2016 Taoyuan ACGT: TGIPA to promote proper leisure arcade gaming image in Taiwan

The 5th 2016 Taoyuan ACG Fair (known as Taoyuan ACGT), organized by Taoyuan City Government, officially approved as the annual international events of "Taiwan Tourism Events" by Tourism Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communications R.O.C (Taiwan), was taken place at the Taoyuan Arts Center in Taoyuan, Taiwan from July 9th to July 24th.

The Taoyuan ACGT features ACG Cosplay competition, live dance showcase and competition, industrial forums, electronic game event, gaming pavilions, and holiday ACG markets. There are three kinds of theme showcases in the gaming pavilions: "Attack on Titan" localized edition by Sony Computer Entertainment, Monster Hunter Online by Capcom, and Arcade Gaming Image Area by Taiwan Game Industry Promotion Alliance (TGIPA) and International Games System Corporation (IGS).

To correct former image of arcade games in Taiwan, the TGIPA and IGS designed an experience area with picked-up popular arcade games for general age participants from music to adventure including Percussion Master 3, We Dancing Online, Muzibox, Overtake, and Hero of Robots.

'Some elder people still considered arcade game as "terrible ones" because of past media exposures about illegal gambling games, but the arcade game industry shouldn't be all bad as past. If local companies can devote puzzle or general age games to the public, I think the arcade game image in Taiwan can be progressively corrected,' an official intern student reporter commented to the manager about the pavilion on site.

[General Information of Taoyuan ACGT]

• Organizer: Taoyuan City Government
• Show Venue: Taoyuan Arts Center, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
• Show Schedule: July 9th to July 24th, 2016.

2015 Asia Pacific Game Summit: Trend-forecasting in a glance

In the second day of the Asia Pacific Game Summit 2015, Cross-Strait industrial executives gathers the Game Industry Round-table Discussion to forecast trends and issues of gaming industry from Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong, to the world. Besides of the key event, part of industrial analysts and experts also commented about the (game) industry in different ways.

"Traditional fictions and novels are mostly referred by game developers and planners because of a various culture in Greater China," industrial experts from Mainland China commented. "A well-constructed game should consider its balance between profit (or market) and content plan because Intellectual Property License is highly valued by legal professionals."

"Memories from past ages may be classics (or essentials) if  the publishers clearly realized variations of gaming trends and populations," Chun-Po Wang, Chairman of Soft-World International, exampled to the participants from a famous Taiwanese film named "You Are the Apple of My Eye" originally written by Giddens Ko.

As of policy limitations, "the openness of gaming market is still a little tight in Mainland China," Aaron Hsu, Chairman of XPEC entertainment commented about the presence of gaming market openness in Greater China. "Although game contents can be suited on local circumstances (policy, culture,..., etc.), but restrictions to game developers should be lifted for a great future of game industry in Mainland China."

For more:

• Asia Pacific Game Summit Day 1 Report
• Event Highlights (part of 2015 Taipei Game Show Business Area included)

2015 Asia Pacific Game Summit: When gaming varies complexity?

Accompanied with the opening for the 2015 Taipei Game Show, the Asia Pacific Game Summit (APGS) for industrial professionals also taken place in the Taipei World Trade Center, show venue of the Taipei Game Show.

The APGS is a brand new international forum for digital content industries and other-related solution providers to forecast trends and futures from gaming industry to extensive topics. Industrial elites from digital content and ICT industries arranged several panels and topics to share industrial experiences for participated developers and operators with varied types of solutions.

"Gaming is not simple as the public often think about," as the opening keynotes expressed. According to Hideo Baba, CPO of Bandai Namco "Tales of" Series, "A game series with a great sustainability should make different imaginations from a simple genre gaming style to a varied and complexioned game-playing forms." In addition, he also noticed to the participants "subjecting the whole story-line to convey key messages clearly to players before developing."

"Gaming forms changes rapidly as variations of gaming populations and technology evolution." Chris Yerga, Vice President for Google Play Asia Pacific, listed some examples about gaming trend variations from arcade, console, and mobile games. "Not only just rich content, several developers are also interested to innovate high-definition market to fulfill requirements from addicted players who want to enjoy more rich-quality gaming graphics."

"The most difficult step of programming and developing is integrating." Facebook, as the most well-known social platform, was initially chosen as the single-sign-on (SSO) platform by most of developers as of users mostly registered there. "By matching application events and target users, developers or publishers can smoothly do their own precision marketing perfectly if they completed integration from different platforms," as Bo Zhang, Regional Head of Asia Pacific for Facebook Platform Partnerships, mentioned during the last keynote.

