International experts view Thailand as a professional and fast growing source for game and animation development and services, saying now is the right time to bring Thai products to the global market.
The Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) recently held its Thailand Digital Content Workshop and Conference 2009, and invited international industry experts from IEM Consulting and West Wing Studio to help train Thai software developers and entrepreneurs.
West Wing Studio vice-chairman and CTO Sony Suzuki--who has worldwide experience with many of the industry's well-known motion picture studios--noted that Thailand was a hidden treasure and was good source of animation artists for the world market.
"I have been in this business for 30 years, and I can say that Thai artists are some of the best thing in the world. They have a superb eye, have amazing talent in creating new identity, and such talent does not exist in places like South Korea, India, or Malaysia," said Suzuki who grew up in the business--his father was a film director, and his grandmother was an actress.
The expert stated that three elements that Thai developers should learn to help bring their products to the export market were project management skills, packaging skills and how to share a project.
Thai animation skills were incredible, the director noted, saying the team of experts and Sipa needed to help them with the right concepts and they could do it right now.
"I can bring them to any network, I just need to help show them how to package their skills," said Suzuki, who also has experienced in with Disney, Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg, Warner Brothers, ILM and George Lucas, Vivendi Universal, CNN, the BBC and others.
He noted that there were four areas that Thai animators could begin with: "The new iPhone-based manga animations, which are the same model as manga but there was a new emerging market, it's interactive game and animation, with same technology and same platform, that's where Thai animators should go."
3D technology was the second potential area, remarked Suzuki who owns 3D studios in Hollywood and India, and would like to open one in Thailand with a plan to employ Thai animators, as a U.S. company was interested in doing 3D development here.
Suzuki pointed out the very strong Thai look and feel of Suriyothai, the story of love and courage, as he said when he compared it to Arabian Nights, it's identical in terms of innovation.
"That's why we have to co-operate with the executive director to deliver that, and the time is now for Thai animators with Thai content to export," the CTO said.
Thailand could be a very strong place for outsourcing, he said, noting that Indian animation was too expensive now, and thus it's an opportunity for Thailand as Thai animators were very enthusiastic and they were good at the work.
Those elements, and new technology in 3D and the iPhone, are getting closer to the game industry and, Suzuki said, it should make it a very effective investment and organization.
Also on the advisory board of Kantana Motion Picture and Animation Studios, Suzuki noted that four Thai artists have been selected to work on 3D animation with the foreign company.
Working with foreign companies in countries such as Japan, the U.S. and South Korea, where they had different standards, different cultures and different workflows to create the best products, they would learn project management skills.
"Thai developers are very kind and very good, but in the Western world, you have to learn how to package what we call the marketing mix, so it requires strategic planning to create the packaging skill properly," Suzuki noted.
"To learn about how to share a project, they should learn about the culture, learn how to sell the project, or product development."
According to IEM Consulting owner and management consultant Frank Holz, a business management company specialising in the games industry, what he's seen so far through the workshop was that there were a lot of creatives here, a base where he said good games could be started.
"The workshop was very much appreciated by the audience. The participants are eagerly looking for international information related to their daily businesses. They asked lots of creative questions as they didn't know what kind of games they should develop for the international market," Holz said, adding that there were a huge variety of technological and creative skills available.
There was huge potential to go for the international market and development teams wanted to improve their skills and asked for international guidance.
Platforms already covered by the Thai development teams include NDS, Wii, PC Casual, PC MMO, Xbox 360 (XNA) iPhone, however, the expert commented that there were too much game developers at Nintendo, and they were developing for the wrong platform.
"Before you start developing the games, you need to have a very clear concept for the potential on the international market, you need to analyse right at the beginning," he said.
During the marketing workshop developers learned which kind of products international game developers are currently looking for. As Nintendo DS and Wii products are not performing well--beside Nintendo's own releases - they are looking more for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games. Another platform becoming more and more attractive for developers was the online platform, distributed via the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. All platforms are offering smaller games on their online stores, with titles selling at prices between US$5 and US$15.
"The Microsoft Marketplace is the most popular one at the moment. It is a good chance for new IP development. Build up your brand with lower financial risk by online distribution and expand successful brands to other platforms."
The game industry consultant remarked that in addressing foreign markets in the US or Europe, you need to have some kind of industry standard. "For example, if you are working with big game publishers and would like them to give you a project, you need to make sure that you are doing the game development in the right way, we have the same standard that we are teaching here."
Holz stated that IEM would support selected development teams with game concept analysis as well as technological and production know-how and would provide international PR on selected titles and support selected developers with publisher pitching. The company would promote the Thai games industry on an international level with industry PR and participation at game conventions and conferences.
"Thailand is a professional and fast growing market for game development and services," the expert noted.
Play video
There are currently no comments for this post.