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Published on October 13, 2007

Audition, the online dance game from South Korea, is celebrating the first anniversary of its arrival in Thailand with a contest that will see the winner drive off in a brand new Chevrolet, while the five runners-up take home lots of exciting prizes.

 A big hit in Japan under the name of Dancin' Paradise, the game also became China's most-played at the height of its popularity, with 110 million registered users. It has attracted players all over Asia, as well as in North America and Europe. In Thailand it's pulled in six million fans since its launch in August last year, and won Best Game at the CompGamer Awards held as part of the Thailand Game Show 2007.

Contest organisers PlayPark, an affiliate of AsiaSoft Corporation, Thailand's leading online game service provider, are expecting thousands of fans to sign up for the Audition Thailand Championship 2007.

"It's our biggest seller," says Suwannee Tangchitporn, PlayPark's e-business director. "Fans of multi-player online role-playing games such as Ragnarok tend to go on to play Audition but not vice versa. That's why Audition has the highest number of users and the widest range of players."

"At first, we expected most players to be girls, but when we conducted a survey, we were surprised to find it was an even split between the genders," adds Intra Songkiatikul, AsiaSoft's assistant marketing manager.

"I guess it satisfies the need to showcase talent and creativity - something that can be difficult to do in reality."

The contest, which is being held in cooperation with RS Public, gaming magazine CompGamer and energy drink M150, is being set up around the country.

Northern players can meet up in Chiang Mai; for the Northeast, it's Khon Kaen; the East, Chon Buri; Songkhla for the South; and Bangkok. All 180 qualifiers - 36 from each of the five regions - will compete for a knockout round in the capital.

Winners of the regional rounds will receive a Honda motorcycle and a year's Internet access from Maxnet. The overall winner drives off in a Chevrolet Aveo. Contestants can register at Playpark.com until the end of November.

"It is a good chance for us to have offline activities with fans all over Thailand. It's the first time we'll be meeting players and we'll be taking along RS artists to the events too," says the marketing manager.

The online dance game kicked off last year when South Korea's major multi-player online developer and publisher T3 Entertainment adapted it from a popular comic, "Audition", alongside Yedang Online.

As the popularity of the game increased, both T3 and Yedang began seeding the game in other regions, including China, Japan, Southeast Asia, North America, Brazil and Europe.

Here, its launch coincided with the opening of PlayPark, which features a gamut of other games, both online and console.

"Audition is a very successful and trendy game that's related to music and fashion, so it's really suitable for the Thai lifestyle," says Suwannee. "We had so many hits after the launch that we had to add more servers to prevent a total crash."

A highly social game, Audition offers players the chance to link up with their friends online for dance-off competitions to chart-topping music - more than 100 Korean and Western songs. There's also a selection of Thai songs, among them Tata Young's "Dangerous", Flure's "Rudoo Thi Chan Ngao", Yai Monotone's "Wan Thi Ther Mai Yoo" and Crescendo's "Khwam Jing Nai Jai".

With simple directional and space bar keystrokes, players can perform hip-hop-style dance steps and choreographed routines - better timing means a better score. Players compete in various dance modes, each with distinctive special features and moves.

In addition to testing rhythmic game-play skills in head-to-head and team battle modes, players can customise avatars by selecting from more than 1,000 distinctive and stylish items from the in-game shop.

Audition has an in-game reward system that gives winning dancers "Beats", or currency that can be used to purchase a variety of items from the shop. This system gives players access to trendy accessories, designer clothes and more than 180 faces, with numerous expressions.

"The players are enthralled by the music as well as the game, and hone their skills in different modes to build up a character for their avatar. These are designed to mimic reality. There's a mode where they dance as a couple and try to win each other's hearts. They can even get married," says the e-business director.

"What makes this game outstanding is that it fulfils lifestyle choices they would not have in the real world. They can chat with friends and form clubs. There's a club for lovers of the couple mode, a club for the music's lovers, a club for emo-music lovers and even a club for those who just love Audition."

"This is an online society - a 'a clean and innocent' society without violence or fighting. They can talk about music, fashion and dancing styles," she adds. "Two months ago, we organised a meet-and-greet activity for our members and singer Ann Thitima. A mother from Nakhon Si Thammarat told us that she played this game with her children, and that it had brought her family closer."

Thanks to input from record label RS Public, some of Audition's avatars bear strong similarities to young artists like Four Mod, Dan-Beam, Lao Lom, Khanom Jeen, Fay Fang Kaew, Mila and K-Otic. There's also a wealth of songs from RS teen label, Kamikaze.

"When we want a local avatar, we send our pattern to South Korea and they come up with the designs. So far we've sent patterns of traditional costumes from all four regions of the Kingdom. We also included boy-scout costumes," says Suwannee.

The overall budget of the ATC 2007 contest is Bt10 million including TV and radio commercials as well as advertising on the Skytrain.

After the contest, PlayPark expects to enter negotiations with South Korea, China, Vietnam and Singapore on who will host the first Audition World Championship.

Kitchana Lersakvanitchakul

The Nation