JOHOR BAHRU AND UTM GIVE GAMEFOUNDERS THE PERFECT START TO THE BIG ASIA TOUR
GameFounders kicked off the their Big Asia Tour with an event at the University Teknologi Malaysia featuring Unity Technologies and co-sponsored by UTM and the MagicX program. The event was a tremendous start for the events to follow in Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Tokyo, Bangkok, Pulau Pinang, and Kuala Lumpur – where it will all happen this fall.
Over sixty developers and students in Johor Bahru attended to hear a mixture of sessions covering game engines, game research and studio building. Dr. Shah, Associate Professor, started the event by presenting several videos showing the pleasant working atmosphere at UTM and a diverse range of projects from the MagicX program ranging from AI to graphics, all relevant to game development.
After Dr. Shah, the event switched gears to a more technical level with a talk on Unity’s current and future plans given by Evan Spytma, Regional GM for SEA, Oceania and India. Evan spoke about Unity’s drive to simplify the number of tools required to ship successful games. With this in mind, Unity has rolled out Cloud Build, a tool for easily distributing builds, Unity Ads, a key revenue generator through providing free in-game ads and a Unity Personal Edition all to continue in their quest to help developers lower the costs and complexity of development.
Sho Sato, presented our third talk of the evening, focusing on how to enter the Japanese market. Sato-san is Chief Analyst at Media Create, a research firm specialized in analyzing World game market dynamics. He expressed how difficult it is to find the right partner, and provided some advice to developers on how to properly build relationships with Japanese companies and what to expect when those relationships are established. Sho-san, is a great relationship builder so his help was invaluable.
Finally, Andrew Walker, COO and Partner at GameFounders, talked about the challenges of building a competitive game studio in today’s market. Andrew emphasized that it is and always has been up to each and every game studio to find their own path and identity according to their strengths, weaknesses and passions. He explained how the GameFounders program was created to directly help committed developers make those choices while building strong successful businesses, and help them build global networks of investors and publishers.
The event was then turned over to local developers to give them an opportunity to pitch their game to both the presenters and the audience. The games were of a very high quality including an intriguingly hard firefly-themed smashing game, and an ambitious mystically themed war game. We also had some very interesting research presented detailing an adaptive AI suitable for games.
The start of the Big Asia Tour in Johor Bahru was incredibly successful. Their hospitality, local talent, and dynamic educational program created not only a wonderful evening but showed incredible enthusiasm for our upcoming events. GameFounders hopes to receive many great applications from the region and looks forward to visiting University Teknologi Malaysia again during their first Asian accelerator program in Malaysia in partnership with MDEC.
To check out some pictures from the event click HERE