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Published on September 20, 2007

What is the most fun one can have in a dimly lit room?

This rectangular room is almost Bible black. The only light burns from the screens, lighting the rapt faces. There are groans, curses, shouts of victory and delight, but the eyes don't waver. It could have been a scene from Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut", except for the chatter of keyboards and mice.

These gamers, gathered in an Internet cafe tucked away on the second floor of Lido Cinema, are going after a different kind of ecstasy.

The gaming industry in Thailand is still in its nascent stage. The whole market is valued at about US$50 million (Bt1.71 billion) - a tiny sum compared with the annual turnover of just one game developer in the US, Electronic Arts (EA), which took in $2.95 billion last fiscal year. In fact, the value of the global gaming industry is estimated to be about $70 billion.

"We're in a high-growth stage," says Wisan Pijitbandan, general manager of the local unit, Electronic Arts Thailand, referring to the double-digit growth that EA has experienced in recent years after setting up office in Bangkok in 1997.

It is an awful underestimation to say Asia will be an important cog in propelling the company's growth. With only 7 per cent of total net revenue coming from the region and a growing legion of hungry gamers, growth is only a matter of when, how and on what scale. But game developers and console-makers could give it a boost by keeping up with ever-changing tastes and demands.

"When I first became general manager, corporate announcements seldom referred to the Asian markets. Now the outlook has shifted to one of 'make Asia work'," Wisan explains.

The gaming industry is governed by a cycle, he says. Every four or five years, new technology will stir, if not revolutionise, the industry.

Take Nintendo's Wii for example. With 9.27 million units sold since it entered the market last November, the console's three-dimensional motion detector has spurred a series of new games, from virtual boxing to point-and-shoot. In fact, its sales figures are second only to Microsoft's Xbox 360, which has sold 11 million units worldwide so far. But that is only because it hit the market a year earlier.

The battle of the seventh-generation consoles has been further spiced up by the lacklustre reception given to PlayStation3, resulting in a recent loss of 29.2 billion yen (Bt8.7 billion) for Sony's Games Division.

With cut-throat competition, there is no replay in the gaming business.

However, with so many products now on the market, from hand-held hits like Nintendo DS Lite (popular among Tokyo commuters for its puzzle game "Brain Age: Train Your Brains in Minutes a Day") to chunky "performance-oriented" machines like the Xbox, Wisan foresees the spawning of many different niches. And these markets are gradually taking shape.

Thailand's game developers and programmers also have their eyes set on the Nintendo DS for its easier programming. It is hailed by Pongrapee Thongsrinoon, former president of the Thai Game Association and a developer, as the format that will make or break Thailand's developing game industry.

Although the game market is opening up and opportunities abound in game development, EA was criticised for missing the next-generation console wave, selling a negligible number of titles for the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation3. The bulk of last year's sales - one-third - was actually for the PlayStation2, with 20 per cent for Microsoft Xbox.

Still, Wisan is optimistic. The much-awaited "Spore", by "Sims" developer Will Wright, who is considered a heavyweight in the game-developer community, hits the shelves next year. Already, the game, which involves players evolving from a single-celled organism to an intelligent being and surviving the cruel world, has already won Best Original Game and Best Show for two years running at E3, the gaming industry's equivalent of the Oscars. The New York Times reports the game's development cost $20 million.

Wisan said the main advantage of EA, as a "third party" developer, was its versatility. It currently has its hands in nearly all consoles and is now slowly branching out into online gaming. It recently acquired a 15-per-cent stake in The9, a Shanghai-based online game specialist, in what is regarded as a strategic move within the region.

But Pongrapee sees no possibility of similar acquisitions of Thai game companies by international giants in the near future. Outsourcing of packaged game design, yes. But Thailand lacks an economy of scale like that in China, he says.

Still, Wisan points to 7 million Internet users, compared with the entire population of Singapore at 4 million, and argues that Thailand is a force to be reckoned with.

It should not be forgotten that there are also 37 million mobile phones in Thailand, Wisan says with a grin, but he admits the majority are low-tech units.

EA Thailand looks optimistically to the blockbuster success of EA's "Fifa Online" in South Korea. The Internet-only game, which was co-produced with South Korean developer Pmang, has become a top-10 hit in that country. Within the first week of EA's first foray into online gaming, 100,000 players logged on to play concurrently. It is a promising sign, says the former brand manager for Colgate-Palmolive, since Thailand is never short of football fans. Witness the busy coin-operated PlayStation2 players in any department store permanently running "Winning Eleven". As well, online games will generate more revenue from subscription and pay-per-play.

For now though, Wisan is concentrating on marketing EA's package games, dictated by the slate of products from EA headquarters in Redwood City, California. In Thailand, though, marketing game products is a different ball game altogether. There are a few major hurdles to overcome.

There is the "extremely high" level of piracy, which handicaps not only EA, but also the whole industry. And game pirates do not discriminate between foreign and local games.

"The government is doing the right thing, but there must be more emphasis [on combating piracy]," he says.

It's not the only broadside fired at the government by the gaming industry. Neighbours like Singapore constantly poach Thai game professionals, Pongrapee claims, partly because there is no official government sponsorship. Moreover, no gaming representatives sit on the board of the three-year-old Software Industry Promotion Agency.

Meanwhile, as the local industry limps along, EA Thailand, with its fairly independent global marketing and creative clout, perches atop the market, surveying the many trigger-happy gamers in that cold, dark Internet cafe.

Ki Nan Tsui

 The Nation