While Microsoft and Nintendo figure out how to hook their game consoles to the Internet to allow players from around the world to compete against each other digitally, Taiwan-based Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子) is busy extending its online empire and increasing its sales and profit forecasts.
The company yesterday raised its sales forecast for the year by over NT$1 billion and said earnings would reach NT$9.16 per share (a total of NT$850 million), which would make be 60 percent more than last year's.
In a statement, the firm said the online gaming scene is picking up as schools let children run free for summer in all of its major markets, particularly Korea. Gamania also expects a slew of new games to help fill company coffers.
Gamania, Taiwan's largest Web-gaming company, makes games and manages an online community of over 1.6 million people, mainly young males.
"I play about 15 to 20 hours a week," says Michael Fu (傅鏡暉), a former game developer and gaming aficionado. He says most people pay a monthly fee of NT$300 to NT$380 to play in one game. Most games are "Massive Multi-player Online Games (MMOG)," which run continuously, adding and losing players -- and never end.
It can take up to a month to attain an average skill level on an MMOG, after which many people will try a different game.
"You usually join a game with a group of friends or family and that keeps you in. Everyone has a different character and they play together. If the group decides to leave the game, then they all leave together," he said.
In August, Gamania intends to launch a new game in conjunction with Korean-partner Niko Interactive, called "Laghaim," which has drawn one of the largest online audiences ever, according to the companies. The game will also launch in Japan and China around the same time.
Online-game operators are drooling over the potential of China's market, which NetDragon Websoft Inc, a China-based Internet service, estimated at 33.7 million players and US$100 million in revenues. Taiwanese software developers believe China will be a major source of revenue in the future.
Gamania (www.gamania.com) maintains a database of all their registered customers -- a total of about 1.6 million people. It developed an online transaction service to keep accounts up to date and alert players when they need to make new payments.
"The [payment] system, which was independently developed by Gamania, is almost comparable to a bank's information system, providing scalability, safety and accuracy. After 18 months of operation and testing by 1.6 million users, [the online payment system] has proven itself to be a global technological achievement," the company says on its Web site.
Web gaming has become a hot topic recently as Microsoft and other big players in the games-console business, including Sony and Nintendo, prepare to launch their own Web sites to cater to the Internet market.
Gamania was developed as a company by GigaMedia Ltd (和信超媒體), one of Taiwan's first providers of high-speed Internet connections. In order to play games online, people need a high-speed connection like ADSL (asymmetrical digital signal line) or a cable modem.
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