Up Next - The 2nd Day of Asia Pacific Game Summit

• Game Industry Round-table Discussion
• Game trend forecast for mobile games from Taiwan to the world

Tom's World Taiwan: Bring sport and recreation to the public welfare

Since basketball-shooting became a huge pop from small local night markets to several public events, the "basketball-shooting" machine can be seen anywhere although it's just for a small challenge stage in a event booth.

Basketball-shooting became a very hit sport after several creative ideas realized from local arcade industry in Taiwan.

To make the public highly caution about social awareness, Syin-Lu Social Welfare Foundation and Tom's World made a collaboration in a basketball-shooting event from weekly trial to charity friendship event.

Different with several traditional basketball-shooting tournaments in Taiwan's arcade industry, this collaboration transformed a simple athlete tournament into a non-competitive charity event to encourage the public (especially disabilities) interacting with proper outdoor recreation and sport events.

"We chose basketball-shooting as the base of this year's charity event base because it made a huge pop from sport to arcade industry in Taiwan. Sporting can bring out positive ways to the public as well," according to Syin-Lu Foundation.

2014 GTI Asia Taipei Expo: New gaming to interact with Taiwan

Last week in Taipei, Taiwan, the 22nd 2014 GTI Asia Taipei Expo showcased some new arcade games in the Taipei World Trade Center. To attract the foreign buyers interacting with local-developed arcade machines, Haw Ji Corporation, organizer for the "GTI Asia" series show, initially set up the pavilion for the show theme named "Hello, Taiwan".

As of mobility became a major factor in the gaming industry, some companies chose to integrate gaming records with cloud services mainly by Android apps. "As populations of mobile users grew up progressively, Integrating gaming records to a mobile application is the great factor to benefit players querying and updating their own scores (performances) anytime and anywhere when connecting to Internet with mobile devices if the arcade machines have Internet connection ability," Mike Hsu, AVP of Feiloli Electronic Corporation, mentioned during the 2014 GTI.

Feiloli integrates their own scoring systems between mobile devices and arcade machines to attract players fetching gaming information via Internet with mobile devices.

Besides of service integration, some major companies also made stage events to attract buyers and visitors interacting with new released games.

TAITO's Groove Coaster debuted in 2014 GTI Asia Taipei Expo.
(Click for Testplay Video)

Shooting Sports by Zeroplus with multilingual support.

DANZBASE by IGS.
(Click for Testplay Video)

Racing games by Bandai Manco.

2014 TGS CEO Forum: Mobile market as future trend in gaming industry

2014 Taipei Game Show CEO Forum.

Not only the B2C area gathered with major theme pavilions, an industrial forum named "TGS Industrial Seminar" was also taken place in the B2B area in the opening day of the 2014 Taipei Game Show at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1.

In the Opening CEO Forum, all the local CEOs jointly think mobility as the future trend in the digital content industry.

'As majority of mobile user population, gaming platforms on mobile tablet devices and smart phones will progressively replace the current PC platform,' Aaron Hsu, Chairman of XPEC mentioned.

'We (the industry) should try to define the 2014 as the "mobile year" because we have witnessed the globalization of mobile gaming markets and grown up of populations on mobile users and mobile devices especially smart phones and mobile tablets," Sheree Tsao, Chairman of InterServ commented.

After the CEO Forum, Aaron Hsu, Chairman of XPEC, publicly appealed the industry to join a special venture innovation platform similar with "garage coffee" in Zhongguancuan, Beijing, China.

Taipei Game Show to extend ACG cosplay mania with "TGS Cosplay Competition" at TWTC in Taiwan

As 7-year-old "Taipei International Book Exhibition Cosplay Competition" (in picture) temporarily comes to an end with termination of main showground for TIBE Comic and Animation Hall, there seemed to be no ACG cosplay competition to be held at Taipei World Trade Center.

But the Taipei Computer Association (TCA), organizer of "Taipei Game Show", decided to make a major impact before the Chinese Lunar New Year during the "Taipei Game Show", that is: 'To hold the first-ever "TCG Cosplay Competition".' This message noticed that the mania of ACG cosplay in the TWTC during the Lunar New Year Vacation will be succeeded by the Taipei Game Show (in picture).

The first ACG cosplay competition in the TWTC arena (as TWTC Hall 1, Hall 2, and Hall 3 included) is "Taipei International Book Exhibition Cosplay Competition" in 2007. It is temporarily enclosed as of "Taipei Show Hall 2" (TWTC Hall 2) demolished by its new land owner Nan Shan Life Insurance as Nan Shan planned to rebuild with a new complex building named "Nan Shan Square".

