Taipei Game Show 2023 was a great success with over 300,000 visitors in 4 days!
Officially announced visitor numbers were at roughly the same level as before the pandemic.
I felt the numbers were a little bigger than I had felt, but that might be because the venue has moved to the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. This is good news for me, who loves Taipei, and I’m looking forward to the revival of each game event in Taiwan from here.
Contrary to the success of the event venue, the Taipei Game Show also felt the hardships faced by the Taiwanese game industry.
In this article, I would like to introduce a little bit of that part.
First of all, the Taiwanese game industry people talk about the predicament of Taiwan’s major game companies.
According to him, Taiwan’s major game companies hardly have strong in-house games, and they operate as subcontractors for Chinese and Korean game companies.
Taiwanese games indeed had large-scale titles such as MMORPG until a while ago, but there have been no noticeable releases in the last few years.
Considering the size of the market and the number of companies, I think it would be difficult to release as many titles as China, South Korea, and Japan, but it is sad to say that there are almost none.
“Originally, it was that tendency, but it has progressed due to the corona pandemic.”
That’s what the person in charge of Taiwan game media said.
I agree with this tendency from the beginning, but among them, major game companies such as Gamania, for example, supported Taiwanese indies, using the profits obtained from outsourced development to foster the Taiwanese game industry. It seems so. The system is not working as well as it used to.
That’s not to say that no original games are being made in Taiwan.
“Recently, there are many adult games, especially Android games that do not use Google Play.”
As a Japanese, I am a little surprised to hear this.
Taiwan has weaker regulations on adult games than Japan, and they say they are more profitable than regular games. It is said that not only men but also adult games for women have acquired many users.
And the voice actor is Japanese, so I’m surprised again.
“There should be many female users in Japan.”
So maybe I just didn’t know about this.
In any case, it seems that Taiwan’s major game companies are surpassing the barriers by cultivating such new markets and outsourcing development from overseas.
This is not to say that it is not making money, it just means that the original game is not successful. Also, I’m not criticizing adult games, so I’ll write it down just in case. Adult content, including games, is a fine culture and will not be criticized as long as it conforms to the region. However, as a game fan, I expect games other than adult games.
Under such circumstances in Taiwan’s game industry, indie game creators were also struggling.
Taiwanese market is not small from an indie perspective. However, it is still small compared to Japan and China. Taiwanese indie game creators are expected to expand their games internationally to some extent, but it has become difficult to connect with publishers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I want to release it in Japan, but I can’t find a publisher.”
I heard that many times during the Taipei Game Show.
For Taiwanese indie game creators who do not have a large market at their feet, the corona crisis is truly big.
But there is also a bright side.
If you can’t find a publisher, that means you have a new title. When I talked to indie game creators, they showed me new titles that have just been released and titles that are in development.
Considering the situation where international exchanges are gradually becoming possible, Taiwan’s indie games may regain the momentum they had before the pandemic.
There is a title “Returning School” that is fresh in my memory, but the title “Taipei Air Raid” is about to be released as a controversial work similar to that.
As a Japanese, it’s difficult to comment on this controversial work, but I have a certain respect for Taiwan’s indie game community, which actively deals with political issues.
Of course, it’s not all about the problem. The level of indie games in Taiwan is not low, to begin with.
It hadn’t been touched on in the past few years, but I was reminded of its high level again. I think that the characteristics of Taiwanese indies are that they always come up with new ideas and try to incorporate some kind of philosophy into their games. Its originality is very interesting, and there are many titles that I am looking forward to as a game fan.
I arbitrarily call Taiwan “Otaku Country”, but Taipei feels more like Akihabara than Japan. I love Taiwan so much that it might be filtered a little weird, but in any case, I just hope that Taiwanese majors and Taiwanese indies will make a comeback.
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