The thousands of gaming enthusiasts who turned out in force at the recent Taipei Game Show to smash their way through the latest PC and console games weren't the show's only winners.
In a break from past shows, some of the exhibition's biggest hits were games developed, produced and manufactured here in Taiwan.
This was the first time since the show's inception that the popularity of local game developers like TWP (第三波), Softstar (大宇) and XPec (樂陞科技) over-shadowed the gaming giants from Japan and Korea that previously stole most of the attention.
One of the most prominent players in the advancement of Taiwan's gaming industry has been TWP, whose online game Mahjong Palace (戲谷麻將館), released in 2002, has seen success domestically and internationally that has taken even the company by surprise.
The award-winning game currently has 20,300 casual users in Taiwan and over 25,000 overseas logging on to play on any given day. Since the release of its first-generation online mahjong game, the company has up to 4 million registered users worldwide.
"We've proved that the market for casual online games is massive. Both production and retail costs of online games are cheap in comparison to those of stand-alone PC games and pirating of them is impossible," said Chou Mou-shyh, vice president of TWP Corp.
Due to Taiwan's strict anti-gambling laws, all of TWP's mahjong games rely on virtual winnings. Players pay an initial log-on fee, but after that all winnings remain imaginary and no real cash changes hands.
"We plan to develop a children's online game in the near future. With the number of youngsters who own computers increasing every year, the market for such games is bottomless," Chou said.
Another local crowd-puller was Softstar, whose Monopoly 7 (大富翁七) took top honors in the Stand Alone category at this year's Game Star Awards.
Established in 1988, Softstar has notched up an impressive record of award-winning titles since 1995, when Taiwan's first game awards were held.
The company has a string of hits that includes Sky Sword (軒轅劍) and Angel Republic (天使帝國) and continues to produce some of the most popular local games.
Uncertain future
The recent game show proved that there is currently a huge market for PC games. But according to industry insiders, local PC game developers may be facing a less favorable future.
The future of gaming in Taiwan, they say, looks set to center around the world's three leading console systems -- Sony's PS series, Microsoft's X-Box and Nintendo's Game Cube.
According to longtime gamer Lucifer Chu (朱學燴), breakthroughs in computer-graphic capability means that PC gamers whose machines aren't up to speed or don't have the latest graphics card could be left out in the cold.
"You might pay an average of NT$1,000 for a game, but when you consider that in addition to this you have to pay another couple of thousand for the latest 3D graphics card or sound booster, then gamers will eventually turn to console systems, which don't require any such modifications."
PC gamers' constant need to upgrade hasn't gone unnoticed by console game manufacturers. In a lesson learned from PC-game manufacturers, which first began marketing localized versions of PC games four years ago, console manufacturer Microsoft is now marketing versions of its international console hits specifically for the Taiwan market.
RSS