On-line game sales soar

State media, citing a game industry report released by the Press and Publication Administration, said sales of China's on-line games totaled RMB2.47bn (US$298.6m) in 2004, up 47.9% from 2003. The report said the number of Chinese on-line gamers reached 20.25m last year and forecast China's on-line game sales income will reach RMB11bn in 2009. China needs to recruit more than 20,000 game programmers to augment the several thousand in the industry now, according to People's Daily.