iResearch Values China Online Game Market at 9.48bn Yuan

From Thursday to Sunday this week, the Shanghai ChinaJoy Game Expo is on. The Expo is a big opportunity for companies to showcase their new titles to a mass gathering of hardcore Chinese gamers.  Like car enthusiasts being wooed by gorgeous car models, gaming companies are using an arsenal of attractive female models, dressed in tight character costumes to fulful some type of fetish fantasy of their players. It seems they haven’t taken much notice of government directive against “vulgarity” and “obscene, sexually proactive behavior” as reported by Shanghai Daily. Held at the Shanghai New International Expo Center, the convention will feature sessions for game companies, game veterans, developers and of course players to discuss and experience the latest trends in the industry.

Online game market hits 9.48bn yuan in Q2 2011

The dynamic of Chinese consumers is starkly different to other countries. Since Chinese people don’t like paying for things online, companies have accepted this fact and monetize from selling virtual goods and online advertising. This is in contrast to many Western or European countries where avid game geeks would line up for hours to pay for the first copy or subscription of a game. However this doesn’t mean there is not much money in this industry. On the contrary, iResearch values the Chinese consumer online game market to be 9.48bn yuan in Q2 2011, representing a 23.9% increase year on year.

This new model of free to play but paying for in game items has been popularized by companies like Tencent, who we reported recently is teaming up with American game giant, Zynga. Kabam, who we also interviewed sees free to play as a friction-less way to scale users and monetize at the right time.

Online Web Game Advertising market shrinks 7.2% – Shift to Mobile Internet Games

In 2011Q2, China’s online game advertising market size was $173 million, a decrease of 7.2%. iResearch reports that, China’s user conversion and retention rate of online advertising is falling and online advertising costs are increasing.

As online advertising effectiveness for web games decreases, advertisers are looking to shifting budgets towards mobile internet games where iResearch values the mobile game market size to be 980m yuan in Q2 2011, a year on year growth of 66.1%. The explosion of Android and iOS has been a major factor of this growth.

Chinese game companies looking to expand overseas markets

As if the China market wasn’t big enough, Chinese companies are looking (as they should) to go global. Many have already started shipping titles overseas. However like many other Chinese tech companies which have listed on the NASDAQ in America, game companies like Shanda and CYOU, suffered steep stock price declines shortly after listing.  Also Chinese game companies face challenges of intense competition from Japanese and South Korean game developers. To support their homegrown gaming industry, even the government is supporting with new industry regulations and favorable policies as well as encouraging overseas expansion.

 

Related posts:

1. Online Game Company The9 Annouced $100million Fund for Mobile Internet Development
2. The MMORPG Market Is Shrinking in China
3. Global Mobile Game Awards at GMIC2011 – Submit Your Mobile Game!

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InformMe App – Get Missed Call Alerts On Email! [Appnomy]

Forgot your phone at home? Mobile phones not allowed at your work place? School, university banned mobile phones on Campus?

Never miss a call or a Text message with Inform Me, a free android app.

Get real time email alerts with callers Number, Name (from contact book), Time of call and Text message content using the app.

How to use the InformMe app:

Once you install, configure settings (works with Gmail based email IDs).

• Select “FROM Email” and enter the password (Note: you must have at least one Gmail account configured on your phone)
• Enter “TO Email” (any email or same as “From”).
• Specify Keywords to Start / Stop application by SMS
• Start the Application.

And you will start receiving alerts on your email. You may also send a SMS to your phone using keywords to Start / Stop the application.

Download Link: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.aks.InformMe.

A simple app but can really be of immense help! What’s your opinion?

[Reproduced From Appnomy.]

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Japan Digest – 29 Jul

Here you can find interesting startup news from Japan, not only from its capital, Tokyo, but also other startup hubs like Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and many more.

(1) KDDI, Japanese Microsoft, and a Fujitsu Toshiba mobile communications announced on July 27 the “IS12T” phone, equipped with Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed Mango, which is the first in Japan. The colors are three colors “Citrus”, “Magenta”, and “Black”.

(2) Mobile social games leader ngmoco, a DeNA Co., Ltd. company, announced with DeNA that its Mobage social games platform for Android has been released in English-speaking countries around the world; the service is slated to expand to other territories and mobile platforms soon.

(3) All Japanese analog terrestrial television broadcasting were terminated today at 12:00 p.m. July 24 (Japan Standard Time) as planned, with the aim of more effective radio wave usage by re-assigning their bands from analog TV to newly introduced digital TV. They have been simultaneously broadcast until today.

(4) Colish, a project born out of Startup Weekend Tokyo in May, provides a meeting point for like-minded people to share a house with.

(5) In press conference, DeNA announced the formation of the “Super Creators” initiative, an all-star team of five veteran game designers from the traditional Japanese games industry who will create social smartphone games for Mobage. All games will be published by AQ Interactive.