Taipei Game Show will be showcased at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1 from January 23^rd to 27^th, registration for the "TGS Cosplay Competition" is opened to the public.

[More information]

• TGS Cosplay Competition: Fact Sheet & Registration Form (in Chinese)
• Taipei Game Show

ACG subculture shocks Taipei in "Zero-Nuke Festival"

Words are not enough than real actions.

To encourage public environment awareness of "nuke hazard", not only most of independent music workers published music collaboration "No nukes! Long play!" in Taiwan on December 4th, several ACG subcultural fans also gathered in a COSPLAY event in the "Zero-Nuke Festival" last month to echo awareness actions by Green Citizens' Action Alliance.

Taiwanese Indie Musicians supports actions by GCAA in a holiday music event.

Participants from a pair of children showed a custom poster to aware the public pay more attentions on "nuke hazard".

Click me for more event highlights

2013 GTI Asia Taipei Expo: Creative inventories for opportunities

GTI Asia Taipei Expo (GTI Taipei), a traditional arcade gaming industry trade expo in Taiwan, celebrates its 20^th year today in Taipei World Trade Center. Although there aren't some famous companies and major events participated in, but some new local or foreign-agent games still showed strengths of creative inventories and ideas.

Namco Bandai: Tradition, Ancient, and Spirit.

This year of GTI Taipei, NBGI highlighted their arcade theme by retro of "Pac-Man" as a "Pac-Man Zone" including varied games for most of all ages.

In addition to the NBGI, they also showed their enterprise slogan "Empower, Gain Momentum, Accelerate Evolution" to encourage the public do anything with positive attitude.

Feiloli: Basketball Shooting in New Ideas?

As many people thought about basketball shooting machine as "simple, fast, and accuracy", but this may be varied as Feiloli announced "Dream Shooter Arena" with very EXCLUSIVE blocking hand function. It simulated a real basketball game as a defender's hand randomly blocking (or breaking) shooter's shooting tempo.

IGS Games: The Power of All-MIT content with cross-over integration

Not only famoused games including Muzibox, Percussion Master 3, and Speed Rider Series, IGS showcased a card game with an original comic from Taiwan named "Hero Robots" (in picture). According to the IGS, this work referred settings and designs from past original comic manuscripts and characters. It showcased the true power of the integration with digital content, comic and animation, and arcade gaming industries in Taiwan.

Music games in a Glance: Functionality and humanity for opportinity

Although a great variations on this GTI Taipei, some of participants still promoted great inventions in arcade music game. Besides of maimai, Muzibox, and Percussion Master 3, some new games are designed for varied ages to make suitable with proper ages.

Amazing Hammer, a puzzle game with varied gaming styles for children and parents from strategical game to rhythmic game.

"Cube Master", a multi-touch puzzle game with varied scene and BGM music effects.

Coming Up: Executives talks about the GTI Expo and Arcade Industry in Taiwan

2013 TIBE: "Lost Islands" by Naoyuki Katoh illustrates the imagiation of modern city

Can we imagine the future of a modern city? Maybe we can't realize the future of modern city as some catastrophic movie described, but in the 2013 TIBE, Naoyuki Katoh made his live drawing named "Lost Island" to express about the possible future of a modern city.

'I set this subject "Lost Island" to simulate a lost future of a modern city just similar as a war age taken place in the "Space Battleship Yamato". It's difficult to mix objects from different eras in the same drawing. Although the whole event in the drawing may not be happened in our real life, but I hope this draw can take effect on life awareness.' Described by Naoyuki Katoh.

2013 TIBE - Hong Kong Pavilion: Creative ideas in essentials

As movie and entertainment industry in a great notability from Taipei Golden Horse Award last year, the publishing and printing industries came closer and closer in recent years.

This year, Hong Kong Printers Association and Hong Kong Publishing Federation still brought on several creative publications to the public to showcase creative achievements from architecture, photographing, illustration, design, music and entertainment, cultural and creative, and literature.

A "hand fan" symbolizes gentility of a intellectual, it not only can be used to cool down the heat in some traditional thinking but also can be a collective treasure as it added some special designs like this "Hand Fan Box".

A special red envelope is designed with dragon and celebration phrases to break traditional "full-red envelope" ideas.

Glancing modern histories of old-fashioned music era, "Elvis: Recording Career - Forever in the Groove" the book cover designed with a phonograph record to make music listeners got more interested in Elvis' history and music moments.

2013 Taipei Game Show: B2B zone to connect with international gaming industry

International B2B Area at the 2012 Digital Taipei. (Photo in Reference)

Besides of the main exhibition and several key events for local visitors, Taipei Computer Association, the organizer of the 2013 Taipei Game Show, planned B2B Zone for international trade opportunities to local enterprises and international buyers and investors on January 31^st and February 1^st.

