Record Quarter for EGT in Asia. Poised for More Growth.

We are thrilled to announce that we have just closed a record quarter in Asia. For the quarter just ended, we saw both transaction count and revenue in Asia double from Q1 this year, and nearly three times that of the same period in 2007.

We will post more details later, after our Asia team has a chance to catch a breath. Even more exciting to the team, though, is the momentum we have achieved in the region, and how we will continue to grow our business in the region and beyond.

As a sign of that momentum, DB had an excellent meeting this morning with one of our anchor clients in China, Tencent. Tencent has one Gamebryo-powered game in commercial launch already, and several more in production. Tencent's advanced casual racer "QQ Speed" is one of the most popular games in China; the QQ Game platform enjoyed peak concurrent users of 3.8 million this last quarter. Look out, WoW!!!

Tencent is looking forward to growing the relationship with us, as are so many of our customers in Asia.

We also have a number of new clients in Asia, even having sold multi-SKU console licenses in Japan (where our critics said we would gain no traction) this past quarter.

Gamebryo: Becoming the de facto standard in Asia.

EGT Flood(gate)s PS3 Technical Seminar 2008

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEJ) held a PS3 Technical Seminar these past two days in Tokyo. We did a 45-minute presentation today entitled "Gamebryo: Improving Performance with Floodgate Technology." Along with the presentation, we of course showed our mesh and Bad Sushi demos. Kamata-san did a GREAT job with the presentation. In the Q&A, since so many developers are shy about asking questions, Kamata-san did his own FAQ, and filled the Q&A with his own questions that were quite good - very helpful to the developers.

Kamata-san even executed a self-depricating joke in the Q&A (FAQ), that this crowd of developers actually laughed at (an accomplishment in and of itself). The more I see Kamata-san "in action" with pre-customers, the more impressed I become with him. It's a testament to the great team we have on the ground in Japan!

There were 80 people in the audience, and they seemed to be engaged; no sleeping audience members here. There were other middleware companies that presented at this event, some of whom presented in English, with English-language slides, with the aid of interpreters. By contrast, our presentation was given by a local support engineer, completely in Japanese with Japanese-language slides. I won't mention any of these other middleware companies' names, but the contrast between ours and these other sessions was unreal. It was a stark contrast of epic proportions!

Enjoy the event photos, below.

Customer Visits in China

I'm sorry it's been a while since I've posted here. DB and I have been running around (literally) trying to close out Q2 here in Asia. And close it out strong we will - Q2 will be a record quarter for Emergent here in Asia. We're working hard and having a great time (indeed, part of the EGT culture!). Some pictures from customer visits, below.

In Shanghai: DB is an Angel

Checking in from Shanghai now, where we just had our first full day here. We had three meetings today with two current customers. They love Gamebryo! Areil from our local reseller has been accompanying us, as has been the Business Director for ScaleForm in China, Ben Mowery. He speaks great Chinese, and I'm impressed! Speaking a bit of Japanese, I know what he's gone through to get to that point in his linguistic skills, so I have profound respect for him.

Now... if ANY of you have ever said anything bad about DB, I have captured proof that he really is an angel. Check out the photos below...

We took the maglev train from the airport in to the city yesterday. Check out the top speed we hit on the ride in: 431 kph. That's over 267 mph. The track is 30.5 km (about 19 miles) long, and it takes less than seven minutes to make the journey. Fun stuff!

DB and I out to dinner with Areil & Ben last night. See that organge "ball" in the middle of the table? That's a hallowed out tangerine, and it was filled with tangerine sorbet. Oh wow... I think I've found a new favorite food!!!

At one of our customer's offices this morning.

At one of our customer's offices this afternoon. I just LOVE this photo. I don't know how this effect occurred, but check out the apparent halo around DB's head. I always knew he was an angel!!! :-)

View from the Italian restaurant where we had dinner both last night and tonight. A great place!

This was in the mall near our hotel; a display of photos of the death and destruction from the recent earthquake in China. It was actually pretty graphic, and quite sobering. Our prayers and best wishes are extended to all of the victims.

