Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Pan Asia Road Show

Our Asia sales god (not his official title, by the way) is currently in the midst of a five-week tour through Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Singapore, following my busy and productive trip there last quarter. He's too busy hosting seminars, meeting with customers, and raking in cash to be posting here or sending detailed reports, so chances are this space will be pretty quiet for a while.

In the meantime, EGT staff credibility points at stake!!! For the picture on the right (one of my favorite buildings in Asia, due to its unique construction), one credibility point each if you can identify:
1) What building is this?
2) What famous bridge leads out to where this building is located?
3) What is the name of the river that this bridge crosses over?
And for a bonus credibility point, name the Asia skyline pictured below.

I even have a picture of DB cutting a rug while in Seoul at a developer party one night. For 10 extra credibility points, I'd have you name the fancy step DB is grooving out, but I'd need to seek his permission first to post that one! :-)

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Customer Visits in Japan

Our Japanese subsidiary, Emergent GameTech Japan KK, was launched earlier this year in the hopes of increasing our presence in this unique market. We have since participated in some local industry events, held an event of our own, and traveled much of the country introducing Gamebryo to the market. We've generated quite a bit of mindshare, and picked up some great press, as well.

Japan is a unique market, in that it is clearly dominated by consoles and handhelds, but also in the fact that PC online gaming here is still young and niche, although healthy. This week we met with two of the most important players, one in each of these spaces. One is Japanese largest developers and has developed literally thousands of games for publishers such as Buena Vista Games, Capcom, EA, Namco Bandai Games, Square Enix, and dozens of others (this is public information all available on their website). The other company we met with this week is another large developer, one of the most prominent players in the online games space.

We look forward to deepening our relationship with these developers and indeed all of the Japanese development community. Kore kara mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.