GAMING AROUND THE WORLD - HONG KONG

Hong Kong's game playing scene is unique. Both Chinese and English are official languages. Thus people play both English and Chinese PC games. The players, though there is no supporting statistics, should be primarily within the 15-35 age group. They play games of different categories - ranging from action, strategy, role playing, adventures and the like. Game shops scattered over different districts and many are crowded with customers, mostly secondary school students. Like other places, software piracy is not uncommon. However, the advent of Asian editions of original games help alleviate the piracy problem.

Though over 98% of Hong Kong population is Chinese, English has been a popular language under British rule for 150 years. The younger generation all study English in school for years. This, with the growing popularity of PC, create a vast market for games from the western world. As Hong Kong is a free port, almost all games are imported as soon as they are released overseas. PC games (together with genres like Nintendo and Sega video games) are a major pastime for many teenagers here. The game echo on the FidoNet is always crammed with messages. These days hot games include Ultima 8, Simcity 2000 and a couple of others.

Where do people learn of new games? Primarily from game shops and magazines. Shops display small posters of new arrivals. For more details people can refer to game magazines. Computer Gaming World, PC Format, Strategy+ and Game Players etc. can be found in some bookshops. Hong Kong

does not have a decent local PC game magazine, in my opinion. The Chinese one called Computing Age is not strictly a game magazine, which is superficial, poorly designed and merely fills some pages with cracking codes and walkthroughs (some are plagiarized from overseas publications, I guess). Those from Taiwan (in Chinese) are much better and they are sold out quite fast every month. Take the "Soft World Magazine Monthly" as an example. It is also distributed in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. It consists of 200 pages all in color, a feature which is not found in every English magazine. This magazine has introduced to the Chinese people a lot of games from the West and Japan. The Soft World Company also publishes a Chinese edition of the Computer Gaming World. The company also produces many Chinese games.

Talking about Chinese games, Taiwan is the major producer. As far as I know, Hong Kong does not have such game company. There are about ten game companies in Taiwan. Every month there are new releases as announced in game magazines. However, the game quality is still inferior than those from the West in terms of depth and playability. Most are being role playing or adventure games with similar interface and design. But the advantage is the simplicity of their interface, thus making it easy for players to navigate. The animations are also very good. At this point I feel that many English games are growing too sophisticated to attract new gamers and novice. Even sometimes I am scared away from their complexities. Naturally, in Taiwan Chinese games outsell English ones for their English standard lags behind Hong Kong people. To overcome the language barrier, they produce Chinese versions of English games. Some famous titles have been translated into Chinese such as Warlords II, the Might and Magic series, Sherlock Holmes, Romance of the 3 Kingdoms III (from Japanese) and Simcity 2000 (under production) and some others. I think this trend will grow as Soft World comes into agreement with more foreign companies.

Software piracy has been a problem in many parts of the world. For Hong Kong gamers, games from overseas are usually too expensive for them, with regard to the fact that most are teenagers or students without stable income. The resort that many of them turn to is 'copying games' which just costs them about US$1 per floppy disc. I may say most game shops here provide such "service". At times the Customs Department would suppress the illegal activity. Yet it survives because of the high demand. When there is demand, there is always a solution.

Taiwan companies signed contracts with foreign companies for Asian editions of English games. This can help fight software piracy and make products available to gamers at an affordable price. For example, my copy of Simcity 2000 is an Asian edition. It looks the same as the American edition, except its manual is in Chinese. It costs us HK$80 only (US$1=HK$7.8). Chinese Warlords II edition cost the same amount. These Asian editions (be it translated into Chinese or not) are far cheaper than overseas edition. People here welcome them. Maybe gamers in USA feel jealous :) Just imagine you can get retail packages of games like Privateer, Strike Commander, Simfarm, Ultima VII, Alone in the Dark, Wing Commander Academy, Aces in the Pacific.... at the average price of HK$100!

More people will enter the realm of computer gaming as PC is becoming a standard equipment of the family here. I can forsee it will enter the mainland communist China in the coming years. My cousins in Shenzhen (just north of Hong Kong) own a 386DX and they enjoy playing computer game with me during my visits.