Photo: Courtesy of Perfect World

This year's China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference, known as China Joy, is ongoing in Shanghai. As the biggest fair for gaming, it has attracted many fans. 

"The pandemic has pressed the acceleration key of the digitalization for the whole society," Perfect World CEO Xiao Hong said in an interview with the Global Times over the weekend.

During the pandemic, the gaming industry has displayed good growth momentum, bucking the trend, and many listed companies with games as their main business experienced substantial growth in January-March.

Financial reports show that Perfect World's game business achieved revenue of 2.108 billion yuan ($302 million) in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 47.69 percent, and net profit increased by 67.33 percent year-on-year. The company forecasts its overall net profit growth is expected to be between 21-25 percent in the first half of this year. 

Behind the robust data of the company is the whole gaming industry's rising performance.

According to the latest data released during the 2020 China Joy, actual sales revenue of the Chinese games market in the first half of the year reached 139.49 billion yuan, an increase of 22.34 percent year-on-year; the number of game users increased by 1.97 percent year-on-year, an increase of 12.71 million.

China's online game sector in the A-share market has exceeded 650 billion yuan in market value, according to the Securities Times.

Xiao believes that cultural and entertainment consumption has the characteristics of a counter-economic cycle as the coronavirus pandemic has brought short-term increments to the game market, and new technologies such as 5G, cloud computing and artificial intelligence are profound social background for the development of the game industry.

The breakthrough in 5G technology allows the main computing of the game to be carried out in the cloud, whether via mobile phones, computers or TVs, which are only a display and operation screen, he said. 

Also, e-sports, with the help of technologies such as 5G, AI, AR/VR, will attract more e-sports players and consumers, which will bring good benefits to companies in the future. For example, AR/VR technology allows players in different spaces to "meet," and the audience can also use such technology to watch gaming as well, he added.  

Perfect World co-organized the DOTA2 International Invitational TI9 in Shanghai last year. This is the first time this top event has come to Asia. The total prize pool is as high as $34.29 million, and the total number of domestic online viewers exceeded 220 million.