Roletta Lee, business development manager Typhoon Games, works with developers in Europe and North America to re-package, localise and distribute their PC games for an Asian audience

Hong Kong game developing, publishing and digital entertainment company Typhoon Games Ltd has carved a successful niche for itself in the competitive gaming industry.

The young company, founded in August, 2001, works with many developers in Europe and North America to re-package, localise and distribute their PC games for the Asian audience. It is also one of the few local companies that is in content development.

"In Hong Kong, Typhoon Games Ltd is the only company that is involved with both distribution and content development for the European and North America markets," said business development manager Roletta Lee.

Ms Lee said her company meets most of its partners at the world's biggest game show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo or 3E, held in Los Angeles. "We met the Spanish company Enigma Soft Production and we bought their PC game Pro Soccer Cup 2002 for distribution in Singapore and Hong Kong. We also localised it in simplified Chinese and distributed it to the Chinese mainland," she said.

With this Pro Soccer PC engine, Typhoon Games developed another game based on the world famous cat, Hello Kitty, to which it has licensing rights.

Partnerships bear fruit

"We partnered with Enigma Soft Production and came out with the Hello Kitty Football Cup based on their Pro Soccer Cup 2002 engine. The game was sold in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Singapore but it has the potential to be sold worldwide.

"Then there is the Sanrio Hello Kitty Rescue Mission where we sold the rights to a Japanese company called Konami. It will be translated into seven languages and will be released in September in Europe and the US," she said. The games would be available in English, Japanese, traditional Chinese, German, Spanish, French and Korean.

Ms Lee is proud that Typhoon Games did part of the graphics for Dungeon Lords, the PC platform licensed by Dreamcatcher in the US and Europe. "Some of the graphics were outsourced to us and they are genuine 'Made in Hong Kong' designs," she said.

Typhoon Games has a strong international team of around 50 technology and marketing experts in Hong Kong who provide content development, design, 3D animation, language and sales support.

Business is good. The company has set up an office in London to expand in Europe to explore further business opportunities.

At present, Typhoon Games has published over 100 game titles.

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Typhoon Game Ltd