On October 24th, Interna- tional Development Forum on Animation and Game Industry was held in Shijingshan District Beijing. The Forum was centered on the theme “Innovation and Development of Animation and Game Industry”. Experts, government officials, entrepreneurs in the related fields gathered together and discussed the development of the animation and game industry now and in the future.
On-line game industry with a good prospect
Tuo Zuhai, Director of Cultural Market Department of Culture Ministry said at the conference that at present China animation and game industrial market kept growing in a large scale but the growth rate slowed to some extent. The number of users had increased substantially and the overseas market further enlarged.
Tuo presented the features of the on-line game industry in six aspects:
First, the market size further enlarged. Up to September this year, there had been 1,200 on-line game companies all over the country. In terms of the market size, the total market value of on-line game and mobile on-line game industry was RMB 34.9 billion, of which the on-line game industry was valued at RMB 32.3 billion, increased by 25.2%, and the mobile on-line game industry was valued at RMB 2.6 bil- lion, increased by 40.7%. In particular, the income from overseas market was about US$230 million, up 116% from that of 2009.
Second, the number of users kept increasing. Last year, the total users of on-line games surmounted 120 million, and the growth of users’ number exceeded the increase of size, which reflected that the fundamental drive of the on-line game market was still healthy. The market was not completely mature and was still in the fast growing period. Now there are 144,000 net bars which mainly run games business and the market size of net bars in 2010 was RMB 77.1 billion.
Third, the styles of the games were increasingly diversified. The internet game still dominates the domestic online game market, but the proportion of mobile on-line games began to rise for the first time in the past five years, up to 7.3%. The client games accounted for 90% share of the game market, and the webpage games accounted for 7.6%. However, the webpage games tend to increase fast in recent years, and the mobile on-line games market was dominated by download PC games.
Fourth, the investment in the game industry was proactive. According to the data collected from all the local administrative agencies, the new founded on-line game companies kept increasing. Since last year, there had been 300 new companies approved, and there were still many on-line game companies which planned to get listed. Chinese domestic companies also conducted M&A actively overseas. Meanwhile, the game companies were also active in investing other businesses. The cross-border investment has become a trend and the on-line game companies investing in the fields of movie and literature has grown to be the important business development mode.
Fifth, the policy environment was increasingly stable. The Ministry of Culture issued the Interim Measures for On-line Game Management in June 2010, which was the first regulation for on-line game management. The Mea-

sure clearly formulated the guideline, which sticks to the principle of healthy and moderate development of game industry. The guideline established the policy positioning for limited development of on-line game industry. The regulation helped to shape the activities of the enterprises and the whole society’s evaluation and repercussion to the on-line games also tend to be objective and reasonable.
Sixth, currently, the domestic open platform of the internet has become a trend, and the mobile internet further extends the market margin. A large industrial chain and ecosphere is gradually building up, which offers more and better opportunities to those small innovative SMEs. The themes, types and playing means of the games are more diversified. The leisure-oriented light games, webpage games and social games and the educational type dominated functional games have more space to develop.
One overseas survey agency Pearl Research issued a report which estimated that the market size of China’s on-line games would break through the threshold of US$8 billion. Before the report was issued, Pearl Research had predicted that Chinese on-line game market would become the NO.1 market in place of the US, and Chinese online game market would account 25% of the total global market then while the US’would decline to 22%.
Animation industry evolved from growth period to mature period
The Sixth Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee of the Party put forward that China should accelerate the development of cultural industry and promote the cultural industry to be the pillar industry of the national economy. Animation industry, full of vigor, is part of cultural industry and won over much concern from all the sectors of the community. As the sunrise industry, animation industry, supported by the national policy and efforts from all the sides, has got remarkable development, from a small industry to a large one, from large to strong, growing steadily.
The special statistics of animation industry done by the Ministry of Culture indicated that the domestic output of animation industry in China in 2010 was up to RMB 47.04 billion, increased by 27.9% year on year. Besides, the domestic first bluebook of animation industry China’s Animation Industry Development Report also stated that in recent years the animation products has been increased substantially and China has become the No.1 animation producing country in place of Japan.
Since the Cultural Industry Promotion Plan listed the animation industry as one of the nine categories which are the national development priority in the cultural industry, to promote the healthy and sound development of animation industrial chain has become the fundamental starting point for the State to formulate animation industrial policy and conduct industrial management. During the 11th Five Year Plan period, the Government made more than 30 cultural industrial policies and government of all levels also issued a series of documents, defining the industrial nature of the animation industry and clarifying the goals and orientation for the animation industry in 10 years.
With the series of supportive policies, the animation industry got continuing growth. The original cartoon works kept sprung up and the monthly issue volume of good cartoon publications was up to millions; TV animation broadcasting system has been increasingly improved; investors are more diversified and market oriented, with private enterprises as the main force; the investment in animation movie is increasingly warming and the box office earnings got breakthrough; new media supported animation sector is booming and the animation derivative industry is more creative; the animation industrial chain is gradually mature. In general, the animation industry in China has evolved from the growth period to mature period.
The data published by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television indicated that China, with its produced animation works up to 385 films and TV plays, totally 220,000 minutes last year, has replaced Japan and become the No.1 animation producing country in the world.
The proportion of animation movies in the movie market has increased quickly. 16 animation movies were produced in 2010, and the total animation box office earnings of the first three quarters in 2010 was about RMB 489 million, of which the domestic animation’s box office was RMB 169 million, 35% of the total. In 2011, the development of the animation movie is accelerated more. From January to August 2011, the box office earnings of animation movies had already amounted to RMB 1.22 billion.
The new media such as the ubiquitous internet and mobile phone etc opened brand new profitable margin for the animation industry. The domestic original animation works spread through the internet and got wide welcome, with many works gaining millions of clicks. It is predicted that by the end of 2011, the users of 3G in China will reach 150 million people, which is bound to offer a vast market for mobile phone cartoon business. And the mobile phone carried cartoon market size is expected to reach RMB 1.2 billion in 2012. As Zhang Tianxiao, Chairman of Shanghai Fantasia Animation Co.,Ltd. said that the popularization of the new media not only changed people’s life attitude and consumption styles, but also provided new market opportunities for animation producing companies— the marketing and disseminating channels and operating modes of the domestic animation industry is experiencing a revolution owing to the new technology.
As for the future development of China’s animation industry, Xiong Chengyu, Director of Cultural Industry Research Center of Tsinghua University stressed at the forum that infusing cultural connotation is the orientation for the animation industry.“Our animation, I think, is more limited to the fields of fairytale, myths and scientific fictions. However, animation actually is a kind culture in nature, and is a kind of understanding to the society. I’m afraid that the contents of our animation should expand to more social themes from the young people concerned fairytale, myths and scientific fictions and thus it can make people see the society in a different form.