By Zhuang Guangping

China's online game industry was given birth in 2007. Since that, 10 years' development has contributed to the appearance of 10 listed companies in this industry. Several years ago, the foreign online games were so dominant in the Chinese home market that they were always the first to come to people's mind when online games were referred to. Nowadays, those years have gone far.

On January 24, the result of "China Most Popular Online Games List in 2007"hosted by Tencent, Inc. was announced. During 40 days, over 4.5 million online game players have voted and the total ballots have added up to 5.5 million. 7 online games developed by Chinese companies have ranked in the list of"10 Most Popular Chinese Online Games in 2007".

From agency to independent development, the domestic online game companies have thrown off the title of "No technology" and are striding forward to the international markets confidently. The professional expects analyzed that the success of the domestic online games should attribute to the Chinese traditional culture. "The agents definitely get restriction from the developers in terms of the game content," Wu Jun, vice president of 9you Network Company said. The particularity of online games requires that the suppliers should improve and upgrade their game products with the change of subscribers and market at any time. However, the domestic online game operators can hardly respond to players' demands right away since they stood at the end of the industry chain at the early time and knew little about the developing technology.

Besides, the extremely high agent fee for the overseas online games forces the domestic operators to develop independently. In order to obtain the exclusive agency from "World of Warcraft", one of its operators, The9 Computer Technology Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. has to pay the developer 22 percent of their sales amount, a quite big part of their profit. While as for NetEase.com, Inc., with 2 major self-developed games, their gross profit rate has got close to 90 percent compared to 48 percent in The9 Computer Technology Consulting (Shanghai) Co. when operating "World of Warcraft".

Experience tells the domestic online game operators that only with their own technology and products can they get rid of the restriction from the developers. Then self-development becomes the general trend now.

Moreover, the online game market is getting mature gradually and the domestic online game lovers wake up to choose. Apart from the beautiful game scenes and costumes, the plots and figures have gradually become the elements for them to consider. Then the cultural advantages of the domestic online games have got the chance to display.

Particularly those national online games with profound cultural connotations can enable the players to experience the strong sense of belonging. The popularity of "Westward Journey" game series and "The First Myth" game has manifested the cultural advantages of the national online games.

Rooted deeply in the Chinese traditional culture, the domestic online games have got endless inspiration from that. "All of our games are self-developed and have the theme of China. They are also popular at abroad," Chi Yufeng, CEO of Beijing Perfect World Co., Ltd. (Perfect World for short in the following) said.

In 2007, Perfect World released 3 major online games, "Perfect World", "My Own Swordsman" and "Zhuxian". "Perfect World" with the theme from The Classic of Mountains and Seas Chinese, one classical famous masterpiece, has a strong flavor of Chinese traditional culture; "My Own Swordsman" with a typical feature of Chinese ancient swordsman is launched at the same time as its TV series; "Zhuxian" is adapted form a hot network novel.

In July of 2007, Perfect World succeeded in entering the NASDAQ Stock Market in USA and got an increase of 27.5 percent in its first trading day. In this year, other 3 domestic online game companies who persist in self-development, Kingsoft, Giant Interactive Group Inc. and NetDragon Websoft Inc. listed overseas one after another. With the improvement in the ability of self-development, the domestic online game companies will definitely get into the international market.

Kingsoft first blew the "clarion" of internationalization. In 2004, "Swordsman Online", one of its products began to have agents in Malaysia and Singapore. One year later, this game got into Vietnam market and attracted over 80 percent of Vietnam's online game lovers. At present, Kingsoft has signed the authority agreement with the operators in Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore respectively and would export its self-developed games to them such as "JX Online", "The First Myth" and "Hero 108". Same to Kingsoft, a great number of online games with the theme of Chinese traditional culture are welcome by overseas game players.

Online game "Voyage Century" released by Suzhou Snail Electron Co., Ltd. sets the background against the Chinese navigation history in the 15th century focusing on the story of Zheng He's Expedition to the Xiyang (referring to western seas in Chinese). This game is popular in not only Asian online game players who live close to China but also the Western players far away from us. At present, it has been exported to over 20 countries and regions in the world.
Chi Yufeng attributed their success in developing the overseas market to the Chinese traditional cultural elements in their product design. Since 2006, their "Perfect World International" and "My Own Swordsman" games have been exported to tens of countries and regions in the world and got good feedbacks from the markets.

The year of 2006 has witnessed the domestic online games' harvest at home and abroad. Its export earning has exceeded US$20 million and broken through the domestic market proportion of 64.8 percent. In 2008, China's online game industry featuring in the national culture will embrace a new era of further development.