Perfect World Co Ltd, a Chinese movie and gaming company, is targeting digital-savvy younger generation with products protected by intellectual property or IP rights.

Its products span the genres of anime, comics, games or ACG, movies and TV dramas.

Lu Xiaoyin, chief operation officer of Perfect World, said the younger generation, particularly those born in the 1995-2000 period, are unlike their parents, and demand a different kind of entertainment content.

"Today, most of the game players are young people under 30," Lu said. "They usually prefer fair games, the specific culture embodied in the game and shared gaming experiences. And they also will pay close attention to the application of the latest technology to the game."

According to Lu, Perfect World will further expand game categories, including female-oriented gaming, ACG, e-sports, sandbox games, simulation games and card games.

A recent joint report from the Game Publishers Association Publications Committee, Gamma Data Corp and International Data Corporation showed that mobile gaming is growing stronger in China as the millennials' purchasing power increases.

The report noted that mobile gaming accounted for 57 percent of the total game sales and reached 116.1 billion yuan (18.3 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017.

Currently, China has 583 million gaming players, mostly those born in the 1990s and 2000s, and those born in the 2000s are more active in the gaming market.

As of 2016, nearly 10 percent of mobile gaming players were teenagers born in the 2000s.

Last year, Perfect World launched a new mobile game called Mengjianji to target female and ACG users and has reportedly made it to the top four among the most downloaded apps on Apple's iPhones.

Now, the company wants to move forward, claiming it will continue to innovate its key IP rights-protected products to cater to the younger generation's diversified and personalized cultural needs.

Tong Qing, senior vice-president of Perfect World, said the digital entertainment industry has become a key driver of economic growth in China, and the gaming segment has played a significant role in the overall market.

"There is a growing trend of spinoff from hot IP rights related to games and other forms of entertainment products.

"Based on our key copyrighted games, such as Mengjianji, Perfect World will develop more derivative works in the form of TV dramas, movies, comics and novels in the future."

Wang Xu, chief analyst at Gamma Data Corp, said as the demographic dividend is disappearing, game developers need to seek new ways to keep the momentum strong, and the IP rights-protected products will help cut the cost to attract users.

In March, the Beijing-based company reported its 2017 revenue surged 29 percent to 7.93 billion yuan (1.3 billion U.S. dollars). And 5.65 billion yuan (892.0 million U.S. dollars) came from the gaming sector, accounting for more than 70 percent of the total.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn