In November, Alan Qunzhao Tan, chairman and CEO of Shanda Games, announced that he plans to lift the company's overseas revenues from about 5 percent in 2011 to 20 percent over the next three years, Sina.com reported.

The industry is also attracting investors. Kai-Fu Lee, founder of the tech incubator Innovation Works, said that he is likely to invest in more online game projects as the sector is "developing very fast".

"The development of the industry is being driven by the emergence of new types of games, such as browser and mobile games," said Sun Shoushan, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication. The GAPP is another supervisor of the country's online gaming industry.

Browser games, which run on Internet browsers, are expected to be the industry's driving force in the years to come

Sun Mengzi, an analyst from Analysys International, estimated that revenue from browser games, around 5 billion yuan last year, could easily double by 2013

Data released on Friday by the Ministry of Culture showed that the revenue of the nation's mobile game developers hit 3.87 billion yuan in 2011, up more than 50 percent year-on-year.

The mobile gaming sector's revenue is expected to reach 10 billion yuan by 2014, which will drive up its market share to more than 17 percent, said Sun from Analysys International.

In addition, the ministry pledged to complete drawing up regulations on the mobile gaming sector in an effort to help develop the fledgling sector.

"As the market share of the Symbian operating system continues to drop, future mobile games will be gathered on Apple's iOS and the Android systems. This means that developers will be able to develop games at a faster speed and lower costs," the ministry said, adding that regulations should be implemented to pave the way for the mobile gaming sector's healthy development.