Taipei Game Show to kick off next week

Taipei, Jan. 12 (CNA) The 2022 Taipei Game Show will kick off next week to be one of the first major gaming events around the world for the year, with the number of in-person attendees to be limited to a maximum of 7,000 people at any given time in view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers said Wednesday.

The theme of this year's show, "Gaming Forward," represents the gaming community's undiminished enthusiasm despite the COVID-19 situation as it opens its doors to gamers from Jan. 22-25 at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, a spokesperson for the Taipei Computer Association (TCA) said at a press conference in Taipei.

The spokesperson added that a total of 185 developers and publishers from around 20 countries would take part in the show either online or at the exhibition site itself.

One of the exhibitors is local video game publisher Neon Doctrine, which will be exhibiting five games, the publisher's cofounder Vladislav Tsypljak told CNA.

One of the games he is promoting is "The Legend of TianDing," which has over 97 positive reviews on video game digital distribution service Steam, Tsypljak said.

The side-scrolling action game is based on the historical Taiwanese folk hero Liao Tien-ting (廖添丁) who, legend has it, robbed from the rich and gave to the poor during Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan.

"The Legend of TianDing" will be one of 140 games and hardware showcased at the Taipei Game Show this year, according to a TCA statement.

The 33-year old Tsypljak decided to move most of his team to Taipei to help promote indie games from East Asia and Southeast Asia after attending the Taipei Game Show for the past six to seven years.

"So, we try to help the developers to gain more visibility because as you might know there is a huge language barrier and culture barrier, especially if they want to showcase outside of this region," Tsypljak said.

He primarily works with developers in Asia to help them reach the worldwide market, Tsypljak said.

Meanwhile, the B2B Zone and the Asia Pacific Game Summit (APGS) will take place online from Jan. 20-21.

The B2B Zone will feature over 300 developers from 32 countries in hopes of promoting business matching and partnership.

According to TCA statistics, the global games market generated revenues of US$180.3 billion last year and US$159.3 billion in 2020.

In addition, APGS will focus on talks delivered by gaming heavyweights around the world, such as Shuhei Yoshida, head of Indies Initiative at Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya, studio head and chief game designer, respectively, of PLATINUMGAMES INC.

TCA Digital Content Department manager Sally Tsai (蔡宇橞) told CNA that due to COVID-19 prevention protocols, the annual show will only allow 6,000-7,000 people to enter at any given time, following on from similar regulations last year.

The show was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic.