China has been on the internet intermittently since May 1989 and on a permanent basis since 20 April 1994, although with limited access. In 2008, China became the country with the largest population on the Internet and, as of 2022, has remained so. As of July 2016, 730,723,960 people were internet users.
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront by Valve. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, and expanded to distributing and offering third-party game publishers' titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like digital rights management (DRM), game server matchmaking, anti-cheat measures, social networking and game streaming services. It provides the user with automatic game updating, saved game cloud synchronization, and community features such as friends messaging, in-game chat and a community market.
LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003,owned by Microsoft. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job seekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. From 2015 most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. Since December 2016, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. As of February 2022, LinkedIn has 830+ million registered members from over 200 countries and territories.
PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartphones, tablets, Blu-ray players and high-definition televisions. This service is the account for PlayStation consoles, accounts can store games and other content.
Dungeon Fighter Online (DFO), known in South Korea as Dungeon & Fighter (DNF), is a multiplayer beat 'em up action role-playing game, developed and published for personal computers by Neople, a South Korean subsidiary of Nexon, and originally published by Hangame in 2005. The game was originally released in South Korea as Dungeon & Fighter, then in Japan as Arad Senki, and then published in China by Tencent. In 2014, Neople began an alpha test of a global version of Dungeon Fighter Online using the last English version hosted by Nexon, which has since ended.
Club Penguin was a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), involving a virtual world that contained a range of online games and activities. It was created by New Horizon Interactive. Players used cartoon penguin-avatars and played in an antarctic-themed open-world. After beta-testing, Club Penguin was made available to the general public on October 24, 2005, and expanded into a large online community, such that by late 2007, it was claimed Club Penguin had over 30 million user accounts. In July 2013, Club Penguin had over 200 million registered user accounts.
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name comes from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users, and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites as of July 2022. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.
The video game industry in mainland China currently is one of the major markets for the global industry, where more than half a billion people play video games. Revenues from China make up around 25% of nearly US$100 billion video game industry as of 2018, and since 2015 has exceeded the contribution to the global market from the United States. Because of its market size, China has been described as the "Games Industry Capital of the World" and is home to some of the largest video game companies. China has also been a major factor in the growth of esports, both in player talent and in revenue.
Tencent Holdings Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the world’s largest company in the video game industry based on its investments, with Tencent Games being the subdivision of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG) focused on publishing of games.
Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006, the platform hosts user-created games of multiple genres coded in the programming language Lua. For most of Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and as a company. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Disqus is an American blog comment hosting service for web sites and online communities that use a networked platform. The company's platform includes various features, such as social integration, social networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools, analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting. It was founded in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan as a Y Combinator startup.
gPotato is a free multiplayer game portal website operated in Japan and South Korea by Gala Inc. and its subsidiaries, and formerly in North America and Europe by subsidiaries of South Korean-based Webzen. gPotato game portals are in South Korea and Japan. Games hosted at gPotato range from traditional MMORPGs to more accessible casual flash games/browser-based games, all of which are free-to-play so no annual/monthly payment is required; revenue is generated from a micropayment system. Games and their premium item shops can be accessed by the Group's regional gPotato portal sites.
Google+ was a social network owned and operated by Google. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challenge other social networks, linking other Google products like Google Drive, Blogger and YouTube. The service, Google's fourth foray into social networking, experienced strong growth in its initial years, although usage statistics varied, depending on how the service was defined. Three Google executives oversaw the service, which underwent substantial changes that led to a redesign in November 2015.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a 2012 multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series. Developed for over two years, Global Offensive was released for OS X, PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 in August 2012, and for Linux in 2014. Valve still regularly updates the game, both with smaller balancing patches and larger content additions.
Twitch is an American video live streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to offering music broadcasts, creative content, and "in real life" streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv. Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand. The games shown on Twitch's current homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games (RTS), fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters.
Line is a freeware app for instant communications on electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet computers and personal computers. Line users exchange: texts, images, video and audio and conduct free VoIP conversations and video conferences. In addition, Line is a platform providing various services including: digital wallet as Line Pay, news stream as LINE Today, video on demand as Line TV and digital comic distribution as Line Manga and Line Webtoon. The service is operated by Line Corporation, a Tokyo-based subsidiary of Z Holdings.
Paytm is an Indian digital payments and financial services company, based in Noida. It was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma under One97 Communications. The company offers mobile payment services to consumers and enables merchants to receive payments through its QR code, point of sale and online payment gateway offerings. In partnership with financial institutions, Paytm offers financial services such as microloans and buy now, pay later to its consumers and merchants. Apart from bill payments and money transfer, the company also provides ticketing services, retail brokerage products and online games.
Town of Salem is an online multiplayer game with social deduction and strategy elements. It was developed and published by indie game developer BlankMediaGames, and released on December 15, 2014. Early alpha and beta versions were browser-based and free-to-play. On October 14, 2018, the game was released for iOS and Android mobile devices after a successful and long-supported Kickstarter fundraiser.