(6) Cyber Agent has released the new social game “World Chef” for Facebook, a restaurant simulation social game which allows users to play using the same avatar data from Ameba Pico.

(7) Opt, an interactive agency, has begun to implement the social recommendation application market “myappee”, which knows which Android apps are popular based on “Like this” and user tweets. New applications are also open for registration.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

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July 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 2)

Continued from (Part 1). Middle part of July news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 3)

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• Asahi Shimbun's continuing special coverage on the diasaster relief and recovery.
• CyberAgent Launches Ameba Studio - 9000 Celebs Livestream via Cnet Japan
• The iPhone app that notifies you when your follower stops following you on Twitter. by Adways, an affiliate rep. - there are many of such web services so not really new, but covered well in Japanese. Maybe because being an iPhone app
• Google+ Icon Generator on Twibbon
• Glory Developing e-Book Vendor Machine From Which You Buy Anonymously - digital but not-traceable
• Facebook Japan Offered Coupon Who Visits Their Office 3 Times. The planned gift all seemed gone. Facebook Japan did not disclose its office address publicly, so this might be limited test within their collaborators.
• Weekly Photo Magazine Flash Features Hatsune Miku On Cover, First Virtual Person In 25 Years
  
• Street Ad Boasting "No Power Consumed" - paper ad is a great energy-saver in this after-disaster era.
  
• Gaga Tetsuko Facebook Profile Generator - from this boom
• EMO Open Source Game Engine Lets You Make iOS/Android Game In Single Source Code. [En] author's explanation [J]
• Klab unveils Cheerz (Japanese edition), which allows users to chat with others browsing the same website as you. Its English version was introduced last April.
• Nico Nico Douga Disco Nicofarre Sets Movie Specification For Wallscreens
• Nicofarre Opening Event To Feature AKB48 And Tohoshinki
• NHK Aiming All PC Users As Its Forced Subscribers
• Ruby Creator Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto Takes Chief Ruby Architect Of Heroku [En]
• Photo-album manufacturer Nakabayashi introduces water-powerd rechargeable battery NoPoPo.
• Zynga Japan Shuts Down Their 1st And 2nd Apps On Mixi
• El Shaddai Character Tops On Boys Contest On Taiwanese Department Store via ITMedia
• iPad App To Tweet By Breathing Out - could help challenged people
• Sony and Adobe Systems jointly announce to hold an Android app contest.
• Inago, a Tokyo-based system developer specializing in human-computer interaction technology, introduces a personal digital assistant app for Android. Available at Samsung apps for free.
• Sony opened up their Japanese Facebook page
• Gallaxy S Space Ballon Project - Live streaming from the handset flying in the stratosphere. (Samsung's 3-day promotion campaign) via RBB Today
• YouTube Adds Japanese Transcription Support
• Akihabara Curry Shop Presents Free Drink For A Human And A Figure Couple
• Japanese Government Seeking A Company To Watch "False" Tweets Around Nuclear Power
• Japanese Universities With High Ratio Of Facebook Users - most are the universities known by more exchange students, English classes
• Skype Japan explains what Dentsu exclusively gets from them
• Two Dommune Books Published Soon
• Humanoid Serves In Osaka Cafe via Slashdot Japan
• A campaign site called World Game Project was opened by Sony to promote Western games in Japan.
• AllAbout Japan Testing Real-Name Q and A Service GoodAnswers via CNET Japan

If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.

July 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 2)

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Will You Use Color Emoji Folders And Files On Mac OS X Lion?

Japanese blogger NAOI pointed out how Lion, the new version of Mac OS X, added more support of color emoji on its system level.

Gmail has been known its emoji support, but that support was done by displaying those emoji characters with converted images. On Lion, the color emoji-s are available as regular letters on operating system level, which means you can create color-emoji folders,

and files,

Some applications can not show them in color. Your sending those strangely named files to older Mac OS, Windows or other OS may cause issues.

Will You Use Color Emoji Folders And Files On Mac OS X Lion?

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Nyotaigoyomi: Page-a-day Calendar Girls App

Nyotai-Goyomi (=girl's body calendar. The word nyotai is the same one in notorious nyotai mori) is a set of girls' photos who has date drawn somewhere on her skin.

The date drawn on girls seem to be in various formats including Japanese digits. If you don't understand Japanese date notations, these apps may be not so useful. Well, your smartphone can easily show current date for free so people who purchase this may not care the information itself.

Bijin Dokei(Tokei) achieved huge success in Japan with "Time" and girls so this one may be welcomed, too.

Every month, new Nyotai Goyomi application are published on iPhone and Android under different themes.

