Playground for giants

I am going to make a radical prediction - I believe within 10 years, China will become the global leader in online games.

Now that I've grabbed your attention, let me share with you my vision of the three major trends in China's online gaming industry for the future:

Same gaming experience played on every device: PC online gaming will extend to using the Web browser as the client, sort of like the cloud gaming services, OnLive and Gaikai. This will enable people to play from their TVs or their mobile phones. The same gaming experience will be adapted with different input methods and screen sizes to match the capabilities of a variety of consumer devices.

Virtual society will become pop culture: A majority of youths will experience parts of their lives virtually. They will build circles of friends in the game space, and conduct their socializing in the virtual world. There will be a new genre of movies, TV shows, and tabloids that will focus on the virtual celebrities born in the game space.

Play to live: There will be more people earning their living just by playing games. The concept of gold farming found in today's games will transform into user generated content.

Players will create certain aspects of the content, in which other players will pay for. It could be as simple as new virtual clothing, to complex modifications like "Defense of the Ancient" for Warcraft 3. Think of it as the online game version of Apple's App Store for iOS.

Now, those familiar with the global gaming industry in general will say, "Well that's obvious, and it will happen in every country, not only China. So what's the big deal?"

Well, I think that it'll happen here in China first, and if the right kinds of companies are involved, the ideas tested and proven in China will be exported to the rest of the world.

1.3 billion people in China

277 million mobile Internet users

69 million online game players

These are numbers from the last two years. Can you imagine 10 years from now?

What these numbers don't show is that the Chinese game industry is ferociously competitive. The combined efforts pushing through the volume of ideas tested in this market would drive most Western companies crazy.

If there's an idea on how to make money in online games, it probably has been tried in China. If an idea becomes appealing to the consumers, many companies will copy it and try to perfect it.

Some examples of the future trends I mentioned earlier are already in their infancy in China: Web games like Renren.com's Cook have optimized versions that run on mobile web browsers.

The Legend of Sword and Fairy, or Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan in Chinese, was a PC game developed by Softstar in 1995, then made into an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) in 2008. There has been a TV Show spin off in 2005 and 2009.

In NetEase's Westward Journey MMORPG franchise, players can sell the virtual currency for real money to other players.

The flagship game Fantasy Westward Journey has been in operation in China for seven years, and is still the No 1 MMORPG in China based on 2.6 million peak concurrent users.

Of course, this high-paced competition bears a high price.

Most games are developed in much shorter time frames than the West, but have the same if not more content. Thus, game quality does not usually match Western standards.

However this will change over the next 10 years, as Chinese gamers move on from their first gaming experiences, they will demand higher quality.

So which companies might be the future global leaders in online game development? While it is hard to say what will happen in 10 years, there are two emerging leaders right now:

It could be Blizzard, which has perfected the art of high production values. If it can learn how to compete successfully in the Chinese market with its operations partner, NetEase, it can apply that knowledge to its global products. Many of the more radical game features, aggressive development methods and business models will definitely come from its need to help NetEase maximize revenue generation in China.

Another possibility could be Tencent; it is the big juggernaut in China's online gaming space today.

If Tencent can learn to develop high production value products, and build brand awareness in the West, it could become quite successful. It has already mastered the art of rapidly changing business models, while simultaneously managing a scale of users that no other game company in the world has had to deal with yet.

There are many other possible companies which can succeed, but whichever company becomes the winner, I have no doubt that the Chinese market is where they must have an established presence if they are to take the crown of being the global leader in online games.