Osaka Middleware Forum

Today was the Osaka Game Tools and Middleware Forum 2008, and it was quite a success. The Forum organizers had predicted that 100 to 150 would be in attendance; my guess is that there were at least 200 people here today, and most if not all of them stopped by our booth. If these events had done nothing but get us more name/brand recognition in Japan, then they would have been worth the efforts. However, they've achieved more than that. Some further follow-up will be required, but I believe a number of new evals that will come out of these events.

Not only have we had a booth at these events; we've also given technical sessions, led by Val. Takumi has done introductory Gamebryo remarks (pictured at right, from today's Forum), and then Val has jumped in with our Terrain and Scene Designer demos (the integration of the two). The demos have been quite popular, or so our post-session questionnaires have indicated. In exchange for a business card and a completed questionnaire, we have handed out Gamebryo-branded chop sticks (is that a cool trade show giveaway, or what?!). At the Osaka Forum today, David Brame counted 75 attendees. 75 more people in Japan who know about a lot about Gamebryo, and how we're gonna kick some serious butt in this market!!!

Herein, I'd like to formally thank our Japan team for the great work they've done in putting together these events here this month (five events - one more next week!). It makes all the difference in the world when pre-customers can walk up, address you in their local language, and know that there will be pre- and post-sales support in the local language. Pictured below are some customers at our booth experiencing exactly what I'm talking about. Kamata-san is a cool geek whom the engineers really relate to. Shimizu-san is a polished sales professional; I've witnessed him in many a pitch now, and even this old codger has learned a thing or two from him! Shinozaki-san from Aeria has also been a great help during these events! Go Team Japan!!!

Finally, thanks to Val for offering some tremendous technical assets to our events in Korea and Japan these past 2+ weeks. Safe travels back to France tomorrow, while DB and I head off to Shanghai.

A pre-customer engaging with our Japan team members at the Osaka Game Tools & Middleware 2008 Forum today.

Fukuoka Middleware Forum

As expected, the forum in Fukuoka today was quite a bit smaller than the one in Tokyo last week, but it was still good. We got several new leads, including a lead in China. We even got approached by a large government organization that really wants to get aggressive in promoting game development tools in educational institutions here. Saweet!

We had one small problem, and met it with a victory. Never before had anybody seen this, but Val's Dell XPS was not compatible with the refresh rate on the lecture hall projector. Therefore, we had no PPT displayed, and Val couldn't show the Terrain demo. The victory was in the improvisation. My hat is COMPLETELY off to Takumi, for the very professional way in which he improvised, and went ahead and delivered a very informative Gamebryo speech with no notes, no PPT, no nothing. Excellent job, Takumi; you delivered an improvised speech like a real pro!

Enjoy the photos below, including a couple of light-hearted ones at the end.

Great job, Takumi, in improvising during our projector failure!!!

Takumi doing the traditional business card exchange on the left, and Kamata-san and Shinozaki-san doing a pitch on the right, by our booth at the event.

DB and Val chatting it up in the exhibition hall.

Val won a highly-coveted plush toy via a Bingo competition at the event party this evening!

This photo taken in my hotel room. Now... I'm sure it's just FINE to drink from this cup, because it's "RINSED WELL." :-)

Fun in Seoul

We're now in (on? - our crack PR team may need to step in and correct my grammar) the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, where tomorrow we have the Fukuoka Game Tools & Middleware Forum 2008. Accents and local dialects all differ in Japan, but fortunately most everybody speaks "standard" Japanese to foreigners, so I can still communicate here just fine. :-)

I'll post a more "serious" entry after our forum here tomorrow, but meanwhile, here are some "fun" pictures from while we were in Seoul.

John and Val having a "friendly" discussion prior to the seminar kicking off, over who gets to speak first. Mr. Kim, Support Engineer from Gamebase, looks on in mild amusement.

Ms. Lee from GameBase steps in and everybody makes up.

During my speech, I apparently started trying to Pac-Man chomp Val's Dell XPS.

Did somebody IM something really funny to Val during his presentation???

