State of Groups/Associations/Gathering of Game Development in Thailand

Hello all! I'm Pisal, and I just thought about updating a small article just to give a smaller idea of how the state of game development is like here in Thailand (Bangkok) based mainly on the state of different development groups/associations/gathering that are both formal and informal.

First of all since the game development industry in Thailand is in the early stages (The first game development company (Cyber Planet Interactive - http://www.cyberplanet-i.com)was formed just recently in 2000), it is also noted that the number of game developers in Thailand is also rather low.

Before Thailand had an industry, most of the game development projects were indie projects usually done by small teams and didn't have much access to each other. During the late 1990's, there has been a government project called the National Software Contest (NSC) which allowed students to compete with each other in various software development categories that includes game development. This contest was one of the first ways in which game developers in Thailand managed to know more about each other, socialize, and actually exchange experience. Most of the game developers in these early NSC contest later became important members in the local game development industry - a good example could also be Mr. Worasin S. who won the competition is currently the CEO of the company GameSquare(http://www.gamesquare.net) a leading game developer in Thailand.

After the NSC contest, a number of game developers aimed to find more members in order to exchange knowledge and experience and later Thailand's First game development forum called ThaiGameDevX (http://www.thaigamedevx.com) was formed on late 2000 in which Mr. Chanon and Dr. Yodthong R. are key members of this website. As one of the earlier websites on the topic, it was frequented by many of the game developers who now work in various companies, and also a number of newer and budding game developers in the student level. Activities range from meeting to forum discussion and still regularly visited by experienced developers in Thailand.

One other informal game community that was developed just recently in 2004 was the GameDevX (http://www.gamedevx.com) community which was formed by Mr. Wasin P. In this community it geared mostly towards newer and mostly beginning game developers and discuss on a wider range of topics and also as a support forum for students who have studied in game development courses from NetDesign Institute where the creator is teaching basic game development courses at. There are currently close to 6k members and is a new and upcoming community.

In the meanwhile with the government promotion in Animation which lead to Thailand's largest fair in Animation and Multimedia called the Thailand Animation and Multimedia Fair (TAM), the first in 2004, in which game development is one of topics covered in this fair. Game companies regular exhibit their latest developments here. In additional to that, there are many seminar topics related with game development, training topics, and competiton, that includes from game development competition to SuperPitch (for funding). The TAM festival also serves as a secondary purpose where alot of game developers get the chance to meet with each and discuss numerous things.

The organization that is in charge of organizing the TAM is Software Industry Promotion Agency(SIPA- http://www.sipa.or.th) in which one of the influential figures in the game development field working there is known as Mor Jimmy (Panutat T.) who is also another influential person in the game development industry owner of two important company, Jimmy Software Ltd. (jimmysoftware.com) and Chiang Mai Digital Works(cmdworks.com) which both have business in the game development industry.

One of the organizations supported from the SIPA is the Thai Game Cluster(TGC) which is similar to an association of game companies. The TGC is lead by Mr. O. Thongsrinoon from the company Pop Idols. Other notable companies in the TGC include SecondSoft (http://www.secondsoft.co.th), Debuz (http://www.debuz.co.th), Sanuk Software(http://www.sanuk.biz), AIM (http://www.aimadvance.com), CoreCell(http://www.corecell.co.th), and GameSquare (http://www.gamesquare.net). Hopefully I didn't forget any company, if I did I do apologize.

There are also some other notable game development companies there that are not members of the TGC at the present. Some names that come to my head at the moment include, PromptNow (http://www.promptnow.com), Jowit (jowit.com), Pinnacle Software, CyberPlanet (http://www.cyberplanet-i.com), Imagimax(http://www.imagimax.com) are examples of important game development companies that aren't in the TGC at the present.