The 90s Generation in China

A Chinese social networking website conducted a survey on what Chinese kids of “the 90s generation” (born 1990 and later) are doing during their summer holiday. Of the 2,541 responses, 1,217 were boys and 1,324 were girls. The findings show that 68.6% say they are watching TV, 65.7% are going to or watching movies, and 65.4% are playing outdoor activities. Surprisingly only 35.3% of the respondents say that they are “playing digital games” for entertainment this summer.

China’s Growth Data

The economic news and trends coming from China are painting a somewhat gloomy picture. For example, the Chinese stock market had a big rise earlier this year and now has collapsed, Chinese economic growth data shows a slow down, there are many outspoken analysts who say that the Chinese government data is overstated, and the government devalued the Chinese Yuan this week (it is now 6.33 to the USD). On the bright side, amid all of this negativity, there continues to be growth in the Chinese digital games industry in all segments (PC online, console and mobile). The mix of revenue share held in each of those segments is evolving, but there are still hundreds of millions of Chinese gamers who are hungry for more and better games all the time. It seems the games industry is resilient despite the economic conditions.

Dota2 International Championship

Polygon reported on the 2015 International Dota2 Championships, and a Chinese team was in the finals but lost to an American team. ESports continue to fascinate Asian gamers (and global gamers) and are a driver for continued growth of PC online games. According to Polygon,

“After weeks of regional qualifiers, wild card matches, last week’s group stages, and six days of main event play, the winner of TI5, the 2015 International Dota 2 Championships, is Evil Geniuses, who overcame CDEC in a tense, back and forth 3-1 victory in a best-of-five series.

Chinese team CDEC and North American team Evil Geniuses faced off in the upper bracket final on day four of the TI5 main event, sending the American squad to the lower bracket to face more stiff competition. Evil Geniuses odds were considered to be less than 50-50 against Chinese team CDEC, but unexpected hero picks and drafting carried EG to a strong 2-0 finish and the organization’s first trip to The International’s finals, and the first appearance in an International final from a North American team.”

Case in point, Microsoft is counting on Halo: The Master Chief Collection to help boost Xbox One sales in China, and the company has announced eSports for Halo 5: Guardians with a $1 million prize purse, and part of it may be in order to ride the big wave of Asian eSports fascination.

China’s Billionaires

The world of technology billionaires is looking increasingly Chinese, with 20 from the mainland landing on the Forbes list of the 100 Richest People in Tech.

Niko Partners on Twitter

Follow us on Twitter @nikochina to see these comments in real time as we publish them! Here are a few of our tweets from last week:

  • ChinaJoy 2015 Recap https://nikopartners.com/?p=2033&preview=true …
  • Niko’s senior analyst Xiaofeng Zeng interviewed by Dean Takahashi in an article about China’s market opportunity: http://bit.ly/1gjm3Oc
  • Videogame Makers Battle Chinese Censors to Win Over Gamers https://nikopartners.com/videogame-makers-battle-chinese-censors-to-win-over-gamers/ …
  • I was quoted in this WSJ article today: Videogame makers battle Chinese censors to win over gamers http://on.wsj.com/1LPgROe via @WSJ
  • Xiaomi says it’s building a patent ‘war chest’ as part of U.S. launch prep http://bit.ly/1gOGJyr