China has had about 40 million people who frequently play online games through major portals, with an average annual spending of each player at 400 yuan (58.8 US dollars).

Zhou Mingquan, dean of the Information Technology School at Beijing Normal University, said at an international online game symposium, the Chinese online game players are continuing increasing in years to come and their average expenditure on online games and related service will also be swelling.

"The two statistics showed that the Chinese market for online games are rosy," Zhou said.

However, Zhou said, key information technologies which support online game development and marketing strategies for boosting such games were quite insufficient.

Zhou particularly advised Chinese information technology companies and online game developers to cooperate with nationwide research entities to form an industry chain as soon as possible.

Zhou said the once-in-five-year international online game research and development symposium, which was for the first time held in China, was a good opportunity for Chinese developers and vendors to learn much from rest of the world.

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2008)