The B2B Zone contains complete industrial chain in Taiwan's gaming industry including developers, service providers, manufacturers, and operators. International enterprises from COM2US, Fortumo, D2C Japan, SK Plant, Gree Japan, Asiasoft, Tahadi Games Media, and Facebook, are confirmed to participate in this B2B event.

As maturities of mobile games and web applications in recent years, the Taipei Game Show Forum themed "New Wave: The Future of Gaming Industry" and invited several industrial professionals to analyze industrial trends and market strategies of global gaming industry.

2013 TIBE: Belgian cultures highlighted; Comic Hall makes differences to the public

2013 The 21^st Taipei International Book Exhibition (a.k.a. TIBE 2013), organized by Taipei Book Fair Foundation (TBFF) under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, will start its exhibition hour tomorrow at the Taipei World Trade Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

Guest of Honor: Belgium Annual Pavilion

After "Green Reading" theme last year, the organizer announced Belgium as Guest of Honor (a.k.a annual theme nation of the TIBE) in the 2013 TIBE. The Belgian Pavilion will feature several cultures including architecture, design, art, illustration, novel, animation, music, and several famous published works.

To commemorate the creator of saxophone, this annual pavilion will arrange a theme exhibition "Adolphe Sax: An Inventor of Genius" to showcase the history of saxophone, a huge two-meter tall saxophone will also be displayed with upcoming performance by Steve Houben this Thursday (January 31^st).

Major variations in the Comic Hall of 2013 TIBE

To variate traditional image of the Comic Hall in the TIBE, the organizer planned "Special Exhibition of International Comics and Animation" featuring ACG works from Belgium and Taiwan to attract the public interact the power of Belgian and MIT works. Different with the upcoming 2013 Taipei International Comics and Animation Festival, the Comic Hall of TIBE focuses on showcases of soft strength in the ACG industry of Taiwan and Europe.

As the Taiwan Super COSPLAY Celebration (TSCC, Taiwan Qualifier for the World Cosplay Summit) made a major success last year, the organizer arranged 2013 TSCC Spring Qualifier into the TIBE Cosplay Competition to attract more newbies interacting with Japanese ACG Cosplay culture.

[Official Information]

• Supervisor: Ministry of Culture, R.O.C.
• Organizer: Taipei Book Fair Foundation
• Date and Time: 
• January 30th - 31st & Feb 4th: 10am to 6pm
• February 1st & 2nd: 10am to 10pm
• February 3rd: 10am to 8pm
• Venue:
• General and International Books: Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1
• ACG Works: Taipei Show Hall 2
• Kids Book: Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 3
• Official Website: http://www.tibe.org.tw/

[Arcade Event] IGS promotes "MuziBox Arcade Tournament" in Taiwan

After several golden eras for the We Dancing Online Arcade Tournament, International Games System Corporation (IGS) promoted a brand new event named "MuziBox Arcade Tournament" in Taiwan. It was debuted last Sunday from Sanchung, New Taipei.

Different with former "WeDo Arcade Tournament", participants should decide songs in a store qualifier by drawing an random song card presented by an event host. Official battle song list announced in a qualifier will be varied by month and update versions.

2013 Taipei Game Show to vary first impressions in major side events

2013 Taipei Game Show by Taipei Computer Association, scheduled from January 31 to February 4 next year, made its official public promotion during Bahamut Gamer's Community 16-Years' Anniversary in Taiwan last week. The official also announced its new show slogan "Gaming innovates Dreams" in recent to encourage game player and industrial people interacting with Taiwan's gaming industry positively.

The Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra performed in the ACG Recital of the 2012 Taoyuan ACG Carnival. (Photo in Reference)

Since "2013 Taipei Game Show Microfilm Competition" for academical units was announced during the 2012 4C Digital Design Awards by Industrial Bureau of Ministry of Economic Affairs, and "Game Star Online Voting" for local residents in Taiwan was in progress, the Taipei Computer Association announced a major game recital for this event named "2013 Taipei Game Show: Video Games Concert" on February 2nd, 2013 in the Auditorium of the Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. This major event will introduce game music from several classical game series by Taiwan Film Orchestra and Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra.

[2013 Taipei Game Show Basic Information]

• Organizer: Taipei Computer Association
• Venue: Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall
• Date and Time: January 31^st - February 4^th, 2013
• Official Site

Crossovers from traditions and moderns seen in Bahamut's 16-years' Anniversary

Bahamut Gamer's Community, as known as the most largest gaming community in Taiwan, celebrates its 16-years' anniversary last week in Taiwan by convening games from traditions to moderns with varied showcasing styles.

