Top executives from the US, Japan, South Korea and France yesterday called for support from the Taiwanese government to foster a local digital entertainment industry through funding, tax incentives and an industrial park.
Bill Schultz, co-chief executive officer at Moonscoop LLC, said at the Digital Entertainment Summit 2009 in Banqiao, Taipei County, that countries including Canada, Britain, South Korea, Australia and France had managed to get a head start in animation through direct national funding, tax credits and other incentives.
“Hence, it is imperative that Taiwan’s government pay special attention to the opportunities presented by this lucrative and thriving global business, which can fundamentally alter the local economy forever via continued cash flow in international licensing fees,” Schultz said.
Schultz recalled the leading role Taiwan played 20 years ago in animation and underscored the role government must play in order to bring back the momentum.
Albert Liu (劉柏園), chief executive officer at Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子), said the government must propose policies to avoid missing the boat.
“We move in dog years here — a regular calendar year translates into seven years in the fast-paced digital entertainment industry,” Liu said.
“If Taiwan can build a successful digital entertainment hub, where local talent can aggregate and companies can experience favorable taxation policies, I am sure we will witness a flood of foreign investment because Taiwan can virtually serve as the gateway for international firms into the explosive China market,” he said.
NCsoft Corp chief executive officer Kim Taek-jin said the South Korean government had played a crucial role developing the digital entertainment industry.
Shuhei Ueda, president of the Japan Online Game Association, however, said the thriving digital entertainment industry in Japan was primarily driven by gaming hardware competition among makers such as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc, Nintendo Co and Sega Corp, rather than government support.
“Every time new hardware comes out, a new wave of gaming software is created. This cycle has held for 15 years until now, where it has become prohibitively costly to develop a game,” Ueda said.
Figures provided at the summit showed that in dollar terms, the output of global digital entertainment for next year is expected to reach NT$60 trillion (US$1.82 trillion), compared with US$170.4 billion in 2001.
Digital content output from South Korea, Japan and the UK is NT$2 trillion, NT$4.2 trillion and 5.2 trillion respectively.
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