GAWOONI: Connecting the real world and partners through games

GAWOONI: Connecting the real world and partners through games

Frank Holz

Games generate more than US$ 180 billion in revenue per year worldwide, with an annual market growth of more than 5 per cent. The most important segment is mobile games, responsible for almost 50 per cent of the total revenue, and the strongest growth markets are Southeast Asia, India, and South America. Thailand's gaming industry is valued at 34 billion baht and the country is Southeast Asia’s leader in this sector, ranked 20th in the world. Thailand is leading in e-sports as well, as it won the most e-sport medals among ASEAN nations at the 2022 Asian Games in China and earned the third-most medals among Asian countries.

Delving deeper into this subject, GTCC UPDATE Magazine proudly presents an exclusive interview with Frank Holz, one of the founders and directors of GAWOONI – a German developer and publisher of mobile games (smartphones, tablets) and online games (PC / Browser), currently focusing on the digital growth markets of Southeast Asia and India. GAWOONI operates its own online gaming platform, gawooni.games, in more than 20 languages, and their development teams from Europe, India and Southeast Asia work together on international and innovative game concepts.

Holz has been active in the games industry for more than 20 years. He is a marketing professional with a background in economics and international marketing. He began his career as a consultant for companies like Daimler-Benz and Vodafone, before moving into the games industry in 1996 as marketing director for Infogrames and Atari. In 2021, he established GAWOONI MetaLabs, focusing on blockchain gaming (GameFi) and high-end NFT art production. The company’s first game, K4 Rally, features the expertise of real rally champions and renowned motorsport brands, highlighting Frank's dedication to innovation in gaming. The company’s new game, Tuk Tuk Rush, is expected to launch next year, and it

will connect gamers to the real world more than ever with the game quality, partnerships, and planned tournaments.

What is the meaning behind your company’s name, and why did you choose the slogan “The Next Big Thing in Gaming”?

Before I started running my own gaming company, everything in my life was about marketing. I was formerly the marketing director of Atari, a well-known games publisher, for 25 years. In my experience, it is crucial that you first have a rough idea about the concept, and secondly you need to check the availability of your desired company name. We played around and used the best letters from “Games World Online”, and when I checked the URL availability of GAWOONI it was free to use. And because it’s usually hard to get short names, we immediately registered it.

During that time I was already working in Thailand and had got in touch with elephant care stations, where I became very familiar with these animals and learned to love them. So the GAWOONI slogan, “The Next Big Thing in Gaming”, is because of the elephant in our logo, not because I want everybody to think that we are better than everyone else.

Unlike other Western game developers, GAWOONI focuses on the digital growth market of Southeast Asia and India. Can you tell us the reason why that is?

In 2010, I started my own international games consulting company, and I was hired by the Thai government to promote its Thai games industry at an international level. For three years I visited Thailand often to give consultations to game developers and to the Thai government. I learned a lot about Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore, because I needed to look into each government’s benchmark in terms of how they supported their local games industry. After I came back to the Thai government with a long list of suggestions on what is possible, we started promoting Thai games developers and I promoted Thai development companies to get their international projects on board.

Normally, big international game publishers do not create an entire game by their teams only, but frequently look for external teams. This is where I connect game developers with international publishers and secure a lot of good projects for them. It’s also the reason why I became very familiar with the games industry in Southeast Asia and learned that this region especially is growing very fast in gaming. The overall global games industry is growing, but much slower than in Southeast Asia. Therefore, as a new game development company I should focus on these regions, because they have the highest potential, and a spirit of moving forward. Southeast Asia has a positive attitude towards gaming. Also, if you focus on big markets like USA, China, South Korea, you are just one of many companies.

Between Southeast Asia and India, which market is bigger for your products?

India is a very big country with a lot of gamers, but very few people are willing to pay. In Southeast Asia they play and pay, and Thailand is currently the bigger and more interesting market. For us, as game developers, this is very important because we need to cover all the costs upfront for game development. Once the game is live, we need to earn the money back, which is difficult in India. That’s why we decided to develop a Thailand inspired game, called Tuk Tuk Rush.

What unique things distinguish GAWOONI from other game developing companies?

What makes us unique is that we are only developing games that have a connection to the real world, which allows for partnerships, especially marketing partnerships. Besides developing a good quality game, it’s just as important to market it well. Normally, if you have no marketing partnerships, you need to pay for everything with your marketing budget. However, with a game related to the real world, using a tuk-tuk for example, we can simultaneously promote Thailand. There are also a lot of possibilities to connect with local brands, like King Power, Dtac, True, Terminal 21, Tourism Authority of Thailand and more, for partnerships in which we offer them a chance to promote their brand in the game.

We are not asking for money, but marketing partnerships. We are going to be running promotions together and are going to organise branded tournaments. These tournaments will be presented to you by a certain type of brand. And while we’re featuring this tournament in our community, our brand partners will be featuring it in their community. This is how we will be growing as a game, and marketing partnerships are super important for the success of a game.

All of our games, in fact, have a connection to the real world. Tuk Tuk Rush is the best example, but we are also doing a K4 Rally racing game and partnering with a lot of good brands like Monster Energy, and Pirelli, who are also doing marketing for us.

Another important thing is to design your game in a way that it makes it advertisable. For Tuk Tuk Rush we are building parts of Bangkok, parts of Phuket, and so on, and when you have a racetrack – whether in Bangkok or in Phuket – advertising is a normal part of that landscape. Imagine driving through Bangkok and you see no advertisements, it’s impossible. So because it’s part of the real-life scenery, it also feels natural within the game.

Tuk Tuk Rush is a game that promotes Thailand, so it only makes sense to reach out to these companies and offer them the chance to be featured in the game for free. Subsequently, a lot of people from all over the world will play it and will recognise these brands. Using the example of Terminal 21, you’d be able to click on the icon and get extra information about the locations of their different branches in various parts of Thailand.

How many games has GAWOONI developed so far?

About 10, but now we are focusing on expanding our production and increasing the quality. Before we started with mobile games, and now we’ve switched to Cross Platform Productions. This means that you can play games on your PC, mobile, or on game streaming. You can play the game on different devices and places as they are connected.

What are the current trends in the games industry in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand?

The current trend is e-sports. People love to take part in competitions and win prizes. Like the Olympic Games, e-sport tournaments normally range from a period of three to six months and have lots of viewers worldwide. That’s why e-sports is driving our industry. It’s even in discussion to be included in the Olympics in a few years. A lot of people see e-sports as a true sport, and there are teams all over the world, including Thailand, which are sponsored by investors.

When will you host the first tournaments for your upcoming game, Tuk Tuk Rush?

We plan to release Tuk Tuk Rush at the end of the first quarter next year, and run tournaments where you just drive for skills. And then we’ll have branded promotion tournaments with our partners, who are well-known Thai brands. Everybody will drive the same fully branded tuk tuk, and the first prize will be sponsored by our brand partner. For example, a shopping voucher of THB 50,000 from a brand partner will go to the winner, and then prizes number 2 to 9 are from our side. The branded tournaments will happen once a month, so we will have 12 branded tournaments in total every year.

The brand partners gain a lot of exposure because thousands of people are battling, and talking about the game on social media. We are doing things exactly this way with our game K4 Rally and it’s working very well. We have branded racing tournaments and people love it.

How did you initially penetrate this local Thai market?

Back in 2010 when I first came to Thailand I was still running my own game consulting company. I was hired by the Thai government and I had to work with SIPA, a software industry promotion agency. I saw that the biggest hurdle for Thai companies was English language comprehension. Thai people are sometimes too shy, which in a way is part of their culture, and most of the Thai game developers had an issue with language. So I advised the SIPA to invest in English courses because of the importance of clear communication when doing international collaborations. After that, they had enough self-confidence to actively participate in international calls. These days, however, you have a multitude of English translation apps, which makes communicating so much easier.

When was the idea for Tuk Tuk Rush developed?

The original idea was developed in 2016. The game was supposed to be released in October

2016, but then King Rama IX passed away. A one-year mourning period started, so there was no chance for us to release Tuk Tuk Rush. I tried to restart it in 2019, but then Covid-19 emerged in 2020, borders were closed, and there were no more tourists until 2022. Then, in 2023, a group of artists introduced us to blockchain gaming and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In the art industry, you can buy art as an NFT. This gave us the idea to restart Tuk Tuk Rush as an NFT art project, so we got six famous Thai digital artists already on board to design their vision of a tuk tuk, which could be sold as an NFT.

Tuk Tuk Rush is now becoming more than just a game, since it's also a project where well-known Thai digital artists can express and promote themselves. The community is also highly interested in the story behind the artwork and the artists vision of Thailand. The most important thing is that we want to keep it non-political. Everything needs to be approved by us. We are promoting Thailand and nothing else.

We have 25 people working on Tuk Tuk Rush, 14 in Thailand and 11 in Germany, and they are working closely together. In Germany they’re very skilled at coding and programming, while Thailand is expertly handling the graphics and animation. We use the best from both countries. A lot of people are now waiting for this game because of the nearly photorealistic gaming experience. It will be the first game promoting Thailand in high-end graphic quality.

How many players do you target for Tuk Tuk Rush?

As it will be marketed worldwide, we are targeting around 2-3 million. It will be available as a PC game, mobile game, and in game streaming. The game is free to play, you can race with the standard Bangkok Tuk Tuk, or buy special Tuk Tuks with an additional feature like a coin multiplier from Thai digital artists.

How do trends in the gaming industry compare between Germany and Thailand?

Compared to the German gaming industry, the Thai gaming industry is much younger, with much more enthusiasm, both here and in Southeast Asia. The development costs are also much lower, so it is easier to finance the full development project upfront. Developing the entire game would be very expensive in Germany.

What is blockchain gaming and are you involved in this?

We need to make one thing clear: Blockchain gaming is not crypto gaming. It is about using blockchain technology for our in-game items. For instance, you can buy a Tuk Tuk NFT and you have a chance to trade it for a higher value on external NFT marketplaces. It started 2021 in the Philippines with the game Axie Infinity. Whole families switched their normal jobs to gaming, levelling up game characters and earning by trading them. Blockchain gaming is adding a completely new layer of motivation to gaming.

Do you have any other collaborations with partners in Thailand?

We already have another racing game in development and planning for a martial arts game too. But for now, we want to put all our focus on Tuk Tuk Rush because we are eager to finally release it after waiting for so long.

Interviewed by Chadaphan Maliphan and Alisha Schmidt, GTCC Team.

Contact details:

Frank Holz Managing Director GAWOONI GmbH

frank.holz@gawooni.com

https://gawooni.company