That’s not a typo. The games industry in China has grown a total of 35.1%, resulting in an estimated revenue of 9.7 billion dollars. Yes, that number is in American dollars.
So where does all this revenue come from? TechWeb has the answer : online games. Out of the total 60.28 billion yuan (which converts to 9.7 billion American dollars), 56.96 billion came from China’s online game market. That’s almost 95% of their revenue coming from online games.
To round out the remaining revenue, 5.4% came from mobile gaming, and 0.1% came from “single game market sales,” which sounds a lot like picking up a game at retail. The biggest moneymaker came from “client online game revenue,” making 45.12 billion yuan.
If this isn’t proof that the future of gaming is through digital distribution, then I don’t know what is.