Chinese online game history is pretty short compared to that of other industries. 10 years. Not very long, but number of historical games are not so few.
Major global companies Shanda, NetEase, 9You, Tencent, etc. are those who grew with the mega-hit online games in the past.
They can’t deny the fact that they had compeletly counted on the Korean online games instead of self-developed games. Until 2005, more than 90% of Chinese game market was filled with foreign games which is again mostly Korean games.
Cross Fire, the most Chinese gamers play.
Today’s Chinese gaming behemoth Tencent publishes <Cross Fire> and <Dungeon & Fighter> which currently surpass 3m CCU and 2.6m CCU respectively. 3m CCU is the top CCU in China ever and probably the biggest number in a sole market I believe.
Legend of Mir 2. It featured low-spec and various contents.
The first Korean mega-hit online game was <Legend of Mir 2> of WeMade Entertainment.
It blew the market with 800,000 CCU in 2003 and was, needless to say, a key driver for both WeMade and Shanda, the Chinese publisher of <Legend of Mir 2>.
It had grown as big as occupying more than 60% of market share in 2005. It celebrated its 10th anniversary this year and still generates huge revenue of about US$ 2b.
DNF
China encourages fostering domestic company while restricting overseas company strongly. So overseas companies cannot enter the market without a Chinese partner at all.
Despite of it, most of the mega-hit games came from Korea or the U.S.; MMORPG <World of Warcraft>, 2D side-scrolling MORPG <Dungeon and Fighter>, and FPS <Cross Fire>.
It’s somewhat upset for China of the fact that its developers have not followed or have not led its own market so far in spite of having the biggest sole market in the world.
