14 DAY TRIAL // A recent report coming from Peal Research, a firm that specializes in business intelligence and in consulting, says that the Internet cafe centric gaming culture of Asia is still going strong and that it will be generating revenue of more than 19 million dollars during this year, with the figure apparently set to increase during the coming years.
The cafes in countries like China, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are the main target for PC sellers and for hardware manufacturers, with the biggest ones, which have more than 200 PCs and attract the biggest gaming crowds, having the ability to generate revenue of more than 500,000 dollars in one year.
The Chinese cafes are the biggest ones, but the tradition of gaming with others in a social setting is the strongest in South Korea where Starcraft series and the MMO Aion are played in cafes despite the fact that more than 82 percent of the households in the country have a PC.
There are more than 350,000 cafes in the area that Pearl Research studied and their presence means that developers in the area seek to create video game experiences that are easy to play socially and also that publishers prepare bundles for both games and hardware.
The popularity of one release can be made if it becomes a big hit in cafes.
The business model of the gaming and Internet cafe is threatened in the long term by the rapid housing boom and increase in rent in the most populous areas and by the fact that governments in the Asian space are seeing the gaming phenomenon as a threat to the health of their youth and will aim to regulate cafes as much as possible.
In the long term, gamers are also becoming more conformable playing at home, especially when picking up titles that have been developed in the West and lack a clearly defined social component.