Bruce Hack, CEO of the Los Angeles-based Vivendi Games, said in an interview in Beijing that three of his company's four units Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Online, and Vivendi Games Mobile are all thinking about introducing new games into China.

Meanwhile, rival game firms are still balking at entering a market plagued by piracy and rip-offs.

Sierra Entertainment, which focuses on console games like Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation, has no immediate plans to bring games to China. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have not launched their products in the country.

"China is a big priority for us," said Hack. "It is a big market for us today and it will be a bigger market for us tomorrow."

While many other international game developers such as the French firm Ubisoft and US-based Electronics Arts were afraid of piracy in China, Vivendi Games sensed the opportunity in the online game market in 2003 and signed Shanghai-based The9 Limited to run its WoW in 2004.

China's online game market almost tripled from 2003's 1.32 billion yuan (US$159 million) to 3.73 billion yuan in 2005 (US$450 million), according to the US market intelligence firm International Data Corp.

It was reported that NASDAQ-listed The9 agreed to pay US$51.3 million in four years in licensing fees and give 22 per cent of its revenues from the operation of WoW to Blizzard Entertainment.

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