Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩), the nation’s biggest Web portal, has created a partnership with seven domestic gaming companies to provide a uniform online entertainment platform to woo the nation’s 3 million players.
Its gaming affiliates include Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子), Giga Media Ltd (和信超媒), Cayenne Entertainment Technology Co (紅心辣椒) and International Games Systems Co (game 淘).
“Even good games need good marketing and our company firmly believes that being on Yahoo’s platform is more effective than traditional direct marketing tactics such as placing expensive ads on TV or radio,” Cayenne Entertainment chief financial officer Yu Sheng-chih (游升志) told reporters yesterday.
Yahoo Kimo enjoys a competitive advantage in Taiwan, with a daily user reach of 97 percent and tens of thousands of new visitors each month.
“As games become more creative and diversified, we forecast millions of potential future gamers,” Frank Chen (陳建銘), vice president of Yahoo Kimo’s sales group, said at a media briefing yesterday.
As the local online gaming environment is still in its early stages, a unified platform helps users understand the dynamics of various gaming products and services in one stop while fostering multiple long-term gaming communities.
China, South Korea and Taiwan are the three top players in the Asia-Pacific region.
China has many domestic gaming developers and it is quickly catching up with South Korea in terms of creativity and scale of operations, Yu said, adding that South Korea has had its eyes on the global market and invests heavily overseas.
“It derives a significant share of its revenues from markets abroad. Government sponsorship in the South Korean gaming industry is paying off,” Yu said.
What Taiwan needs to work on, Tony Lin (林東豪), a senior vice president at FunTown World Ltd (和信超媒體), said, is to foster its local gaming population.
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