Wim Wu / Shanghai Daily News

As online games continue to increase in popularity in Shanghai, the demand for talented game developers is becoming critical, today's Shanghai Morning Post reported.
According to Shanghai Information Services Association, thousands of games are available online,but although around 8 thousand people from over 10 online game development enterprises are engaged in this industry  only 100 work as program developers. The lack of high level professionals is considered the top difficulty in the game area, an insider said.
Although the developers in local online game companies enjoy a high yearly salary of around 100 thousand yuan to 1 million yuan, almost 1,000 positions are still empty. Specialty courses for  game development are being offered by some local universities and colleges, but most of the courses offered still focused mainly on art and program designs.