On June 6, 2007, PacificNet Incorporated, a company based in China which is a maker of gaming and mobile technology, e-commerce and Customer Relationship Management, announced that they will debut a new Mahjong game on mobile phones for the 2007 World Series of Mahjong.
The World Series of Mahjong will be held for 3 days at the Wynn Macau from June 15-17, 2007. The tournament is expected to attract the most skilled mahjong players all over the world.
The cash pool is a total of $1 million and the champion of the event is guaranteed to take home a total of $500,000, the biggest cash prize in the history of a tournament for Mahjong.
PacificNet has been chosen as the official telecom and mobile provider for the Mahjong tournament. PacificNet's new game, the "Mahjong Mobile Pact" is a java-based mobile gambling game which aims to teach the players how to play mahjong better on any Java-enable cellular phone.
Interested players may download the game from different PacificNet subsidiaries like PactGames, Guangzhou Wanrong and others. The Chairman and CEO of PacificNet, Tony Tong, said that being the official mobile and telecom provider for the Mahjong tournament with the biggest purse in the world, they are trying to promote the game to the next level by marketing it to players all over the world.
The game is considered a national past time in China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and other Asian Countries. According to the forecasts of analysts, mobile phone games will become even more popular in China with the introduction of 3G Networks in the country.
Analysts note that both online and offline mobile gaming differs, especially with their service models. Online gambling utilizes telecom service model earning profits from traffic fees.
Offline mobile gambling is simply a gaming application that is downloaded to a mobile phone for a fee. Analysts predict a good and steady growth for WAP, JAVA and Brew while the potion of SMS games will slide down. With over 400 million users, China has already become the largest mobile market in the world and it is still growing.
June 18, 2007
Matt Gross