You see??? Now THIS is one of my favorite things about Korean restaurants. If you're not in the mood for the first thing on the menu, you can eat the second thing on the menu. Oh look... in this photo, I happened to catch one of them escaping out the front door!

Gamebryo 2.5 Technical Seminar in Seoul

With a single e-mail blast from our Korean distributor, we received 320 registrations for today's Gamebryo 2.5 Technical Seminar in Seoul. Of that, some 265 attended, and it was a GREAT success.

GameBase's Sales Manager gave a presentation about our business in Korea: more than 100 licenses to more than 90 developers in the past five years. To put all skeptics to rest, he listed company names and game titles, and it was all backed up by the game trailers we were running as people were filing in to the ballroom. Gamebryo has done some great things in Korea, and there is much more to come!

I followed with a presentation on Emergent Game Technologies, our growth in Asia, and so on. I gave my now-famous (in the press in much of Asia, apparently) "three things that differentiate Gamebryo from its competitors" speech. And for good measure, I even threw a subtle little jab at some of our competitors, without listing any specific companies/products by name. I explained the subtlety in advance to the interpreters; whether it came across accurately or not I do not know - but I had fun with it, anyway.

Valery Carpentier, our Worldwide Gamebryo Expert, then gave an attention-grabbing technical presentation of Gamebryo. OK... so it was technical and not all that exciting, but it hit me that Val actually speaks three languages: French, English, and Geek. Following a 30-minute coffee break, Val completed his session by giving several Gamebryo demos.

As people tend to be shy at these things, GameBase had asked people to submit Gamebryo questions along with their event registrations, and from these, we did a pretty comprehensive Q&A to wrap up the event.

We had two simultaneous interpreters working the event, and they were great! In their research planning for the event, they even stumbled across this blog.

I will post some additional photos as I receive them from the many shutterbugs at the event, but here are a few photos that I captured with my camera...

The audience gathers. Roughly half of the attendees were Gamebryo pre-customers (as previously described in this blog).

Mr. Park talking about our Korean-language forum (on screen).

Probably the BEST professional-setting photo of me ever taken, as it hides my beak!

Throngs of Gamebryo fans crowd the hallway outside the ballroom during our mid-session coffee break.

Valery showing the "Bad Sushi" demo and pointing out how both cores are utilized.

Customer Meetings in Seoul

Today we had some great meetings with customers here in Seoul. Got some helpful feedback as to additional things we can do for them, but largely heard praise for what we are doing right. Such as...

Oh... wait a minute... don't want to tip our hand to our competition of how to do business in Asia!!! But suffice it to say that our distributor here has done a great job, and as we've fine-tuned our processes here in Korea through the multiple visits DB and I have made to the region in the past year, things are rolling along even faster.

So... I'm just posting one photo tonight and keeping my comments short, so I can be fresh for my big ra-ra speech at our launch even here tomorrow. The photo was taken at Vertigo Games here this morning. They are a very satisfied customer, and it's great doing business with them.

Distributor Meetings in Korea

Val, DB and I flew from Tokyo to Seoul yesterday (Sunday), and today we had meetings with our distributor here, GameBase. Val did a little bit of Gamebryo 2.5 training to GameBase's staff, but our meetings today were largely focused on closing out Q2 business, preparing for our customer meetings tomorrow, and getting ready for our technical seminar on Wednesday.

But here, I must really compliment GameBase. They have done a GREAT job with Gamebryo in Korea. You'll see more evidence of that as I do further postings here this week. But to Mr. Shin and his team at GameBase, a hearty THANK YOU for being such a great partner!!!

At GameBase's new office in the Gangnam area of Seoul.

At the GameBase office, DB is sporting the Korean-language Gamebryo 2.5 brochure that GameBase put together on their own initiative, while Val holds up the hot-off-the-press 2.5 build we just received from Chapel Hill.

A yummy Korean BBQ tonight with the GameBase staff.

