It's game on for S'pore
19 December 2006, ZDNet Asia
SINGAPORE - Mobile game development received a boost last week when the government announced its plan to help its local talent.
Dubbed INVIGORATE, the new scheme will provide aspiring mobile game developers in the country with funding of up to S$25,000 (US$16,250) for each project. The money will be allocated based on each team's production budget, as well as mentorship with locally- or globally-based game studios and publishers in a "master-class environment", according to Singapore's Media Development Authority (MDA) in a statement. The master-class will cover elements such as core business, design and production management aspects of mobile game development, and also provide a workshop environment for mentors to assist the developers in enhancing their concept designs towards global deployment standards, MDA said.
"We believe there are talented teams based in Singapore who may not be able to produce their concepts due to the lack of funding avenues or proper mentorship," Seto Lok Yin, MDA's director of industry development told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail. "Through INVIGORATE, we hope to encourage these teams to enter the arena of mobile game development and showcase their creative and production talents and, in turn, expand the talent pool of our game development industry."
Singapore's game
Leslie Wou, chief executive officer of Activate Interactive - another local game developer and publisher roped in as a mentor for INVIGORATE, told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview that although Singapore is not a cheap place to develop games, it is well-suited to develop "games that are sophisticated and more technically intensive" because of its high-tech edge.
Wou said locally-based developers should, therefore, focus on games that are "higher quality" and more content intensive - games that lengthen the play-time of the gamer. Examples include community-based games, multi-player games and games that are connected over the Internet.
He noted that the republic is also a good place for development processes such as test-bedding and prototyping. However, as the "Singapore market is very small, [local developers] have to look toward the whole Asia region. Build a good industry in [Singapore] and then market it as a whole - the whole Asia region", Wou noted.
"Asia is just one step. After that, we should go to the U.S. and Europe," he added.
According to accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, Wou said, the global mobile entertainment and games industry is projected to be worth US$73 billion by 2009.