Hi everyone, this is Wu Hao, Chief Representative of Epic Games for Greater China and SE Asia Territory. Generally I’m in charge of Engine licensing and support business in this territory and trying to give our best to serve the UE community here better. Here's what's Epic's been up to in China!
In the fall of 2014 we ran a couple of roadshows with great support from our local friends in China and from Epic Games Korea. Specifically, we had Engine Developer and Support Lead Jack Porter from Seoul visiting a bunch of existing and potential UE3/UE4 licensees in China. It was a four-city trip in five days all over China (Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, then back to Shanghai), which was exhausting but fun. Jack gave two speeches, one at “ARM Developer Day” hosted in Chengdu with the topic of “UE4 Dev Optimization for Mobile Platform” and another for Appseeds' Unreal Dev Day held in Shanghai on the topic of “Talking about Nex-Gen Rendering Technology”. Appseeds is an incubator which was established by Mr. Kou Xiaowei, who is known as “Godfather” in the industry in China. Mr. Kou was the founder of Chinajoy and had overseen the industry for almost ten years before he left that position and became an angel investor. We also paid a visit to Megafun, a great UE4 indie developer in Shenzhen. The title they are working on is impressive for an 8-people indie. The side-scrolling action gameplay was striking and unique, and I can’t wait to play the prototype.
Epic Games' Jack Porter with independent developers in Shanghai.
In China we don’t recognize Christmas and the Western New Year as traditional festivals, but to young people, to gamers, and to us they are HUGE! Nearing the end of 2014, we hung out at IGDA China right before Christmas Eve where we met with friends from King.com China, EA Shanghai and a bunch of others. While we're still working on the completion of the company registration of Epic Games’ subsidiary in China, we've been using these opportunities to spread the message that Epic and Unreal are truly entering China (also Taiwan and the Southeast Asia territory) now.
The year ahead is important to Epic China as everything is kicking off in 2015. We are going to finish company registration in the first quarter and will get the office settled down, renovated and ready in the second. I believe two of our most senior Unreal Engine developers are going to join the team very soon, ending my “one-man-army” period.
Jay & I visiting Zizhu Park
Already in 2015, we've had a great time in the city of Xiamen (Amoy) from Jan 6-10 for the Mobile Game Annual Summit (MGAS). I met a bunch of developers like Gbomb Taiwan, Snail Game, Toofun, and Wanda who are all using Unreal Engine or evaluating the technology.
MGAS (Mobile Game Annual Summit) in Xiamen, China
I was also recently in Taiwan for Taipei Game Show. Taiwan is in a similar situation as mainland China in the sense that the PC client game market is shrinking while the mobile market is booming. With the penetration of smartphones, gamers are looking for more high-end mobile games. I’ll give you guys an update about that trip soon!
Finally, I would like to mention a couple of highlighted licensees/partners of ours here in China. I just had another meeting with our friends at A Seed Studio and their partner Fedeem Games. A Seed has been working on a fun tower defense game on UE3 for eight months, and Fedeem is going to ship it this summer in the North American and European markets. It’s a pity we can’t disclose any info about that game for the time being, but I believe it will be public soon enough. One more exciting title is “A Few Days Left” developed by Orap Studio and published by Perfect World iOS. The game got recommended by Apple in almost 100 countries worldwide. It’s definitely worth checking out.