While Chinese Internet cafes are supposedly on the decline, but with a 126 million active players at net cafes across the country it's easy to see that net cafes are still a major player in the gaming scene of China. Such as it is, it's always interesting to see what kind of games are being played in the country's net cafes.
Despite it being a new year and a new month, we'll be taking a look at statistics from last month published by Tencent. Tencent, the Chinese gaming giant that I think will one day take over the world, publishes and develops video games among other things. This list might be a bit biased (Tencent did publish it) so please take it with a grain of salt.
League of Legends (英雄联盟)
Developer: Riot Games
Publisher: Tencent
Genre: Massive Online Battle Arena
Cross Fire Online (穿越火线)
Developer: Smile Gate
Publisher: Tencent
Genre: First Person Shooter
Blade and Soul (剑灵)
Developer: NCSoft
Publisher: Tencent
Genre: Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.
DNF (Dungeon Fighter Online) (地下城与勇士)
Developer: Nexon
Publisher: Tencent
Genre: Mutliplayer Beat-em Up
QQ Racing (QQ飞车)
Developer: Tencent
Publisher: Tencent
Genre: Racing
Ni Zhan Online (逆战)
Developer: Tencent
Publisher: Tencent
Genre: First Person Shooter
QQ Dancing (QQ炫舞)
Developer: Tencent
Publisher: Tencent
Genre: Dancing/Rhythm
Meng San Guo (梦三国)
Developer: Hangzhou Dianhun
Publisher: Hangzhou Dianhun
Genre: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game with MOBA elements
New Journey To The West (新大话西游2)
Developer: NetEase
Publisher: NetEase
Genre: Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
NBA 2k Online
Developer: 2k Games
Publisher: Tencent
Genre:Sports/ Basketball
Of the above games, eight out of the ten are either developed or operated in China by Tencent. In China online games are often "operated" or published by a publisher. Foreign developed games tend to work in unison with a Chinese developer/publisher to put their games out in China, the best example would be World of Warcraft and NetEase. For example, NetEase is the operator and "distributor" of WoW in China.
本月网吧排行点评 [QQ Games]
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Eric is a Beijing based writer and all around FAT man. You can contact him @FatAsianTechie@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @FatAsianTechie.