As 2012 GTI Asia Taipei Expo's alternations, this community-based event still attracted players although its showcasing scale varied on gaming series. In music game section, Sega's "maimai" is the only arcade game showcasing in this event.

Rather than experiencing popular game series, some communities chose to showcase some rare peripherals as of considering visitors' populations. In "Taiko no Tatsujin" section, a classic-styled arcade-simulated LCD display was introduced. According to its collector, this micro LCD display is designed for collection to salute the initial arcade machine of the first version of "Taiko no Tatsujin" by Namco Bandai.

Classic-styled "Taiko no Tatsujin" micro LCD display.

Not only experience area, some classic basses and guitars were showcased in "Xbox360 Rocksmith" area.

Culture in a showcase: A creative gaming player drew different Miku Hatsune's head to bless the showcase in a "Great Luck" condition.

Cultural & creative industry in Taiwan: Bang Bu Bu to vary a new competition in convenience store marketing in Taiwan

New competition, New milestone.

Khan Entertainment, a senior company in cultural and creative industry in Taiwan, officially announced that a new convenience store marketing strategy will be made and varied as their best hit puppet drama series "Bang Bu Bu Puppet Drama" in Taiwan on road in their new strategic partner FamilyMart Taiwan next Wednesday (December 5th) in Taipei Time (GMT+8).

As of convenience store marketing in cultural and creative industry in recent years in Taiwan, estimate four main puppet drama series were on road in Taiwan's convenience stores since "Pili Prestige: Legend of the Dragon Blade" by Pili International was promoted to FamilyMart in September 2009.

2012 Konami Arcade Championship: Glancing arcade cultures in Taiwan

The Asian Final of the 2012 Konami Arcade Championship initialed in Taiwan.

2012 Konami Arcade Championship, a major annual arcade event by Konami Asia, started its Grand Finals for all music game divisions today until this Sunday in Taipei Time (GMT+8). Different from recent years, Konami Asia chose Taipei, Taiwan as its location of Asian Final based on players' performances in some past years and arcade event maturities in Taiwan including "REFLEC BEAT Taiwan Grand Prix" by Saint-Fun, "Jubeat Taiwan Championship" by Sume Corporation.

"REFLEC BEAT Taiwan Grand Prix", one of a famous arcade music game event in Taiwan. (Reference Photo in Summer 2012)

The alternation of generations for arcade music games in Taiwan varied evidently especially from several promotional events, trade shows, and music and entertainment industry in Eastern Asia. To construct bright image of arcade music games to the public, some local agencies in Taiwan also held several promotional events to motivate the public especially light players interacting with game by enjoying music rhythms and correctly acknowledging trends of popular music.

Music, game, and multimedia artworks gathered at the 2012 Taipei Digital Art Festival

Digital content industry shining in Taiwan! Gathering essentials of digital content industry in Asia, Europe, and Taiwan, The 7th 2012 Taipei Digital Art Festival showcases variations from gaming, music,  to multimedia applications and achievements of digital content industry in Taiwan.

This event is themed to "Artificial Nature" as of variations and realms from actual to virtual crossed into the digital content industry including gaming, music, entertainment, multimedia, and art.

The artwork "Play Your Dream" encourages the visitor finding the secret of variations in a crystal bottle set.

Thinking differences from music and entertainment. ION Audio showcases several popular product lines for iOS solutions including "iCade" (with its mobile version), iDJ 2Go, and ION Jukebox.

Popular ION products for iOS users in the 2012 Taipei Digital Arts Festival.

In the corridor of "The Art of Video Games", popular game series, classic gaming consoles, and recent hit games witnessed the greatest moment of gaming industry in the world. Several popular game series are also showcased in this special corridor including "Three Kingdom's Series" by Koei Tecmo, "Tekken" and "Taiko no Tatsujin" series by Bandai Namco. Besides of popular games, several classic gaming consoles and magazines are also showcased there.

Classic games and popular portable gaming console "PlayStation Portable".

2012 Digital Art Festival Taipei - General Information

• Organizer: Taipei City Government
• Operator: Cultural Bureau of Taipei City Government, Digital Art Foundation (R.O.C)
• Curator: Digital Art Center, Taipei
• Venue: Song-shan Cultural and Creative Park
• Date and Time: November 16^th to 25^th, 2012.
• Official Website: http://digitalartfestival.tw/daf12/

See More at.....

• Opening Reception (Facebook / Google+)
• Show Highlights (Facebook / Google+)