• March (Maid)
• April (Schoolgirls)
• May (Kimono, traditional Japanese cloth)
• June (Nurse)
• July (Working girls)

Photos of some date are on the developer's blog [J].

via GirlsNews [J]

Nyotaigoyomi Book

Nyotaigoyomi: Page-a-day Calendar Girls App

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Statistics: Maharashtra Has The Largest Internet And Broadband Subscriber Base

India’s mobile market is growing at a tremendous rate and nobody can doubt that. It’s not just the number of subscribers that is rising but the way that subscribers are using their mobiles is changing too. It’s no wonder that all major companies that have anything to do with mobile are looking at great growth opportunities in India.

India’s huge population also guarantees a large market for Internet based companies as the number of people that access the Internet from India keeps rising. A report published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( TRAI) gives us a detailed view of the telephony market in India. Here’s some intriguing stats that the report reveals:

Wireless subscriptions data:

• Share of Rural areas in total subscription has increased to 33.35% at the end of Mar-11 from 33.00% at the end of Dec-10. The year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth of the market share of the Rural areas for Mar-11 is 3.24 as against 6.28% in the previous quarter.
• The dominance of wireless services continues to grow steadily.

• Rural subscription grew at the rate of 9.03% in QE Mar-11 as against 10.49% in QE Dec-10 and Urban subscription grew at the rate of 7.33% as against 8.83% in the previous quarter.

Internet services:

• Share of Broadband subscription in total Internet subscription increased from 58.8% in Dec-10 to 60.4% in Mar-11.
• Number of Narrowband subscribers increased from 7.70 million in Dec-10 to 7.79 million in Mar-11, thereby showing a growth rate of 1.17% as against a growth rate of 1.42% in the previous quarter.
• The total Internet leased line customers stood at 45,275 at the end of Mar-11 as compared to 36,244 at the end of Dec-10, registering an increase of about 25%.

• DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is the most preferred technology used by the Service Providers to provide Broadband Services and it constitutes 86.09% of total broadband subscribers. Cable Modem Technology follows with 5.97% connections.

• Maharashtra has the largest Internet (<256 Kbps) and Broadband (>=256 Kbps) subscriber base in the country. Tamil Nadu is at second place in internet and broadband subscriber base.
• In all the Top 10 states, the number of broadband subscribers is more than the number of Internet subscribers. These are encouraging statistics for businesses that rely on fast internet access.

• 46.99% of total wireless subscribers base are capable of Accessing Data Services/Internet at the end of Mar-11 as against 44.19% at the end of previous quarter.
• More importantly, compared to same time last year, the number of wireless subscribers capable of accessing Data/Internet services has seen a growth of more than 114%.

You can view the report here

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Explained: Alibaba’s Aliyun [Cloud Based Mobile OS]

[Article reproduced from Appnomy, the visibility platform for mobile app developers]

Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba’s newly unveiled mobile OS is creating quite a stir on the Internet and some are hailing it as the next big thing while others are saying it will be a complete dud. Apart from all the news we would like to explain the impact that this OS will have on the already booming smartphone market and we know that when a mobile platform starts to get popular, the app ecosystem gets a huge boost (hint:iOS, Android) and so does the app development market. So here’s the quick news and then an explanation of what all this means for app developers.

The News:
Alibaba unveiled a new smartphone called the K-Touch Cloud-Smart Phone W700 with their very own mobile OS,Aliyun. Aliyun has been developed over the past 3 years with deep integration with cloud based features.The Aliyun OS comes with 20 “Cloud apps” that access Alibaba company services over the Internet. The apps include Internet search, a barcode scanner to find products online and an app listing group-buying discounts. Alibaba plans to bring one new Cloud app to the OS each day. The OS is Linux based and can not only run Android apps but also web apps built with HTML5 or JavaScript. The operating system will provide each user with 100GB of virtual data storage over the Internet. Photos, contact lists and messages can all be saved in a user’s online account. Alibaba will license the OS for free and is in talks with Qualcomm to produce low cost handsets.

The Explanation:
I think Alibaba is trying to pull off a Google here. An OS that runs Android apps means that Android developers have one more platform to publish their apps to. Blackberry Playbook already got a sneak peak at the Android Player for Playbook in its Beta form. An already open and hugely popular ecosystem of Android will definitely be an advantage for this OS.

Now lets talk cloud, I’m not so convinced about the cloud capabilities of an OS like this. I know that most app downloads happen over the internet but web apps will definitely mean that a whole lot of internet bandwidth will be needed. Free OS is an incentive for small manufacturers to use the OS but if users don’t get to use the cloud functionality that this OS promises then it might fail. Here’s where the Android apps backup plan seems to give Aliyun an advantage.

China is a huge market for smartphones and Alibaba wants to replicate the success that Android and Apple have achieved. India is similar to China when it comes to the mobile market, low cost handsets are becoming increasingly popular and the smartphone market has huge potential for growth. Both countries have a huge number of consumers that are going online from their mobiles and not PCs. This just means that app developers looking to take advantage of another parallel Android market for an entirely new product will have tremendous growth opportunities.

What’s your opinion?

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