Oct 3, 2006 08:25
Uniting Asians through online games
Posted by babelmachine
Five swords. Five heroes of the online gaming industry.
It's somewhat fitting that Singapore firm Infocomm Asia Holdings (IAH) turned to movies for inspiration as it unveiled its ambitious plan to consolidate the market in several Southeast Asian countries and create what you might call an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for online gaming.
So there they stood at the end of the press briefing that kicked off the "One Market, One Asia--Uniting Asia Online" regional online gaming conference held on September 27 at the Boulevard Bar at the Red Dot Traffic Building. Five stalwarts bearing five famous swords. Well, replicas of the swords, at least.
Bill Roper, co-founder and CEO of Flagship Studios and former VP of Blizzard North and director of Blizzard Entertainment, brandished the sword from the House of Flying Daggers. Hakkyu Kim, the "Father of Ragnarok" and now founder and CEO of IMC Games, received the Green Destiny Sword from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
For Alex Kim, chairman, co-founder and CEO of Hanbit Soft, it was the double-edged slotted blade brandished by Nameless (played by Jet Li) in the movie Hero. Zhu Jun, co-founder, chairman and CEO of China's The9 Ltd, which is a Nasdaq-listed company, was given Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur--the stuff of legend and numerous Hollywood epics.
Last but not least, Roland Ong, founder and CEO of IAH, held aloft Aragorn's elven sword Anduril that has been made famous by JRR Tolkien's novels and the blockbuster Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Fitting, as Ong expressed the hope that they could forge a fellowship that would unite Asia and make online gaming soar to new heights in the region.
I flew into Singapore last week to attend this event, together with fellow Filipino gaming journalist Howard Paw, editor-in-chief of GAME! magazine, and Enrique Gonzalez, Steve Tsao and Roger Stone of Philippine online game publisher IP E-Games and its mother company IPVG.
One thing that has become clear in recent years is that online games have become as popular as movies to a growing number of people, particularly among the youth.
Personally, I have no doubt that one day we'll all take it for granted that people play video games, just as we now assume that most of us watch movies. And online games will be one of the main drivers behind mainstream acceptance, thanks to the inherent community-building feature of these virtual worlds where thousands of gamers from all over the globe can congregate at the same time.
The IAH event showcased two of the most highly anticipated massively multiplayer online games MMOGs, IMC Games' Granado Espada, which Kim and gamers all across the region hope will become as massively popular and compelling as his earlier game Ragnarok was, and Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London, a revolutionary MMOG that combines elements of role-playing games and first-person shooters and is described as Diablo meets Half-Life.
IAH has secured the regional license for these two huge games, and will now consolidate the market by working with a partner in each country. Of course, it also doesn't hurt that IAH has raised US$10 million in its seed round of financing. Now that's some war chest for a start-up.
Stressing that IAH will adopt a "non-invasive" apporach, Ong said they will work closely with these partner online game publishers, pointing out that these local distributors know their own market best.
In turn, these local distributors will benefit from IAH's regional clout and experience in launching big MMOGs such as World of Warcraft (WoW). In fact, Ong was one of the key people responsible for bringing Blizzard's monster hit WoW to China, and eventually Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
Now Ong hopes to bring even more quality titles to the region. He pointed out that, individually, Asian markets might be too small and could get overlooked by the developers of these MMOGs.
"Banded together, however, we are one-half the size of [the online gaming market for] China," Ong pointed out.
The game servers for Granado Espada and Hellgate: London will be hosted in Singapore, which is leveraging its infrastructure to position itself as the regional hub for interactive content. Ong also said IAH will use the Pass9 gaming platform which, among other features, offers a payment gateway for distributors which don't have one yet, as well as integrating with existing payment systems for those that do have one.
"The only thing that hampers us [from uniting] is the different currencies. But with this system, different currencies can be converted into standard game points," he said.
Ong pointed out that all Asians feel united when they are playing online games, regardless of which country they enter these virtual worlds.