Executive Chef, EGT

Tonight I received a short-lived promotion to Executive Chef, Emergent Game Technologies. Cooked spaghetti in my apartment for Val, DB and myself. Now we're hanging out watching "Without a Trace" on Tokyo's Super Drama TV channel. Are we party animals this Saturday night in Tokyo, or what?! Actually... after eating out and entertaining night after night, it's nice to just sit around in my cozy apartment. Never fear, though... after Val and DB finish off their beers, we're going to go totally crazy and have ice cream for dessert. Look out, Tokyo!!! :-)

By the way, I call the Executive Chef promotion short-lived because I accidentally undercooked the noodles and they were a bit tough. I guess I'll have to keep my day job!

I'll be accepting recipe submissions for our next wild, crazy night in Asia. :-)

Customer Visit in Tokyo

Today DB and I had a good meeting with a pre-customer in Tokyo; YES... there are no non-customers, just pre-customers. Now... since we do not want to tip our hand to our competitors, I have blocked out the company name in the photo, below. So... 5 credibility points to the first person in our Chapel Hill office who can figure out which pre-customer this is! :-)

And WOW... doesn't DB look sharp???!!!

Gamebryo 2.5 Announcement Event (発表会)

Our Tokyo team deserves HUGE kudos today. They did a FANTASTIC job arranging for a launch event we held in Tokyo today. The "happyokai" (hop-pyo-kai) is a common occurrence here in Japan. It literally means "announcement meeting" and it's advertised as "Hey... we're going to announce something at this meeting."

We rented a theater at the UDX building in Akihabara. Akihabara is Tokyo's electronics district, and every gadget-lovers dream. The happyokai's agenda looked like this:

• I gave short introductory remarks, talking about the company generally, and about our growth in Asia specifically. For example, I explained that we sold our first license in to China in 2005, that we sold more than 15 there in 2007, and that we've sold more than 10 there to date this year.
• Takumi Shimizu, the Business Development (Sales) Director on our Japan team, gave a brief introduction to Gamebryo 2.5.
• Kohei Kamata, the Technical Support lead on our Japan team, gave an Xbox 360 demo of Gamebryo.
  
• Yoshiaki Watanabe, Application Engineer at Avid Japan, gave a presentation and demo of the XSI exporter for Gamebryo. Yeah... we support XSI now!!! :-)
• Valery Carpentier, our Global TAM (Technical Account Manager) gave a demo of our terrain editor.

After the formal presentations in this theater environment, we did a brief Q&A, and also answered questions and showed product demos out in the theater lobby.

Again, hats off to our Tokyo team for organizing and pulling off such a successful event.

Val and DB pointing to the sign advertising our happyokai in the UDX theater.

The greeting table at our happyokai. The young lady, by the way, is a model hired from an agency to be our Master of Ceremonies. Very common in Japan.

Me giving my introductory remarks. We had quite a few press members there; I was blinded by all of the photo flashes as I started speaking.

The theater where our happyokai was held. This shot was taken before people started arriving. The Gamebryo banners at the top were a nice touch, one of our demos is running on screen, and both DB and Val are sitting at the front of the theater working on their PCs.

Game Tools & Middleware Forum 2008: Tokyo

Emergent is thrilled to be participating in Japan's Game Tools & Middleware Forum 2008. The event is held in Tokyo on June 4th, in Fukuoka on June 13th, and in Osaka on June 17th. Much of our Tokyo-based team will be at events, as well as folks visiting from our Calabasas (CA), Chapel Hill (NC), and European offices.

Emergent's session at the Tokyo event today was packed, and we had quite heavy traffic at our display tables. Emergent's new Gamebryo 2.5 was very well-received by those in attendance, and there is quite a bit of buzz around our products here.

DB said nobody from our Chapel Hill office would believe this if it weren't for the photo, but here he is in a suit and tie standing with Val, as we are about to head up to the event venue.

DB and John at our display table at the event.

Val is giving a technical presentation to a packed room of about 150 game production team members from the Tokyo area.

Not only can Emergent cool down your hot development pain points, but we'll cool you down physically, as well. Water, sponsored by Emergent...

Our display table at the event. During actual conference sessions things got a bit quiet, but most of the day saw quite a bit of traffic.