Gamers a dedicated lot

Almost half of Taiwan's computer gamers spend between two and three hours playing online games, according to a survey released yesterday. The survey, conducted by Net Game Biweekly, estimated Taiwan's game software market this year to be NT$6.6 billion. The value of the local online game market is around NT$2.7 billion for this year and will grow to NT$4.1 billion next year, the survey said. In comparison, this year's global online game market value is around US$1.8 billion. Taiwan currently has an Internet user population of 6.2 million, of which almost one million play online games. The number of listed software companies is expected to grow to seven this year.