"We're gamers. We're all brothers."
It's somewhat fitting that Singapore firm Infocomm Asia Holdings (IAH) turned to movies for inspiration as it unveiled its ambitious plan to consolidate the market in several Southeast Asian countries and create what you might call an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for online gaming.
So there they stood at the end of the press briefing that kicked off the "One Market, One Asia--Uniting Asia Online" regional online gaming conference held on September 27 at the Boulevard Bar at the Red Dot Traffic Building. Five stalwarts bearing five famous swords. Well, replicas of the swords, at least.
Bill Roper, co-founder and CEO of Flagship Studios and former VP of Blizzard North and director of Blizzard Entertainment, brandished the sword from the House of Flying Daggers. Hakkyu Kim, the "Father of Ragnarok" and now founder and CEO of IMC Games, received the Green Destiny Sword from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
For Alex Kim, chairman, co-founder and CEO of Hanbit Soft, it was the double-edged slotted blade brandished by Nameless (played by Jet Li) in the movie Hero. Zhu Jun, co-founder, chairman and CEO of China's The9 Ltd, which is a Nasdaq-listed company, was given Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur--the stuff of legend and numerous Hollywood epics.
Last but not least, Roland Ong, founder and CEO of IAH, held aloft Aragorn's elven sword Anduril that has been made famous by JRR Tolkien's novels and the blockbuster Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Fitting, as Ong expressed the hope that they could forge a fellowship that would unite Asia and make online gaming soar to new heights in the region.
I flew into Singapore last week to attend this event, together with fellow Filipino gaming journalist Howard Paw, editor-in-chief of GAME! magazine, and Enrique Gonzalez, Steve Tsao and Roger Stone of Philippine online game publisher IP E-Games and its mother company IPVG.
One thing that has become clear in recent years is that online games have become as popular as movies to a growing number of people, particularly among the youth.
Personally, I have no doubt that one day we'll all take it for granted that people play video games, just as we now assume that most of us watch movies. And online games will be one of the main drivers behind mainstream acceptance, thanks to the inherent community-building feature of these virtual worlds where thousands of gamers from all over the globe can congregate at the same time.
The IAH event showcased two of the most highly anticipated massively multiplayer online games MMOGs, IMC Games' Granado Espada, which Kim and gamers all across the region hope will become as massively popular and compelling as his earlier game Ragnarok was, and Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London, a revolutionary MMOG that combines elements of role-playing games and first-person shooters and is described as Diablo meets Half-Life.
IAH has secured the regional license for these two huge games, and will now consolidate the market by working with a partner in each country. Of course, it also doesn't hurt that IAH has raised US$10 million in its seed round of financing. Now that's some war chest for a start-up.
Stressing that IAH will adopt a "non-invasive" apporach, Ong said they will work closely with these partner online game publishers, pointing out that these local distributors know their own market best.
In turn, these local distributors will benefit from IAH's regional clout and experience in launching big MMOGs such as World of Warcraft (WoW). In fact, Ong was one of the key people responsible for bringing Blizzard's monster hit WoW to China, and eventually Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
Now Ong hopes to bring even more quality titles to the region. He pointed out that, individually, Asian markets might be too small and could get overlooked by the developers of these MMOGs.
"Banded together, however, we are one-half the size of [the online gaming market for] China," Ong pointed out.
The game servers for Granado Espada and Hellgate: London will be hosted in Singapore, which is leveraging its infrastructure to position itself as the regional hub for interactive content. Ong also said IAH will use the Pass9 gaming platform which, among other features, offers a payment gateway for distributors which don't have one yet, as well as integrating with existing payment systems for those that do have one.
"The only thing that hampers us [from uniting] is the different currencies. But with this system, different currencies can be converted into standard game points," he said.
Ong pointed out that all Asians feel united when they are playing online games, regardless of which country they enter these virtual worlds.
"We're gamers. We're all brothers."
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