Talents crisis in China's online game industry

To the pioneers, selling out the half-finished products directly can make money faster compared to operating it by themselves. Above are the two general attitudes penetrating China’s online game industry right now.

Domestic online game bosses have tried different ways to solve the problem of creativity shortage and production shortcomings in recent years, some of which were master strokes.

At the Chinajoy’s exposition in 2007, Shanda rented several new Benz cars to set up outside the exposition site to attract talented people and teams. After that, Shanda initiated three investment purchase plans named "FengYun", "18" and "20".

At the beginning of 2009, Giant Network also initiated a plan to invest "at least 100 million yuan without a ceiling limit" to attract top domestic talent and work groups.

However, due to various factors, the infinite enlargement of this kind of demand cannot change the Chinese online game industry’s situation at its root. In addition, we have a realistic reason - Rome can’t be built in one day, and the same can be said of the online game industry.

It is reported that those key team members who are responsible for the "second stage" in such world class game companies like Blizzard and EA, are on average 45 years old. They are veterans with more than 20 years work experience in this area. But in China, a person with 5 years wok experience in this field would be called a "highly talented person".

In 2007, Chen Tianqiao spent hundreds of millions purchasing Chengdu Jintian Science and technology Company, and thus enrolled its founder Peng Haitao, who owned a fortune of more than 100 million yuan at the age of 23. Founded 3 years ago, the company was by then operating two self-developed 3D large-scale multi-person role play games named "Fengyun Online" and "Fable Online".

This April, Peng Haitao left Shenda. He joined Chengdu Xing Man Science and Technology Company which was founded in April 2008. But at the end of August, it was reported that this company was purchased by Shanda for 140 million yuan.

A boss of the third-generation online company said, both Chen Tianqiao’s "borrowing horse bones with gold" and Shi Yuzhu’s "ceiling without limit" were considered measures to occupy the market as their priority.

They are trying every method to make those successful companies be their friends not enemies. From this point of view, what they were pursuing was products not talent, which are actually poles apart.

"Ten years is just the beginning of an industry. But the market inflates too quickly, the time which the talented person emerges and flourishes is compressed into a short period and may be missed because of the excitement over wealth."This boss said, "For those big enterprises, making good use of the advantage of funds and resources to seize more resources is much safer than developing it by themselves."

By People's Daily Online