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Published on December 25, 2007

The total value of the Thai game market reached Bt5.7 billion last year, with projected annual growth of 17 per cent.

The figures suggest a bright future for the game businesses in Thailand, but closer scrutiny reveals only Bt500 million was generated by local developers of game software.

Although the Thai game industry has shown rapid annual growth, local game producers are almost locked out of the market, because it is dominated by international products. So there has been an appeal for support from government and related software-promotion agencies to help the local industry find its feet.

"The government should have a clear policy and set a direction for development of the game industry," says Thai Game Software Industry Association adviser Pongrapee Thongsrinoon.

Pongrapee says local people, by nature, have strengths, particularly in creativity, so the government should find ways to nurture and harness their talents. He also believes the government should play a turnkey role.

"Today, government support focuses only on the production side. We need a complete cycle of support, in order to encourage the entire Thai game industry," he says.

Pongrapee believes support should begin at the workforce-education level: government or software-promotion agencies should work with universities to develop special courses to train people for the game-development industry. Government agencies should also work with the game industry and international experts to come up with an internationally accepted best-practice curriculum for game professionals that could be integrated into existing degree courses, such as computer science, and make it a specialisation.

"The course could be part of the computer-science programme but specialising in game development. This would create qualified people for the industry," he explains.

Meanwhile, local game developers should be trained in business and marketing skills, to help them both understand business and develop products that really serve customer demand.

"We face a problem in which we have good products but cannot sell them, because most game developers lack business and marketing mindsets," Pongrapee says. "Training and providing mentors to help young entrepreneurs would assist."

Lack of funding is another problem in the local game-development business, and Pongrapee believes government agencies should provide funds for the digital and software industries and form partnerships with recognised funding sources.

He says there is also a need for support in the form of prototype funding and matching funds. This kind of support would help local game developers create real products for commercial use.

Investment and outsourcing are also vital issues in the creation of a Thai game industry, and Pongrapee says government organisations like the Software Industry Promotion Agency, the Board of Investment and the Revenue Department should collaborate to develop an incentive package to encourage investment and outsourcing in the game-development field. This would create jobs and technology transfer.

He says local developers must reach out to international markets, because the domestic game market is not yet big enough to support the industry. The Thai game market represents only 0.6 per cent of the world game market, valued at Bt930 billion.

Hand-held and online games have the potential for local game developers to take a greater share of the world market.

"One way for local game developers to survive is to move towards games for hand-held devices like the Nintendo DS or Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) and for online gaming," he says.

One survey of the US game market shows most software is being developed for console games like Sony's PlayStation, Nintendo and Microsoft's Xbox. Software for hand-held and online games comes second and third, respectively, in development volume.

Even though console games show the highest potential, they are difficult territory for Thai game developers. Developing console games requires not only high technical skills, but also a huge investment of about Bt100 million per game, and the development cycle lasts two or three years.

"Hand-held games are an area that has room for Thai developers, while the requirements are within their reach," Pongrapee says.

There are about 40 million hand-held game devices for the Nintendo DS around the world, and another 20 million for the Sony PSP. Each machine has at least three games installed.

Pongrapee says this offers opportunities for local game developers, because the cost of hand-held-game development is between Bt2 million and Bt10 million, while the development cycle is only six to 10 months.

However, only a few Thai game companies are licensed to develop hand-held games for Nintendo DS devices, and since the game industry requires integrated skills of creativity, art, technology and marketing, only a few are ready to take the local or world stages.

Pongrapee believes the government should help build one very strong local company to stand as an example to the industry. Having such a company would create confidence among local game developers while offering a model for best practices and success to other, growing game companies.

"We cannot put our efforts into building everyone at the same time, so we must identify one company with potential and build it to success, then use it as a model for other companies," he says.

The Nation