of game developing personnel will come into amore mature stage soon," said Lu.

In Beijing, China's IT industry hub, an online game personnel training system has been established, which is considered by people in this field as another great move of the Chinese government to boost China's online game industry.

Combining advanced technology and specific Chinese culture, China's homemade online games have begun to display remarkable achievements.

The World of Legend, an online game developed by Shanda Networking, was released in July. Only a month later, the game made a record of 300,000 same-time online users. Since this game began to charge in October, Shanda has earned millions of dollars.

According to Chen Tianqiao, CEO of Shanda Networking, the 40 million yuan investment of this game was regained only within one day.

Another highlight in the recent online game market is JX-online of Kingsoft, which will begin to charge next week after two months of successful market tests. After three years of research and with an investment of 15 million yuan (about US$1.81 million), the game combining Chinese martial arts and modern love is regarded as a banner of Kingsoft to face the challenge of online games produced by the ROK.

"China will issue more preferential policies such as those on taxes to boost homemade online game business and invest more money to the research and development of online games." said Liu Shifa, an official with the Ministry of Culture who is in charge of Internet affairs.

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2003)