They’re ready to battle it out with the dominant forces of gaming

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Gaming is big business, and it’s only getting bigger.

The global gaming market is projected to reach US$99 billion by the end of 2016, with console games taking 29 per cent and mobile and PC games taking 27 per cent each. Companies like Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar Games, Gameloft, and Rovio have enjoyed immense revenues in the growing market. With the Asia Pacific region claiming a lion’s share of 47 per cent of said market, however, it’s just about time that Asian companies anted up their game development.

We have listed down eight Asian startups to watch in the game development industry:

Touchten Games

gaming_startup_touchtenThis Indonesian startup launched in 2009 and has since then introduced over 30 mobile games in the Android and iOS market. Touchten Games has reached the Top 10 rank in the iOS App Store for 3D airplane shooting game Infinite Sky. Another title, Sushi Chain, has also reached over 3 million downloads.

Touchten collaborates with various groups and individual, examples of which include 9GAG, to develop Redhead Redemption, the online platform’s first mobile game, and Megaman soundtrack composer Manami Matsumae to compose the soundtrack of Touchten’s upcoming game, Target Acquired. Recently, the company has raised an undisclosed Series D round.

O.Y. Games

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Formerly known as Space Pub Entertainment, Malaysia-based O.Y. Games recently won the audience choice award at Casual Connect Asia 2016 with the game Tap Summoner, edging out over 300 other contenders. With four games launched, the company has been awarded a grant for being the most promising studio in Malaysia from Intellectual Property Creators Challenge by the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation.

Witching Hour Studios

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Founded in 2010 in Singapore, Witching Hour Studios specialises in story-based games. The rich visuals and complex strategy games the company has a penchant for has earned various awards such as The Digital Life Editor’s Choice Award by the Straits Times, Singapore. Focusing on PC and console games, Witching Hour Studios has also been funded by Kickstarter for the development of their newest game, medieval fantasy saga Masquerada.

Also Read: Better late than never: Pokemon Go just launched in South Asia

Daylight Studios

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This Singapore-based game development studio was founded in 2011, launching Reign of Heroes in social gaming platform Mig33. The strategy game became Mig33’s number one game in 13 days and have accumulated over one million players in 170 countries just 6 months after its launch. Since then, Daylight Studios has explored various platforms and markets, oftentimes collaborating with international partners to localise games to fit cultural nuances of the market.

In January 2016, the company has raised an undisclosed seed fund. They are about to release a new game, Holly Potatoes! We’re in Space?! before the year ends.

Gattai Games

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Gattai Games, a Singapore-based game studio, was founded in 2014 by a group of Digipen Institute of Technology Singapore graduates. The company first made headlines by winning the Best Student Game and the Excellence in Technology award at the 2015 IGF China, became a SOWN nominee at the 2014 Tokyo Game Show, and a Gamer’s Voice nominee at SXSW 2015 for Lurking, a sound-based survival thriller.

Gattai Games is currently set to release Stifled, a survival horror game similar to Lurking but with improvements such as microphone input to convert real-world sounds into in-game audio pulses. The company plans to bring Stifled to Playstation and XBOX, as well as launch in VR for a more immersive experience.

Also read: 2017 will be a big year for AR but we are still not yet ready for voice search

Altitude Games

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Founded in 2014 by veterans of the Southeast Asian game industry, Philippine-based Altitude Games specialises is original free-to-play mobile games. The company’s first game, Run Run Super V, was released in 2015 and is the first Philippine-made game featured globally on Google Play. It has recently reached one million downloads, followed closely by Dream Defense, which reached 700,000 downloads just two weeks after it launched.

Most Played Games

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The Philippine-based Most Played Games is the company behind mobile Flippy Bottle Extreme! that ranked #1 in Google Play in more than 16 countries. The game, which basically asks the players to swipe across the smartphone screen to flip a bottle in various environments, was Top 1 in the US for for the Arcade and Action categories and Top 2 in overall Games category — just below Plants Vs. Zombies Heroes and above FIFA Mobile Soccer. Currently, the company has five more games in development and has recently released Pen Apple Mania.

Also read: PlaySimple raises US$4M to take India’s mobile social gaming to the next level

Kooapps

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Founded in 2008, Kooapps has released more than 30 games. The company is globally recognised for its educational games — Kooapps’ first product is VocaLab, an educational flashcard app. The Philippine-based startup has gone on to release a range of mobile gaming apps from simple games for kids to complex defence and strategy games and gaining awards and recognition for their penchant to create educational games.

The team’s top app, Pictoword, has received the  2016 Academics’ Choice Smart Media Award as well as been listed as one of the Therapeutic Apps for iPhone and iPad by the Flinders University of Australia. Another game, Light This Up, won Most Innovative and Best Edutainment Game at the 2014 Philippines Game Festival Awards.

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Featured Image Credit: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo

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