Commentary: For a nation of a gamers, why doesn’t Singapore have more homegrown video games?

DATA IS A KEY INGREDIENT

Once the talent and support are in place, playability remains the secret sauce in the recipe for a game’s success, and Singapore has produced some games that are hard to put down. For example, Garena’s Free Fire has more than 1 billion downloads worldwide and was the highest-grossing mobile game in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

To successfully make engaging games like these, data is a key ingredient. Local studios can take inspiration from other game makers in Asia, including Japanese pioneer SEGA, which analyses user data to hook players in.

To prevent sections of a game from becoming too difficult to complete and rapidly sapping a gamer’s patience, developers can modify the gameplay to prevent players from giving up and moving on to another game. This flexibility is crucial to a game’s success, and, in the age of declining attention spans, is helping game-makers evolve content to keep players riveted to their screens.

Home to Triple-A studios and millions of gamers, Singapore has both the technology and data to develop a thriving gaming industry. Let the games begin!

Chong Yang Chan is Managing Director, ASEAN & Greater China at data integration and analytics company Qlik.