Battle of the Immortals will soon be launched in Thailand.
ONLINE GAMING
SUCHIT LEESA-NGUANSUK
Asiasoft, the online entertainment leader in Southeast Asia, continues its strategy of penetrating the online game market in the region, while newcomers i Digital Connect will introduce a new title from China and expand web-based and social gaming to get a slice of the market.
Battle of the Immortals will soon be launched in Thailand.
Pramote Sudjitporn, CEO of Asiasoft,said that since social networking is becoming more popular in Thailand it has led the younger generation to share their time playing massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) and other activities from four to two hours per day.
Moreover, the number of broadband users in Thailand is still limited mainly to Bangkok and the major cities, constraining the number of game players,which currently stands at five million.
This year, the country's overall online game market is estimated to reach 2.5 billion baht, representing a growth of around 10 percent from 2009, compared to annual growth of 30-40 percent over the last three years. According to forecasts for 2011, the market may only grow by single digits for the first time.
"This is a cycle of business. Thailand entered the online gaming market before other countries in Southeast Asia, so we've reached the mature stage of the market before others. That is why the company is looking beyond the domestic market and expanding into Malaysia,Singapore and Vietnam," Pramote said.
In 2011, the company has earmarked 200 million baht to license games on its road map and will invest 100 million baht to expand into Indonesia for the first time. While the market is growing in terms of the number of players and the online gaming market is still at an early stage, Indonesia is considered a market with a very high growth of Internet users. The number of registered Facebook users ranked second in the world after the US.
"In the long term, the company expects its international revenue to reach 80 percent and its domestic revenue to rise 20 percent," he said.
Meanwhile, Taweechai Pureetip, CEO of i Digital Connect (iDCC), a former executive at NC True, said the company was inspired to set up its own business in the online game market with experienced partners driving the business to invest 30 million baht to introduce Battle of the Immortals (BOI ), an online game from Perfect World in China to Thailand.
This is only new game in the fourth quarter here and it was developed with a special engine to render beautiful graphics and strong story lines as well as requiring minimum computer specifications, which will allow the game to be enjoyed by gamers across the country regardless of the availability of high speed Internet or high specification computers.
Since its launch in China this April,the game has become one of the most popular titles in the country this year.Now it has expanded its success to other regions of the world including the US,Europe and Asia.
The company plans to offer a closed beta version at the end of November and an open beta version then it will be commercialised by December through the website www.boi.in.th and is expected to have 10,000-20,000 concurrent users at its formal launch.
"This industry is easy come, easy go that's why we see a lot of new faces but as we have an experienced team and a list of big title games planned for next year and we have researched expanding in the social game and web-based games market, this will help us lead to become the number one in the market in the next two to three years," said Taweechai.
BANGKOK POST
17 November 2010
