Another big year in gaming boom

A man plays Angry Birds game on his mobile phone in Taizhou, Zhejiang province in this March 24, 2012 file photo

China’s gaming market continued to skyrocket last year with massive increases reported in revenue, usage and users, according to the annual Chinese Game Industry Report released on Saturday.

Domestic game players spent more than 83 billion Yuan ($13.68 billion) on games in 2013, the report said.

The number of gamers in China reached 490 million, a year-on-year increase of 20.6 percent, and the revenue of the country’s game market increased by 38 percent from 2012, according to the report.

Client-server games, which require an application to be installed on a computer, are still the driving force of the industry, accounting for 64.5 percent of the market share, the report continued.

Additionally, it was reported that the sales revenue generated by web games reached 12.77 billion Yuan, followed by mobile gaming with 11.24 billion, social gaming with 5.41 billion, and console game with 89 million Yuan.

The report attributed the boom in mobile gaming with the increased popularity of smart phones and tablet computers in recent years.

The report, now in its tenth annual edition, was published by the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association.