gvoice29_en by gamania gvoice

OCT, 2010 vol.29

GAMANIA

RELOADED MARCHING

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Gamania's Debut Appearance in Tokyo Game Show Feature Report at TGS 2010 Winner of July's "Fiercest Operation Team Award"

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After 4 Years, Gamania is back in TGS The Tokyo Game Show (TGS) 4 years ago, Gamania’s Philadelphia project took a beating. We brought our first self-produced product and made our way back to the international market. We didn’t act green or impetuous but poised and grateful. Why? Because with the support of numerous players and partners, Gamania secured its foothold and re-launched, making its way back to TGS since 2006. 4 years of incubating and accumulating momentum, Gamania rose to the occasion at TGS this year. It announced 8 head-turning self-produced works, causing quite a stir with its exceptional campaigns. The event was peaked with the presence of John Woo, the world renowned director, who visited the Show for the promotion of the film, Reign of Assassin. Gamania made quite an appearance at the venue, the magnitude of the promotion scale and capacity was similar to the top-tier international company such as Microsoft in the States and SEGA in Japan. Speaking of Gamania ’ s involvement in TGS, it ’ s come a long way. TGS is the one international game show that Gamania participated the most and the timing also coincided with Gamania ’ s crucial strategies, Asianization and Globalization. This edition of G!Voice will give you a comprehensive analysis on TGS, reviews of Gamania’s participation in other international game shows in the past years and this year’s TGS exclusive feature report. It’ll be a fun ride you can’t miss!

Editing Department

● Publisher: Albert Liu ● Editorial Desk: Eric Chen ● Editor-in-chief: Yoyo Dai ● Creative Desk: Kiwi Chang/Betty Wang ● Art Editor: Brandon Huang ● Web Planner: Kenji Lin ● Web Designer: Snow Wang ● Publishing: Gamania Brand Center

Contents Features

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SECURED FOOTHOLD IN ASIA, MAKING PRESENCE IN GAME SHOWS AROUND THE GLOBE ALBERT: LET GLOBAL MEDIA CHASE AFTER GAMANIA Marching into TGS 2010 GAMANIA SHOW GIRL MOST MAGNETIC EYE CANDIES GAMANIA’S HOTTIE WALL DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

Events

Winner of "Fiercest Operation Team Award" for July:

The《Machi》Team

Column

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Internet marketing observer Mika：

This is how game show does their marketing, how about that? Convener of Shuffle Alliance Jojo:

Animation Voice Actors: Japan vs. the U.S gamaniabrandcenter:

When AIAIAI Paid Tribute to Walkman…

GAMANIA

Features

GAMANIA'S OUTPOST WAR IN THE GLOBAL BATTLEFIELD

This year Gamania chose Tokyo Game Show (TGS) show the world its R&D results over the years. Following the goals set in Project 3, it improved upon the quality of its self-produced product. In this year’s TGS, you could clearly see Gamania’s resolution and strength through the scale of its exhibition and the quantity of self-produced games. It is determined to ignite a force of immense game power in the near future. Gamania’s global strategic deployment has expanded to locations such as Japan, Korea, Netherland, U.S, Hong Kong and Shanghai. This year’s TGS serves not only as the venue for Gamania to shine but an outpost war before entering into the global battle. Next, when accumulating enough momentum, Gamania will move on to attend two of the most important events in the global game industry: Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, U.S and GamesCom in Koln, Germany. TGS, E3 and GamesCom are considered the world’s top 3 game expos, attracting more than billion of players to participate in the events. Through the exposure in these three expos, we believe that in the near future, we can count on Gamania to ignite massive game power.

GAMESCOM

EUROPE

TGS

ASIA

NORTH AMERICA 05

GAMANIA

Features SECURED FOOTHOLD IN ASIA, MAKING PRESENCE IN GAME SHOWS AROUND THE GLOBE The World’s top 3 game shows are not only the focus of players around the world, but venues for global mega game companies to show their strength and exchange ideas and experience. Gamania has attended the Asian representative, TGS many times and accumulated many experiences and strengths. These will in turn feed on as the preparation for future participation in the game shows in the U.S and Europe. So what are the exciting reviews of Gamania’s presence in the past events? What features and signiﬁcances do these two game shows in the U.S and Europe have? G!Voice tells you all!

Gamania Professed Excellence in Asia's Biggest Game Show TGS Background TGS, short for Tokyo Game Show is a huge game exhibition hosted in Makuhari Messe in Chiba city, Japan. The content includes all kinds of game consoles, entertainment software, computer games and other spin-off products. The ﬁrst TGS was hosted in 1996 and now it has become the largest game show expo in Asia. Starting in 1997, TGS was regularly hosted in every spring and fall, however in 2002, it was changed to once a year. Normally the ﬁrst one to two days are open to professional personnel such as game industry related people and the media; the following one to two days are general days, open to all visitors.

Gamania at TGS Gamania made its first debut appearance in TGS in 2002. Since it’s Gamania’s ﬁrst overseas exhibition, it decided to rent 55 booths to show its attitude as an international game company. This year’s TGS, Gamania not only became the ﬁrst professional online game company, but also the largest foreign game company other than Japanese game companies. The feature games demonstrated in the show included, Eternal Chaos Online, Noah’s Ark, Forestia, Athanasia and Gersang Online, each distinct in style. Gamania set up more than 30 game trial machines and designed a series of activities on stage all of which to showcase Gamania’s fun energy and strength. Gamania returned to TGS in 2006 with the concept of “discovery” as the theme. Gamania seeks to voice through Asia platform, and let the world “discover” Gamania’s R&D strength by showing 5 self-produced games: Super Rich Online, Bright Shadow, Xian Mo Dao, Zodiac and AOW. It was Gamania’s way of telling the market and the players that “We’re back!” more importantly, it was a significant milestone for Gamania to make a statement.

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Features Game Shows in Respective Asian Regions

Asia is the hottest spot for global game industry and is also the most thriving online game area in the world. Not only was TGS born in here, but many other signiﬁcant game shows are held in places like China, Hong Kong and Korea. Gamania has brought the latest, coolest games to players in these markets. Now let’s take a look at Gamania’s debut presence in these shows and expos!

Taipei Game Show

Debut Year: 2003 Gamania Feature Products: EverQuest Online Adventures, Gersang Online, Eternal Chaos Online, Cococan Online Taipei Game Show is the biggest game show in Taiwan. Originally it was co-exhibited with Taiwan Multimedia Show until it became an independent show in 2003. As Taiwan ’ s biggest online game brand, Gamania rented 64 booths in the ﬁrst annual Taipei Game Show in 2003. The concept for the theme design was “Gama-Fun-Park”, savored of fun and creativity. There were up to 45 computers for players to try the games. Everyday at the opening, there was even Gama-Celebration, a series of activities design to enable players to have the most fun. There goes without saying that Gamania outstaged other companies at Taipei Game Show in 2003.

China Digital Entertainment Expo

Debut Year: 2004 Gamania Feature Products: Gersang Online, Eternal Chaos Online China Digital Entertainment Expo a.k.a ChinaJoy is an interactive entertainment exhibition that focuses main on online games, following the footsteps of E3 expo in the U.S and TGS in Japan. The first ChinaJoy was hosted in Beijing in 2004 which Gamania participated. During the Expo, Gamania promoted the strategic game, Gersang Online with three days of campaign promotion (including traditional Chinese lion dance and group dance).

Jeonju Computer Game Expo (Korea) Debut Year: 2004 Gamania Feature Product: Gersang Online Restricted by the man force and resource, currently Gamania hasn â&#x20AC;&#x2122; t participated in the biggest game show in Korea, G-Star. However, GKR still did its best in promoting Gamania products in local game expos. GKR attended the Jeonju Computer Game Expo in 2004, promoting Gersang Online as the feature product and was well-received by local players.

Animation-Comic-Game Hong Kong (ACGHK) Debut Year: 2005 Gamania Feature Products: Machi, Gersang Online, Heat Project, EQII

Gamania first attended ACGHK in 2005. Our staff stood by to assist and guide players to open accounts or play games. We wanted to make sure HK players were having great fun! In addition, Gamania hired booth arrangement designer to design our booths. We spent a fortune to create a multi-dimensional entertainment center, providing players with entertainment, shopping and visual pleasure so that players would feel satisďŹ ed and pleased after browsing our booths.

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Features Two Major Game Festivities in Europe and the U.S E3 Game Expo in the U.S E3, also known as Electronic Entertainment Expo/Exposition is one of the biggest commercial exhibitions in the world of electronic games. The exhibition is only open to people in the game industry and media and has an age limit of 18 years old. The first E3 was co-held with Interactive Digital Software Association in 1995. Normally E3 is held in the 3rd week of May every year in Los Angeles Convention Center in the U.S. Many developers will exhibit games or hardware products that are about to be launched in the market in E3. E3 has been conferring an independent award called Game Critics Awards since 1998 to respective games of the year in E3.

Europe-GamesCom Köln GamesCom Köln is one of the biggest and professionally recognized annual international game expo in Europe. Founded in 2002, GamesCom was originally called Games Convention and was the ﬁrst interactive game show in Germany and the biggest, most recognized computer & TV games expo in Europe. Each year, it attracts a large number of software and hardware developers to attend the show and is established as the major platform for the exchange of information among game companies, players and media. Games Conventions relocated its base from Leipzig to Köln in 2009 and altered its name to GamesCom. In 2009, GamesCom attracted 458 companies from 31 different countries, 17,000 professional buyers and 22,8000 people. Moreover, over 4000 global media from 48 countries and reports of articles and news coverage delivered by 22,000 news agency and other publishing media. All of which shows the important status GamesCom has in the international game market.

GAMANIA

Features

Gamania's Stance on TGS 2010

ALBERT: LET GLOBAL MEDIA CHASE AFTER GAMANIA

This year Gamania became the ultimate comeback kid, not only expanding its exhibition scale, a neck and neck with mega companies like Microsoft and SEGA, but announcing more self-produced products than ever before. It seems like Gamania wants to make a statement on its R&D results. But what exactly did Gamania want to declare to the world about on TGS? What does it want to prove? What does our CEO, Albert’s expectation towards Gamania?

Gamania has up to 70 booths at this year’s TGS, largest scale of all time, what exactly does Gamania wish to convey through TGS? What ’s Gamania’s claim and stance this time? Albert Since the group announced Project 3, Gamania has been working towards the goal of globalization. Gamania put on more works than previous years. We didn’t try to prove anything through the scale of exhibition. We needed that kind of the space because we did have that many self-produced products this year. However, we should also bear in mind that, Gamania has reached the magnitude of a mega international company. The world, our peers and players all have eyes on us so we should do even better. In addition, Gamania will make two points to show our stance in this year’s TGS: 1. our resolution to continuously propelling Gamania to become globalized; 2. our determination to enhance the quality and quantity of our self-produced products.

digital entertainment. Of course we hope that this year’s Show would plan out smoothly. We must not be conceited but we should have faith in what we do. Gamania has participated TGS three times, a lot more than that of other international game shows, why does Gamania have its eyes set only on TGS? Albert Actually Gamania was going to attend E3 this year but Gamania has a policy: one international exhibition a year. We also took into consideration that Gamania couldn’ t afford that much men force and resource backup in E3 so eventually E3 was left out. And why didn’t we attend China Joy or Gstar in Korea? Our concern was the exposure received from international media. TGS is far more renowned and popular than the other two. In addition, Gamania is more familiar with Tokyo and has an operation base there. When these factors combined, you see what we chose TGS this year.

Gamania had previously attended TGS in 2002 and 2006, with Gamania’s return this year, in Albert’s opinion, what is the biggest difference between these three participations?

From the 1st generation of self-produced game to the 2nd generation, what is Albert ’s thoughts on the transition or transformation? What is his expectation after TGS?

Albert In 2002, our goal was to achieve Asianization, targeting markets in Japan and China. However, the games we showed to other were mostly agent products since we didn’ t get desirable results from our selfproduced products. As a whole, our show at TGS in 2002 was a failure, we simply didn ’ t have enough experience and R&D capability. However, we were also blessed with that opportunity to participate in an international exhibition. The TGS in 2006, we have already risen above the mire from our Philadelphia Project setback. We were running 6 self-produced products and we were modest. We merely sought to declare that “Gamania is back! We stood up from where we fell and launched more products to the international market.” As for this year ’ s TGS, we ’ ve accumulated more energy and ready to show the world our result over the past few years. In addition to an impressive number of online games, there are also animations and other

Albert Compared to the 1st generation of products, Gamania has accumulated more seasoned R&D experience hence the content of 2nd generation has greatly enhanced. However, in the midst of all this, I see “opportunity” and “threats”. Opportunity because we’ve leaped ahead in terms of our R&D momentum, on the other hand, threats because we also receive pressure from the market’s demands. For the longest time, Gamania has held the power to dominate the market in our operation. However, R&D wise we do not seem to show the same strength. I expect this year, Gamania will gradually gain this kind of power. After TGS, we should continue to fire up our R&D and make it a force to be reckoned with. Let the global media chase after us, care about each phase of our game development and simmer players’ anticipation worldwide.

GAMANIA

Features

Marching into TGS 2010 Titled as the biggest game festivity, Tokyo Game Show 2010 was hosted in Makuhari Messe in Chiba city, Japan from 16th to 19th September 2010. This year’s TGS was enthusiastically joined by many foreign companies. Various activities were held in the Show, be the Media Day in the ﬁrst 2 days or the Players Day in the later 3 days, the show attracted a legion of people. This year also marked the 20th anniversary of TGS, the number of attendees broke a record high of 200,000—it was massive. As one of the top 10 companies in this year’s TGS and the biggest of all foreign companies, Gamania snatched the spotlight and wowed everyone at the Show. G!Voice gives you the in-depth analysis and feature reports from all aspects and shows you what Gamania had accomplished at TGS.

GAMANIA

Features Preparation Before the Official Opening Attending TGS 2010 is one of the most important projects Gamania planned this year. The planning can trace back to end of last year, from exhibition design, activities planning, selection of Show Girls to the manufacture of relevant gifts, Gamania attended to every detail. All of this was to make Gamania a mega star on the TGS stage. Now G!Voice will show you the laborious preparation Gamania went through before the ofﬁcial opening.

Intense Pre-Meetings To ensure the accuracy of every detail at the Show, Gamania flew over to Japan many times to personally discuss with the companies in Japan. The number of people involved and the presented documents were astounding. Gamania even handpicked the equipments and devices of sound and light effect for the Show.

2010 Show Girl Criteria Survey

Undeniably, Show Girls (SG) have always been the most doted-on subject for players and media alike. For the company, Show Girls also play an important role in representing the brand in communicating and servicing the players. Therefore to select suitable Show Girls has become a troubling issue for each company. In light of this, G!Voice conducted a feature interviews with our panel of judges: director of Brand Center, Ahbin Cheng, director of Corporate Communication Room, Ting Hung and head of GJP Marketing, Ayanaka Takai to find out what criteria Gamania Show Girls should meet.

Ahbin said:

30％ Pleasant Smile 30％ Figure 25％ Professionalism 15％ Bearing and Manner

I think pleasant smiles are important, after all they have to contact our consumers on behalf of the company. Although looks would be a plus, friendly and pleasant smiles are more attractive. Their bearing and professionalism are also key factors but most importantly, the curves matters. Don’t get me wrong, I meant that you need to have a good figure to be able to fit in our SG outfit.

Show Girl Selection To select one the one of the most important, most customer-engaging personnel--Show Girls, Gamania must set out an audition to interview hundreds of girls to hand-pick the most suitable girls for the part.

Ting Hung said: Basically girls who came for the audition are all quite nice, so I mostly focus on their level of confidence and manner of speaking. Many gorgeous looking girls when they walk into the room, they could be so nervous that they even have problems expressing ％ Bearing and themselves. Sorry, those gotta Manners go. Girls who possess of great conﬁdences and proper bearing ％ Photogenics ％ Communication and manners tend to win over my votes. In addition, we’d also Skills see if the girls are photogenic, ％ Appearance since this is also very important.

30 30 25 15

Ayanaka Takai said:

40 30 30

My primary criterion for selecting SG is cuteness. H o w e v e r, w e t r y t o include different types of girls, some taller, smaller, prettier, cuter etc. I've seen all the contestants during the SG audition, I'd mostly ％ Cute, cute and cute likely to pick girls who know how to handle ％ Communication Skills and Manners customers, who have great communication ％ Bearing skills and manners.

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Features Under Construction This year Gamania ’ s exhibition scale was one of the top 10 of all companies. The construction and preparation work we needed to undertake was massive. Other companies couldn’t help but peeked in the booth to check out what Gamania was all about.

Rehearsal Area To have a flawless and perfect performance in the ofﬁcial opening, rehearsal is the most important task of preparation. You can see rehearsals everywhere at Gamania’s exhibition booths at the Show.

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5 1. Gamania staff discussion meeting 2. Albert tried out each machine at the scene 3. Albert rehearsed the opening speech 4. Show Girls also circled around and listened to instructions on route and tips of receiving players 5. Operator of each machine stood by at the scene 6. Located in the back of the main stage, the backstage is ďŹ lled with all kinds of equipments and devices, with staff monitoring closely on the subtitles, sound effects on the stage. The reason for the smooth performance of all the activities going on in the front should be attributed to these backstage heroes.

GAMANIA

Features

PROMOTION 10 CAMPAIGNS AT TGS Top

Outside of TGS -Attention Grabber

We believe all of the Gamanians have heard that Gamania rocked the TGS this year, attracting attention from international media. Every TGS relevant news reported in Taiwan mostly covered Gamania. In fact, in addition to the booth, Gamania also extended its turf outside of the TGS venue so whether you are media or players, Gamania is deﬁnitely the ﬁrst thing you see. Before we enter the Show, let’s follow G!voice and check out what’s cooking outside.

Outside of TGS

Gamania * have a good GAME! Giant Balloon Upon entering the venue, a huge Gamania & have a good GAME! balloon was set erected near the entrance elevator with a smiling Gamania Show Girl stood on the side to remind everyone to visit Gamania’s booth. The grand balloon and the sweet Show Girl were well-received, a lot of visitors lined up to take pictures with them.

Main Lobby

Gigantic Poster of SelfProduced Game, Divina

After Lucent Heart became a success in Japan, Playcoo, Gamania ’ s very own subsidiary created the second self-produced product, Divina which is going to be the latest key product for GJP. To attract Japanese players’ attention, Gamania spent a substantial amount of money to secure the most obvious advertising area in the venue so that the visitors will have lasting impressions on Divina Goddesses.

Inside of TGS— Unstoppable Momentum

Gamania rented 70 booths inside the TGS 2010 venue where were closely located near international mega brands like Microsoft, Sony, SEGA, Square Enix and Capcom, making Gamania one of the top 10 in terms of exhibition scale and also the biggest game company from Taiwan. Before the official opening, G!Voice noticed that many companies came to observe and discuss Gamania’s booths. After the opening, Gamania once again became the center of the spotlight. Such exhibition magnitude was set to deliver three key strategies: 1. Step outside of Asia and march into the world; 2. Showcase Gamania’s powerful R&D momentum, presenting multiple self-produced games; 3. Advertising beanfun! entertainment platform and pave ways to becoming the leading digital entertainment brand in the globe. Through these three strategies, Gamania declared its ambition and determination in TGS, Gamania, Ready to Fight! How did Gamania present these three focal strategies precisely in the scale of this magnitude? What other interesting and exciting events took place during the exhibition? G!Voice will show you these places bit by bit.

