Walk into an Internet cafe any time, day or night, and you'll see a new subculture of computer gaming, currently dominated by the game Counter-Strike (CS). While CS, produced by US-based Sierra Studios, is bringing in the bucks for its Taiwan distributor Unalis Corp (
According to figures compiled by Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry (
Despite this strong performance, industry workers say that they are operating in a relatively hostile environment with little government support, a situation which has them hamstrung and has allowed competitors in China and South Korea to gain the lead in this highly lucrative market. Nevertheless, the spoils to be gained in on-line gaming has industry workers chafing at the bit to exploit computer gaming's enormous potential.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KOEI
CS sweeps the nation
According to Antonio Lu (
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
"Over the past few years, computer gaming [in Taiwan] was dominated by real-time strategy (RTS) games such as Starcraft, Red Alert 2, and the Age of Empire/Age of Kingdom series. Last year, these were largely superceded by LAN connected first person shooters such as Quake 3 and the Half Life-series games," Lu said. "First person shooters still dominate the scene, with games that allow team play such as CS being the most popular."
Games like CS, and the high-speed LAN connections that they require, have stimulated the growth of Internet coffee shops. According to Wu Shou-shin (吳守信), vice president of Unalis Corp, the number of Internet coffee shops in Taiwan is expected to exceed 3000 by year's end. He estimated that there are currently 2,200 in operation.
The popularity of first person shooters is generally attributed to advances in 3D graphics technology and the increasingly availability of the hardware to process the
fast-paced action sequences. The lack of sufficiently high-speed household Internet connections means that these games are best played over quicker local area networks (LAN), which are primarily available at Internet coffee shops. LAN games generate most of these shops' income.
Aztec is Taipei's biggest Internet cafe operator with over 40 branches in the greater Taipei area, according to Cho Chih-chung (
"The director of Aztec estimates that in excess of three million people [including repeat visits] will play CS at an Aztec outlet this year," Wu said.
As a result of the phenomenal popularity of CS and Internet coffee shops, Unalis will now establish Unalis Technology Corp (
Going on-line
While the success of Internet coffee shops seems to suggest a great future for on-line gaming, true Internet gaming is still a long way off. According to Fu Ching-hui (傅鏡暉) creative director for Webstar Inc (大宇網路), the development of on-line games (predominantly role playing games) in Taiwan still faces difficulties, including the lack of game server management skills (maintaining an even playing field and hacker prevention) and the relative dearth of high-speed connection Internet links.
Because of these difficulties, Taiwan's on-line gaming software industry faces an uphill battle. "It costs around NT$50 million to develop an on-line game," Fu said. With Webstar, Waei (
The local market is simply not big enough, and without government incentives, on-line games firms will find it extremely difficult to survive, Fu said.
Local color
Although CS and the Internet cafe trend are the most visible new developments in PC gaming, older style real-time strategy and role playing games still hold a large market share in Taiwan. Games such as Baldur's Gate 2, produced by US Interplay and distributed in Taiwan by Interwise Multimedia (
The strong sales of local products, despite the lack of technological sophistication that marks the imports, has promoted moves towards greater localization of popular titles.
"Over the last three years we have worked hard to develop technology to change the interface to Chinese. The heavy investment has not yet paid off in terms of increased sales, but last year our brand name achieved greater recognition and the time lag between the English- and Chinese-language versions has been greatly reduced, so that local players will be more likely to wait for the Chinese versions release," said Dell Yu (
"We hope to achieve simultaneous release of English and Chinese titles by 2002, after which our aim is to introduce know-how from abroad to develop our own games," Yu said. Interwise has already won the title of Best International Distributor from Interplay.
Since last year, Unalis has been working to catch up with Interwise in the area of localization, as indicated by the high profile launch of its Chinese version of Traffic Giant. Witnessing the strong sales of Diablo 2, Sierra also agreed to the localization of this title, which was released in time for the Chinese New Year vacation.
The enormous appeal of local titles can be seen in the continuing popularity of Koei's (
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, originally distributed through Acer TWP Corp (
Neither Interwise nor Koei are prepared to enter the on-line gaming scene just yet. Interwise's Yu said that the production of localized role playing games will continue to dominate their agenda. Koei, on the other hand, will be releasing Apsaras (
Stepping out
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the few local products with a strong market presence in Taiwan, with games in the three major categories (first person, real-time strategy and role playing games) dominated by imports. Local firms are now actively working to remedy this situation by focusing their attention on China.
According to industry sources, Taiwan's government has done little to encourage the development of game software development in Taiwan, preventing many talented engineers and designers from entering the industry. Firms claim that they have little choice but to seek talent in China, and most of the major Taiwan firms already have branch companies there.
"The number of people with advanced training are more numerous there, and of course salaries are lower," said Fu of Webstar. "A Taiwan firm setting up in Shanghai is able to attract staff with masters and doctoral degrees at salaries of around NT$60,000. This naturally appeals to Taiwan firms."
Lack of government support has held back this highly profitable industry, allowing countries such as South Korea to surpass Taiwan in the quality of their games output. "We used to look down on South Korean games, but the industry there received massive government support, and now it is one of the world's main centers of on-line game development," said Antonio Lu. "Fate of Dragons (
Lu pointed out that computer gaming is perceived in a negative light by the government, which has not only failed to encourage the sector's development, but in many cases has constrained its growth. He said that many people associated computer games with Internet pornography and youth-related problems, an image that the industry has not yet been able to change.
For Taiwan's game distributors, design houses and Internet cafes, the games that make up their livelihood mirror the cut-throat intensity of their battle to keep abreast of Western and emerging regional competitors. If they cannot keep ahead, then it may be game over.
-- Translated by Ian Bartholomew
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