Gamers likely to shun `the Sims'

"First person games ... are very popular in the US. Third person games, where the player sees his character in front of his eyes, are more popular in Taiwan, Korea and Japan."

Ian Town, president of Pace Design

Online trends between Taiwanese and Americans vary greatly, with locals preferring to band together and fight off attackers as opposed to their counterparts across the Pacific who prefer to create a virtual life for themselves.

In the US, that virtual life community, called The Sims, is a community of around 27,000 people who live in the virtual town of Alphaville. The biggest-selling computer game ever, The Sims is currently available as a CD that individuals play on their computers alone.

Gamers their own character or family and interact with other computer-generated characters in the community, going to clubs, eating pizza, having affairs and doing things they might not do in real life. On Dec. 17, The Sims Online will move to the Web where each character will be controlled by a real person sitting at a computer.

But the craze is not expected to sweep Taiwan. "There is no Chinese version of The Sims Online as yet. The lifestyle is not really one that is readily acceptable to Taiwanese people," said Ian Town (唐聖瀚), president of Pace Design (北士視覺設計顧問), a Taipei-based company that designs for the gaming industry.

"Taiwanese players like to play games where they can kill other characters using swords, or band together in a group fighting against others," he said. "First person games, where the player does not see himself and looks at the world as if through his own eyes, are very popular in the US. Third person games, where the player sees his character in front of his eyes, are more popular in Taiwan, Korea and Japan."

Town coordinating the advertising campaign for Microsoft's Xbox game console in Taiwan, and has designed two local on-line gaming sites, Ulysses.com.tw and Gambox.com.tw.

History-themed are big sellers locally, with one of the most popular on-line games The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國誌), based on the writings of the 14th century Han dynasty author Luo Guanzhong (羅貫中). Historically the three Chinese kingdoms of the Wei (魏), Shu (蜀) and Wu (吳) fought, and the Wei won. In the on-line version, the outcome is different every time.

Japanese are also very popular among young Taiwanese. The number one game at the moment is action-adventure themed Ragnarok Online.

"Younger Taiwanese don't speak very good English and prefer Japanese games where they can at least guess at the meaning of the words, making it easier for them to understand," Town said.

The availability of games may be a deciding factor. In addition to using computers to play games, consoles that can be used in conjunction with TVs are popular choices for game-playing.

One the most popular game consoles, Sony's PlayStation2, has been in Taiwan since 2000.

"Japanese games are much more popular and have been around longer in Taiwan. This means there is a lot more choice for gamers," said Helen Chen (陳佩君), a game console market analyst at Polaris Securities (寶來證券).

This year 150,000 PS2 consoles have been sold in Taiwan, and Sony expects to shift a further 50,000 before March next year.

The huge global on-line gaming market continues to grow. According to gaming analyst company Jupiter Research, US$196 million was generated in monthly subscriptions to on-line gaming sites last year.

By this figure is expected to rocket to US$1.4 billion. Meanwhile PC games bought retail made US$6.35 billion for game makers last year.

The Sims Online may not grab the Taiwanese gaming community, but one thing is for sure, they are going to keep on spending.