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1. Reception Area 2. Main Stage Area 3. Small Conference Room 4. beanfun! Area 5. Game Experience Zone

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Features Reception Area: More People, Even More Gifts

In addition to the abounding products and excellent events, the most important thing to a exhibition show is the service provided by the reception staff. Whether the service attitude is friendly, whether the explanation is thorough or whether they acquire professional knowledge etc, all of which may directly affect visitors/consumers’ first impression towards a company or a brand. To fully fulﬁll this year’s strategy, Gamania’s reception area was considered one of the best: more people, even more gifts.

More People-Providing Service at an International Standard One of the most important strategies in this year’s TGS was to declare to the world: Step outside of Asia and march into the world. With 2/3 of the visitors at TGS were Japanese, Gamania especially arranged for Japanese beauties to station at the reception and other staff dressed in Gamania staff uniforms were also standby on the scene to serve the players. To show Gamania’s ambition in brand globalization, GHQ assigned a professional and international team consisted of staff who can speak at least 2 languages. The service language included, Chinese, Japanese, English, Korean, French and German. Gamania even designed a special T shirt that speciﬁes the languages the service staff speaks so players can easily identify who they can seek help from. The T shirt was highly praised by foreign players. The editor staff of G!Voice was even asked at the scene, “Where can I get this T shirt?” to which he had to politely informed the player that it was not for sale.

GJP Reception staff

Service Team Formed by International Business OfďŹ ce from GHQ

Press releases and corporate brochures printed in 4 different languages, Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean

In addition to a service team of international standard, the items provided by the reception area such as brochures, press release etc were also of international standard, translated into four versions, Chinese, English, Japanese and Korea. The brochures went out fast because they were well-designedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; nearly 20,000 copies of Japanese brochures were all given out, not a single one left.

GAMANIA

Features Even more gifts-Gama Gifts Were a Hit In order to leave a lasting impression on the media and players at TGS, Gamania prepared abundant gama gifts to melt their hearts. The gifts included, the popular gama cushion pillows (green, orange, pink), gama badges, mobile phone decorations, whistles, Divina balloons and super handy gama bags. Compared to other gifts that were giving away in the show (often times fans or bags, and 2 at most), Gamania’s gifts caused quite a stir at the scene. Players were requesting and queuing for the gifts and saying that, “Gamania’s so sincere and generous!”

Secret Gift Activity GHQ planned out and chose every gift to be given away at TGS. However GJP itself prepared a mysterious gift that was only distributed during Player ’ s Day. This secret gift was the Divina towel, but why the towel? It was alleged that there was going to be a secret activity during Player’s Day of which the towels would be distributed. As to what kind of activity it was? Well, hold your horses, G!Voice will reveal all in the stage area section.

Gama-sweet Media Gifts

G!Voice spotted that a media member started using the gamausb immediately.

TGS was flooded with international media during the ﬁrst two days. The press were doing interviews and reports about the event to bring the news back to their respective country. To impress the media, Gamania especially prepared the PR gift-gama usb for them. The usb was pre-stored with press releases in each four languages, it was like two gifts in one package and a gesture to show how thoughtful and detailed Gamania can be.

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Features

Gamania bag that caused a demand fever

Gamania bags were handed out to players by dozens of lovely Show Girls

Each Gamania gift was adored and highly praised, among which the gama bag really worked the crowd into a frenzy. Gama bag was personally distributed by Gamania Show Girls. The bag was printed with the logo Gamania and 8 main characters from the games. Its convenience (well-designed slant bag) and big space, players can put all the freebies theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got from the Show inside the bag. That was truly a considerate and ingenious gift, because this way all you can see in the show was gama-bags which created a pervasive Gamania presence. In the following Playerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; s Day, gama bags were so popular that the supply ran out in a short amount of time which completely exceeded the initial expectation.

1. Lines were formed to collect Gamania bags, the bag quickly ran out on the 1st day of Player Day. 2. Show Girls even helped the players to put the stuff in the bag, excellent service! 3. Gamania decided to take out some more bags to give to these players. 4. Gamania bags were out shortly after the opening of 2nd Player Day but many players still came to request for the bags. A sign had to be placed at the reception area.

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Gamania bag was a huge success, making Gamania the "it" focus inside or outside of the exhibition. The following is pictures captured by G!Voice. 1. Show venue 2. Rest area in the Show 3. CafĂŠ at the lobby 4. Subway Makuhari station in Japan 5. Tokyo subway

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Features

GAMANIA SHOW GIRL MOST MAGNETIC EYE CANDIES During the game show period, enchanting show girls are always the most magnificent landscape in the heaps of people. Be it the enthralling smile, sexy outﬁt or their brisk ﬁgures, the photographers can’t help but pressing shutters one after another. This year, Gamania nit-picked 38 show girls who scattered around every Gamania booths in the show, giving away free gifts, inviting players to do trial games and posing for players and media to take some gorgeous pictures. Just exactly how hot those show girls are? Gotta see them for yourself, let’s take a look at the pictures!

Limelight Madness In the series of 5 day ’s opening and closing ceremonies, Gamania ’ s show girls lined up to welcome and see off visitors. Every day during this time and for 5 days in a roll, the girls would cause a stir and swarmed by avid fans with photoflashes. Such was the charm and glamour of Gamania’s Show Girls.

GAMANIA

Features

GAMANIA’S HOTTIE WALL Gamania's Show Girls never failed to cause a stir on every Game Show. G!Voice presents— Show Girls review from previous years.

2002 TGS

2003 Taipei Game Show

2006 TGS

GAMANIA

Features

Game Experience Zone New Weapon In addition to the gorgeous Show Girls who buoyed the popularity of the brand, players also laid their eyes on the products. Gamania launched 8 self-produced games in one time. The Game machines, which occupied the width of three booths, were set in the back of the stage for players to experience ďŹ rst handily. Gamania even generously offered free cushion pillows (play to collect base), no wonder every passing player canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t afford to pass on without playing. The Game Experience Zone was packed with people.

GAMANIA

Features 2nd GENERATION FO SELF-PRODUCED GAMES IN FULL BLOOM Gamania launched 8 self-produced online games in TGS 2010, including CORE BLAZE (2011), Reign of Assassins (Same title as the movie), Langrisser Schwarz (online version of renowned Japanese console game, Langrisser), DIVINA, Warrior of Dragon, Soul Captor, Tiara Concerto and HERO：108 (same title as Gamania’s self-produced animation). Gamania went full blast on the fun ﬁre. What exactly are these characteristic games? What are their fun features? Now let’s have the producers of each game and the players at TGS to tell us the answers!

International Master Piece-CORE BLAZE in 3D CORE BLAZE, developed with Unreal3 engine, is an exceptional game that has magnificent simulated settings and challenging tasks. Players must work closely together in teams to conduct adventure strategy. They can feel the ﬂuidity of movements and the thrill of whacking and punching. The game is truly a master piece that enables the players to experience unprecedented exquisite details and a sense of live participation.

Producer said: We tried to overthrow and revolutionize the conventional design logic of MMO and online games. We want to incorporate the thrill and anticipation of console game into the online game world and to interpret second generation’s online game with such concept. In CORE BLAZE, players can expect faster rhythm, closer cooperation, higher level of character manipulation, more convenience in operation to replace the original MMO monster killing rampage. Through an integrated AI system and environment change control system, players will feel a game world that is complete in every detail.

G!Voice said:

Red Gate--Jacky

Due to the manufacturing process, Gamania couldn’t provide game sample at this year’s TGS. Main visual images and CG were shown to the players instead. However, the highly emulated animation successfully attracted many players and Japanese and Korean media’s attention.

Reign of AssassinsA Game You Can't Miss Online game Reign of Assassins incorporated the scenarios from the movie into the game. Players can feel the majestic ambience direction John Wu created and stories of love and feud the lead actors went through in the movie. The game is the ﬁrst of its own, incorporating the chapters, scenes and characters from the movie to recreate the identical aesthetic scenery.

Fantasy Fish—Jack Chang

Producer said:

Ms. Shibayama, Tokyo, Japan I’m into online games, my favorite is CABAL Online. I once saw Gamania’s beautiful booth in 2006 ’ s TGS and was really impressed. And because I like Chinese culture, I decided that I ’ d give Reign of Assassins a try. Although there’s only Chinese version available, the task explanation and navigation system are very detailed and thorough. Even though I don’t understand Chinese, I still have no problem playing the game.

Reign of Assassins is not your ordinary GongFu game, it is one that makes the players to experience the real life of ancient Chinese swordsmen and warriors. In addition to learning martial arts and creating gangs, player can use skills like “hiring hit man”, “saving beauty”, “bargain”, “beg for mercy” etc. The game doesn’t merely involve around killing and knocking people out, players will have more interactions whether to make new friends or play the game with friends and enjoy different aspects of fun in this game. In terms of the content, the original ﬁlm script was added with many creative concepts. Alternative challenging instances and interesting tasks seek to bring the players amazing and surprising game experience.

Mr. Takai, Tokyo, Japan My favorite game is Monster Hunter and other combat style games. The visual images of Reign of Assassins are very beautiful and the Chinese style game is not very commonly seen in Japan so it’s quite special. After the trial, I found it very easy to get a hang of it, quite easy for Japanese people. If the special effect of the attacks could be more splendid, it’d be perfect!

GAMANIA

Features DIVINA-"Moest" Game in the History of Games DIVINA savors of Japanese fantasy style, it is a stylistically “moe” 1product launched by Gamania after Lucent Heart. The unique duo-vocation system enables players to change vocation at will during the battle. Dozens of carry-on pets and multiple styles of carriers, brining players unprecedented fun and novelty!

Playcoo--Joyce

Producer said: DIVINA is a game that “ is easy to play, super adorable with its uniqueness ” . This obvious Japanese “ cute ” style will definitely strikes a cord with many guys and girls. One character may even enjoy the fun of swiftly experiencing different vocations. In addition, there are pets to help look for treasures for players in the game. They dance and have dialogues with their masters. We also invited top-tier voice actresses such as, Tanaka Rie and Horie Yui to help make the characters more vivid and lively. Of course there are many other novel and interesting content such as settings, tasks, instances of different myths. The players have to play it online to experience the fun on their own.

Ms. Saito, Chiba, Japan Currently I play Lucent Heart which was launched by Gamania. I like it because it’s very cute and easy to play. DIVINA has a similar tone in style and operation but I especially like its special effects on closerange attacks and auxiliary skills. I ’ m really looking forward to DIVINA ’ s official launch, I ’ ll deﬁnitely give it a try.

Langrisser Schwarz Gamania acquired famous Japanese console game, Langrisser’s authorization and produced a online version of the game that retained the classic plots and features. In this online version, the characters’ movements are enhanced, the battles between the holy and the evil are more exciting. Many other brand new styles and adventure locations were added, the players may feel the glamour of such its evolution.

Ms. M.K, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

Shanghai RD – Jacky Chang

Actually I ’ m not a online game player, I mostly play console games. One of my friends told me Langrisser’s console version is really awesome which makes me wanna try the online version. I like the equipments of the characters, they are rarely seen in console games. I found that quite special.

Producer said: Langrisser Schwarz is a brand new interpretation of a classic console game. The R&D team retained some of the features from the original system such as the offset of different military forces, directing mercenary, career changing trees, raise questions to goddess etc and increase the ﬂuidity and depth of an action game. The original world view also remains, categorized into three groups: glory, empire and darkness. Players may choose to join any of them and fight with players of other groups. The team poured in considerable amount of time and effort into this game, striving to perfect every detail. The team hopes to bring surprises to the players.

Mr. Tsukahara, Japan I normally play Monstser Hunter, Space Warrior and FPS. I used to be a faithful player of the console version of Langrisser Schwarz. The only version retained most of its features which I’m really thrilled to find out. Players can play with multiple people online in the future, I ’ m really please and looking forward to it.

GAMANIA

Features Soul Captor Soul Captor was created based on oriental ghost and monster tales, the game’s characters and settings savor of wonder and fantasy. The “Spirits” are considered the most special of all, which possess powerful skills. They can convert captured souls and incorporate them into the “Captured Souls Directory” to accumulate energy and further enhance players’ endowments.

SEEDO – Ajer Chien Yuuno,Japan Because I still have to go to school, I can only play PC game occasionally. I’ve never played any online games before. However, the characters of Soul Captor are really cute, especially that little animal (referred to the “spirits”). I also like the tools the character hold while ﬁghting.

Producer said: The team once jokingly said, “This is the ﬁrst oriental Shota fantasy online game.” Indeed, Soul Captor’s target age group is young players who are above 16 years old and love games of “cute” style. We hope that the players won’t get lonely playing the game, so we designed adorable “spirits” (most important and loyal partners of the player, have the ability to supply blood, kill monster and gather souls.) and the interesting “Captured Souls Directory”. The team poured in great amount of time and efforts on the interaction design between the players and the “spirits”. Players will deﬁnitely love it once they start playing.

Mr. Shuryo Ichi, Chiba, Japan I love PE related PS3 games. I haven ’ t played much online games though. The reason why I noticed Soul Captor is because I like its cute style and overall design. However, I’m more used to playing games with control shaft. This game requires keyboard and mouse which is a bit difﬁcult for me, haha.

Warrior of Dragon Combining the ancient tales and myths of the East and the West, the settings of Warrior of Dragon are magniﬁcent and majestic, coupled with characteristic mythological growth and production system, the players may create the toughest immortal soldiers on their own! The players can experience the most exciting and ﬁery battles and enjoy the thrills of killing.

Producer said: Warrior of Dragon’s artistic style is both heavy and delicate. Although there are many fantasy games that feature Chinese style, we are conﬁdent that Warrior of Dragon will bring players a visual impact they have never seen before, presenting an immense and profound virtual world. At the meantime, the game has a simple and to-the-point operation method, through fast battle rhythm, players can enjoy the delightful battle experience. Especially in the presentation of exploding and crushing the enemy, the game is different from the average MMORPG, showing a more hardcore violent aesthetic style.

Chris & Ross, US Shanghai RD – Jacky Chang

Mr. Lin, Tokyo Japan I usually play PC games such as PS3. Originally I thought this kind of online game will be difficult or complicated to play, but Warrior of Dragon was actually surprisingly easy. Added with beautiful visual style, it was a really addictive online game to play with.

Well, to tell the truth, I was there for the freebies and that I saw there were many beautiful Show Girls so naturally I was lured in. I usually play World of Warcraft and I think Warrior of Dragon’s visual style is very special. That was the ﬁrst that that captured my attention. It ’ s really to bad I can only play for such a short time, I wasn ’ t too familiar with the storyline and how it’s played. If they could add in some local cultural elements when they launch in the U.S, I think it’s gonna be a hit.

GAMANIA

Features

Tiara Concerto DIVINA savors of Japanese fantasy style, it is a stylistically “moe” 1product launched by Gamania after Lucent Heart. The unique duo-vocation system enables players to change vocation at will during the battle. Dozens of carry-on pets and multiple styles of carriers, brining players unprecedented fun and novelty!

Producer said: The most unique feature about Tiara Concerto is that its actions in battle are different from the average MMO. It adopted specific time, and range of attack to determine the calculation method, therefore it is considered a breakthrough in the technical aspect. In addition, the character design, equipment and apparel of the game to some degree also reﬂected the attributes and preference of the manufacturing team.

Ms. Lin & Ms. Sung, Taipei, Taiwan We were loyal fans of Maple Story back in Taiwan. After we moved to Japan to work and study, we learned that Gamania would also attend the show this year, and then we decided to come and show our support. The visual effects of Tiara Concerto are exceptionally beautiful which attracted our attention just after first glance. After we stopped for a quick play, we realized that the special effects on actions were also very diverse, you can lunge forward and roll backward. It ’ s really an addictive game, once you start you can’t stop. I hope this product can be launched in Taiwan soon, we’ll deﬁnitely be its fans.

Firedog – Gabriel

Hit Gamania Animation—HERO： 108, Let the Online Battle Begin After the original animation gaining much success in Europe and the U.S, HERO： 108 also launched the online game of the same title. Players will play the characters of the heroes and try to resolve conﬂicts between animals and humans through various tasks and instances. Player may even domesticate animals and transform them into partners to ﬁght in battles and maintain world peace. Wanna to feel the hot boiled blood of these distinctly charismatic heroes? Wanna receive challenges that will pump up your adrenaline and experience live combat? You may enjoy all of the above in HERO： 108

Paul & Sandy, U.S We ’ ve been pretty busy with work most of the time, so we only play World of Warcraft occasionally. The reason we noticed HERO ： 108 was because its unique style, it’ s very American but based on an ancient Chinese tale. That is the element that Americans would like. The method for playing the game is a little too easy compared to World of Warcraft, but I think our kids would like the thrills of playing this action game.

RedGate—Arthur Shen

Producer said: We emphasize on the maneuver function of the game, so that the MMO is no longer clicking your mouse to kill monsters. We wanted to do more functions, instant responses for the players and enable them to enjoy the fun and accomplishment of game operation. This is the genre and direction that Taiwanese online game companies seldom take. The unique aesthetic style of HERO：108 guarantees to give players a whole new game experience.

G!Voice’ s Observation: One thing we discovered from interviewing Japanese players is that many of them have gotten used to playing console game over the years, therefore they are at a loss when encountering more complicated tasks. They don’t know what to do next or where to go. To general Japanese players, “task guide” and “simple operation” are crucial factors in initiating their willingness to play and liking online games.

GAMANIA

Features PLAYERS’ TOUCHING MOMENT Gamania’s 8 self-produced games attracted players from all over the world. Gamania’s R&D force despite having gone through rough period, was well-received in TGS. We believe Gamania will be in full bloom in the future. Now let’s take a look at the photos of each touching moment we captured in the Game Experience Zone.

《Langrisser Schwarz》

《HERO：108》

《Reign of Assassins》

《Tiara Concerto》

《HERO：108》

《DIVINA》

《Warrior of Dragon》

《Soul Captor》

GAMANIA

Features MAIN STAGE AREA WHERE GAMANIA SHINES This year Gamania announced 8 self-produced games in TGS during which it planned a series of promotion activities on stage. Gamania even put on event schedules at the front of the main stage and reception area. There were simply too many events and activities to cover, G!Voice highlighted some worth-noting key events for your reference. Now let’s enjoy the brilliant campaign presented by Gamania!

Media Day: World Renowned Director Showed up for Support The first two days were the Media Day, press and media from all over the world gathered in the show. Gamania arranged game producers for interviews, introducing the features and advantages of the products. These two days are golden period for product exposure, especially in the 1st day’s opening. Gamania invited John Woo, director of Reign of Assassins and actress, Pace Wu to talk about the movie, Reign of Assassins and have an interview with our game producer, Barron Lo. Although Wu is a world renowned director, he does not seem a least bit haughty. He smiled the whole way through the interview and encouraged everyone to watch the ﬁlm and play the game. We were honored to have witnessed his charisma and had him spread a good word on our new piece.

Player Day: Rock the Stage Gamania speciﬁcally planned out stage performances, Langrisser Schwarz and DIVINA for the Japanese market during the last two days of the Show. The theme song of Langrisser Schwarz was sung by civilian singer Gero. Because Gero is not yet a public singer, G!Voice couldn’t publish his photo. However, as you can see in the below picture, from the female fans’ enthralled facial expression, Gero has built up quite a popularity in Japan. This also shows GJP’s carefully engineered strategy.

Next, GJPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key product, DIVINA, GJP hired four gorgeous beauties to play Cosplay characters. Once these Cosplay girls appeared in the Show, the crowd went mad on the camera. This was just a warm up, Gamania then went on to distribute DIVINA towels, coaching the crowd to wave the towels to give a warm welcome to the following swimsuit show and dance performance. The scene was sensational and in return boosted the popularity of DIVINA.

