In 2010, the growth of the Chinese online game market continued to slow down, rising by only 26.2 percent. The market size reached 34.9 billion yuan in total; Internet games accounted for 32.3 billion yuan, up 25.2 percent from 2009; wap games amounted to 2.6 billion yuan, rising by 40.7 percent. Meanwhile, games produced for TV and radio networks were gaining increasing attention, fostering another growth area.
Despite the apparent slowdown in the game market, Internet users in 2010 continued to grow and reached 120 million, rising by 37 percent.
The Ministry of Culture approved or filed for record 204 games. Among them, 28 games were imported and the remaining 176 were made in China, compared to 80 in 2009.
The year 2010 saw the dominance of Internet games in the market as a whole, 12.6 times the market of wap games which grew, for the first time in the five years, slightly by 0.7 percent.
In 2010, client-based games were still a substantial part of the online game market, taking up over 90 percent of the market. Browser games were growing at a fast pace; they rose by 4.27 percent in 2010 and accounted for 7.6 percent of the whole market.
Games produced by Chinese companies gained 18.51 billion yuan in the domestic market in 2010, rising by 17.3 percent, but much slower than the growth rate of the entire online games market. Meanwhile, their market share reduced to 57.3 percent from 61.2 percent in 2009.
The year 2010 saw a huge increase in Chinese export volume and over 100 Chinese games were introduced to foreign markets, raking in $230 million, a 116 percent rise from 2009. A growing number of producers were testing the waters overseas, and some producers even invested globally and competed with their foreign counterparts.