Kingsoft plans new titles in assault on No 1 spot in mainland
Most game operators hope their titles will be No1, or at least in the top five. Beijing-based Kingsoft does not aim to top the charts with a single game offering, but hopes a smorgasbord approach will make it the No1 portal in China.
It is planning to introduce three new titles next year, bringing its total to five.
'While it is difficult to produce the absolute No1 game, we hope that, with all our games combined, we can have the largest number of users,' Kingsoft vice-president Zhang Zhihong said.
Kingsoft is the publisher of JX Online, which routinely ranks among the top five online games in China. The title has 120,000 average concurrent users and brings in an estimated 200 million yuan yearly.
The company foresees just three to four operators taking 80 per cent of industry revenue in the coming years.
In a market where 'the strong get stronger', Kingsoft planned to focus its marketing efforts to ensure survival, Mr Zhang said.
'To make a popular game, you need a large investment in research and development as well as in marketing, and only the large companies can afford that.'
Kingsoft has spent about 10 million yuan marketing JX Online. It plans to spend twice that to promote its new game, Feng Shen Bang.
Meanwhile, Fuzhou-based NetDragon Websoft is focusing on distribution after its Monster and Me title flopped. The game had 30,000 average concurrent users at one point, but this dropped to 6,000 after an upgrade failed to excite players.
NetDragon's strategy is to circumvent the networks of sales agents who distribute prepaid game cards in China. Such agents usually take up to 50 per cent on the sale of a prepaid card.
'We want to sell the game cards directly to the retailers on the street, bypassing the middlemen,' NetDragon general manager Joe Wu Zhiming said.
NetDragon will explore handling games for other operators. But it is committed to the market as a game publisher, boasting a research and development team of 400, with 800 employees overall. It plans to launch four to five multiplayer role-playing games next year and diversify into 'casual' games.
It has just three titles, most popular of which has 20,000 average concurrent users, and it recorded 50 million yuan in revenue last year.
Mr Wu said the firm had reached a deal with France's UFIsoft to develop an online game, and was in talks with Microsoft and Bandit.