GAMANIA

Features

beanfun! Gamania ’ s exhibition strategy for this year’s TGS not only included announcing its plan for global deployment and R&D momentum, but most importantly, Gamania ’ s integrated entertainment platform—beanfun! A huge beanfun! wall was erected right below a massive Gamania balloon in the back of the main stage, 8 selfproduced games were presented on left side of the wall. The concept for this layout is to convey, “You can play all of our games in beanfun! entertainment platform” Two screens below the beanfun! logo were showing Japanese and English version of beanfun! introduction videos which attracted quite a few players due to its lively and animated content.

Small Conference Room We â&#x20AC;&#x2122; ve covered most of the areas Gamania set up at the Show, however, there was still one small but indispensable area: a small private conference room next to beanfun! During the exhibition period, you can see colleagues from GHQ or GJP gathered here to discuss or consolidate and organize information for the following events. They worked till late night every day during the exhibition but got up early in the morning to help at the Show. All of which was to make Gamania the spotlight on the stage of TGS.

GAMANIA

Features DISTINGUISHED GUESTS This year’s TGS, Gamania was literally glittered with stars, many distinguished guests came to the scene to show support for Gamania which increased our media exposure and boosted the popularity. What are their thoughts on their first collaboration with Gamania? What is the evaluation and expectation of our COO of GJP? Please read on our exclusive interviews!

World Renowned Director,

John Wu

I really enjoyed my first collaboration with Gamania. I ’ ve never thought that my movie can combine with games. This was the ﬁrst in my career. I’d like to have more opportunities in the future for this kind of cross-media collaboration and discover many more possibilities. For example, the themes and inspiration I gain from the game can be placed into the movie and maybe more fun and novel result may come up. In a nutshell, it’s truly a wonderful experience and attempt to work with Gamania and to combine the movie and the game.

Lead Singer of Langrisser's Theme Song,

Gero

Actually I kind of gave up the idea of being a singer when I was 20 and I decided to become a normal white collar worker. However, because singing is my hobby so I continued to moonlight as an amateur singer in the video sharing website, NicoNico and received great support from many. It was then I met with Mizokuti, president of TwoFive and was invited to participate in the recording of [smiley*2]. I became a professional singer ever since. This is the first time I sing a game theme song. I really cherish and am honored to have this opportunity because even normal singers don’t get to sing game theme songs very often. Before when I sang other people’s songs and uploaded to animation website, it was purely out of my personal interest. I sang for audiences who I’ve never met so I didn’t really care what they say about my interpretation of the song. However, this time is serious, because it’s part of the job, from now on I’ll do my best to work on it. I feel really honored to have the opportunity to work with such a big company as Gamania. Although I was quite nervous, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a invaluable experience for me.

Celebrated Actress,

Pace Wu

In the past I’ve mostly been offered to play papered rich girls due to my look but actually I’m really attracted to the slasher thrills. I have a violent alter ego that would smile at the sight of blood. Although the shooting of Reign of Assassins was exhausting because it is a GongFu film, I was very pleased with the breakthrough of my casted role. In addition, I’m also an avid fan of online games, I often play it with Barbie1 in the studio. It feels great to have a game that has the same title of the movie and with me as the main character. I get to kick and kill in the game and recommend it to my friends!

GAMANIA

Features

2010 TGS

HUGE SUCCESS

COO of GJP,

Kiyoshi Asai First of all, I’m very pleased that Gamania has put out exhibitions at TGS all the way from 2002, 2006 to this year. TGS has a special significance to Gamania group and GJP. This time we successfully established Gamania ’ s potent presence in Japan with its globalization strategy and content power. We had the chance to participate the event with other major game companies and it changed the impression Japanese game industry has towards Gamania. I think the success of this year’s TGS was the joint effort between different units of the group and GJP. Going forward, Gamania will stride in conﬁdence and I look forward to the day Gamania family can overcome language and border barriers and develop a more advanced cooperation system to create more possibilities.

GAMANIA

Column

This is how game show does their marketing, how about that? http://adsoftheworld.com/media/ambient/eichborn_flyvertising

About Writer

Mika

Internet marketing observer in Taiwan Mika has been working in the field of marketing for more than 10 years, managing from brand strategy, product concept to market launch. He cares about the traditional marketing models and also pays attentions to the changes of Web 2.0, Social Media, and etc… Blog:http://jabamay.blogspot.com/

Eichborn's CV

The game show has always been the crucial stage for game industry to demonstrate new secret weapons. It rallies game companies to observe the future trend of game industry on one hand, and on the other hand, allows the fans in the virtual world to have contacts with the reality. The players and companies are able to gather together in the game show to enjoy the world of games.

Since Game Show is such a crucial channel for marketing, it naturally becomes a great contest or even a battle where all the companies try to attract attentions of the players or potential consumers. The most common marketing methods involve TV commercials before the show, flyers distributed in the show, and performances by show girls, or trivia game to heat up the crowds. This time, I’d like to introduce several marketing projects from different fields to give you some alternatives for future references

of doing marketing in the exhibition. Nowadays consumers receive more information from internet than TV or magazines. Recently, due to the development of various social media, “Viral Video” which spreads through “ word of mouth ” has become a more effectual marketing tool than commercials. The novel, hilarious or moving effects are all possible reasons for this “ virus-like” success. There is however an obvious successful equation that formed up lately. That is to find a whiz in a certain field and

make him/her do something incredible in the video, which causes people who view the video to feverously discuss the truthfulness of the video and achieve its promotion purpose. The 16 Serena Slams winner – Roger Federer has a video that spread on the internet like wild fire. The video was set in the commercial shooting scene for Gillette razor (Federer was the product ’ s endorser), the video was side-filmed with one camera and completed in one shot. During the break of commercial shooting, he made one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTl3U6aSd2w&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l48errZPPa4

Federer's CV

Shumacher's CV

of the crew carry a can on his head 20 meters away, then he said, “I can serve the ball and hit that can.” While you were still thinking, “it’s no way he can do that,” Federer raised his arm and the ball took over, next thing you heard was the sound of can dropping on the floor. “You missed that? I’ll do it again,” Federer said, so he did. This time the camera clearly captured how the ball knocked off the can. Federer then patted the crew member in shock on his shoulder and walked out of the scene like it was nothing. Though this seemed incredible, it was precisely because it ’s Federer, one of the best tennis players in the world. Most people who can barely serve any balls can’t prove whether it’s real even with doubts in minds. It was this particular mixed feeling that allowed

this film to enjoy over 6 million hits in less than half a month since it was uploaded on Aug. 16th. Can we adopt the same concept and use a practically method to shoot a doubtful but undeniable film, then release the “behind the scenes” on the Game Show to taste the wind and cause some talks before the actual exhibition? In the actual exhibition venue, in addition to the flyers, gorgeous show girls, and freebies, what else can we do to attract customers’ attention? The German publisher, Eichborn gave us a very creative demonstration. Eichborn caught 200 flies at the book exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany and pasted on them a banner of their own sizes. The banner wrote, “ Fly Publisher, ” and this decorated and

living promotion team dragged the flyer around the exhibition room like mini helicopters. When they see any targets they desire, they’d land on them (in fact, the flies would still feel tired from dragging this heavy stuff.) therefore it was hard not to notice this auto-flying flyer when walking around the room. You’d notice it when it fall on you or fly in front of your eyes. For whatever reason, the flies did serve their purpose of showing you the flyer and the logo of Eichborn Publisher is a fly. If the flies can be used as a promotion tool, will it be possible for us to see some butterflies, dragonflies or even sparrows in the show room?

