Alibaba formally enters
gaming business
E-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group's founder Jack Ma, who pledged on at least two occasions that the company would never enter the gaming industry, seems to have changed his mind. Ma said in 2008 that the company "would rather starve to death than live on games".
According to the China Gaming Industry Report jointly released on July 25 by Beijing-based Game Publishing Commission and market consultancies CNG and IDC, the sales revenue of the Chinese gaming industry surged 26.7 percent to 99.8 billion yuan ($15 billion) in the first half of this year, the majority 70 percent contributed by Tencent and NetEase.