GAMANIA

Column

Animation Voice Actors: Japan vs. the U.S About Writer

Jo-Jo

Convener of Shuffle Alliance University Lecturer Jo-Jo has been an ACG fan for more than 35 years and has profound study on Otaku community. She dedicates herself to promoting Otaku spirit, as the leader of Shuffle Alliance, she helped launching books such as Animation Comic Game, Japanese Animation Case Studies and Animation Comics 2000.

There are “Seiyu(voice actor) awards” in Japan every year to select the most popular voice actors in different genres.

“聲優” is Japanese character, which means “voice actor” also known as “dubber.”

This vocation can be found in every country but Japanese has push such vocation to the apex and these voice actors have evolved as stars bringing in an amazing sum of value.

Strictly speaking, there are still differences between “dubbers” and “voice actors.” Dubbing used to be applied to the reality show recording or animation. The dubber only provides the voice to the scenes and makes no appearance. The program of reality recording usually processes “dubbing (or voice-over)” during the post production and the dubber ’ s name would be shown in the credit list. From this perspective, we can see how the industry treats this two vocations differently – dubbing is an off-stage work and requires no appearance

while the “voice actor” is a kind of actor which would be classified as onstage work therefore “voice actor” can be highlighted to attract the attention of audiences. In particularly, the animations broadcasted in Taiwan are mostly foreign-made therefore the dubbing can be viewed as the “off-offstage” work and is barely recognized or valued by the industry. Even the credit list is omitted for cost considerations. The dubbers are nothing close to “actors,” and the audiences have no way of finding out who dubbed those lines.

The more one country values the creativity, the more respect it pays to the process of creation. The more the creating process is respected, the better elaboration it would be. For example, the producer of an original animation who emphasizes on the details of music would be willing to put efforts on the search of melody to accompany with the plots. Such music can be produced as the soundtrack of the animation and therefore becomes another popular spin-off product. Dubbing has similar feature as well. The dubbers use their voice to instill soul

Famous movie star, Angelia Jolie also frequently performs her voice acts in U.S. produced animations. (Kung Fu Panda, 2008)

into the characters of animation and therefore are adored by the audiences. The attention they receive may even give them the opportunity to record the soundtrack of animation, cast in radio drama (or record CD), participate in the commercial performances such as theatre or musical play or even publish their personal photo album, bookmark, CD album as well as become celebrities – as a voice actor. Countries that emphasize on the labor separation would better create such unique artists of voice actors therefore countries such as Japan has developed the profitable industry of voice actors and further expanded to upper stream industry of “voice actor school” as well as the downstream industry of voice acting agency and performance company. When these industries linked as an industrial chain, a new industrial

structure was therefore formed – the animation and comic groups are able to create their own consuming ability and any commercial activities depended on such group are self-sufficient and are able to expand their business territories. For example, the most popular idol group, “AKB48” in Japan, their group name, “AKB” clearly indicates that they were originated from the holy land of animation and comic groups – Akiba. As for the other animation kingdom, animation dubbers in the U.S. can also be viewed as voice actors however its developing pattern is completely different from Japan ’ s. The most powerful animation company in the U.S. focuses their works on the content of musical play. Therefore people who are capable of working as dubbers are the actors in music industry – they are literally the voice actors. The “Little

Mermaid ” in 1989 has led another business peak for the Disney Empire. Afterward, the animation movies adopted such pattern to invite famous movie stars to be the dubbers for characters in the animations. These movie star dubbers have become the spotlight of animation in the U.S. To this day, this trend still continues. The animation dubbing in Japan was created by the animation industry which is favored by the animation audience while its counterpart in the U.S. is emphasized on the practitioners who focus on the voice acting. Both patterns have cultivated outstanding dubbing stars. The point is: Countries emphasize on the division of labor and details would better create this unique spin-off industry of voice actors.

GAMANIA

Column

When AIAIAI Paid Tribute to Walkman… gamaniabrandcenter Design Observation A blog jointly written by the members of Gamania brand center where you can find the opinions and observations on brands, marketing, and designs from designers, executives, musicians, exhibiter, creators and even aliens. G!Voice reposted the diverse and copious content to the magazine so that Gamanians can communicate and exchange thoughts with them via internet. Website: gamaniabrandcenter.blogspot.com

Indeed, if only from the aspect of sound effect, AIAIAI is nothing compared to the old headphone brands, Sennheiser or Bose. However, the success AIAIAI enjoy in the market was gained through an alternative channel, vision instead of sound which consistently brought surprises for the headphone users. AIAIAI was built by a group of musicians, DJs, and music lovers from Denmark for their fondness in music and they decided to create their own headphone brand. Because they are all in the music industry, they surely have high demands on the sound. Yet, they allowed the Kilo Design to take the predominant role of AIAIAI , whether the CI or the concepts of the products were initiated from vision ’ s perspective and used such feature to cater to consumers’ liking. The PEPI and SWIRL series by AIAIAI

were astonishingly excellent yet the new Tracks series is even more impressive. Kilo Design used the iPod/iPhone exclusive series of Tracks to pay tribute to CD walkman in the 90’s. From the name (a tune in CD is called a track), the pack (designed as the cover of CD album), headphone organizing pouch (as the bag for CD walkman), to the classic foamy earmuffs as well as the steel head hood are savored of retro element. Who would’ve ever thought such elements are still so trendy when used as the design for contemporary

headphone? 此Hence, to avoid being censured in the quality of the sound, AIAIAI also invited the stereo expert, C4 Studios to finetune the timbre. The built-in monomer with the diameter of 40mm allows the listeners to get the original and pristine sound without excessive modification. It seems that AIAIAI also intended to recall our wonderful memory of the 90 ’ s through the Tracks series. (http://www. aiaiai.dk/)

GAMANIA BRAND NEW TITLES

H N C O N U W！ A L

http://brand.gamania.com/gvoice