On a virtual tour in a tuk-tuk
A new arcade game seeks to replicate the experience of the tuk-tuk ride
One of the national symbols of Thailand, the tuk-tuk will also soon serve people around the world in a new arcade racing game. Dubbed Tuk-Tuk Rush, the game is developed by a creative team of German and Thais, headed by Frank Holz, managing director of mobile and online game developer Gawooni, who has been in Thailand for over six years.
“Thailand has a very good potential for creative ideas. The game’s project management was handled in Germany while the testing was carried out in India, so this [is the product of ] mixed talent,” said Holz, who entered the game industry in 1996 and once served as marketing director at Infogrames and Atari.
Holz founded IEM Consulting, specialising in the game industry, and has supported a lot of developers and the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa). His company, Gawooni, also develops and publishes mobile and online games, with a special focus on Southeast Asia and India.
“I like this country, I love elephants, and I ride a lot of tuk-tuks here,” he said. “I had an idea that when I have my own game company, I will do a tuk-tuk game because I know most tourists really enjoy riding them,” he said.
Tuk-Tuk Rush’s key features are casual racing action with two fantastic game modes: ultra-competitive endless mode and beautiful and enjoyable story mode. The design is authentic, with more than 40 hotspots from all over Thailand, and over 10 outstanding tuk-tuks of different parameters.
The game’s pattern is quite similar to that of Temple Run. To play the game, players choose their tuk-tuk, get on the track and challenge the rush, drive as far as they can and unlock beautiful hotspots in Thailand. “It’s easy to control, but hard to master,” Holz said, adding that Tuk-Tuk Rush is promoting Thailand in a unique and interactive way. Players can explore the country from the North to the South.
Players can also enjoy the entertaining skins and vehicle designs, challenging missions, attractive scoring and levelling system, interactive garage and support crew, and social-media integration. The Interactive photobook includes fantastic pictures and information about relevant hotspots all over Thailand.
Tuk-Tuk Rush is in line with all relevant trends in the gaming industry of cross-platform gaming (mobile phone, tablet, PC), free-to-play and microtransactions (a business model where users can purchase virtual goods via micropayments).
Tourists and gamers from other countries are the target group for TukTuk Rush, said Holz, adding that several travel guides recommend a ride in tuktuks among the 10 must-dos when visiting Thailand.
“This is the perfect tool to promote Thailand at the international level. Everything is going to digital, application. People like entertainment, so we have a game mixed with a travel guide in a very unique, a high quality [package] with optimised and motivating gameplay.”
Tuk-Tuk Rush will be available for download in October. After Thailand, it will be launched in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, China, Japan, South Korea and then Europe and US. The game hopes to secure around five million downloads within six months, with one million downloads in Asia.
In 2006, the team of Gawooni developed and released a game designed for BMW called BMW M3 Challenge. It was designed as a virtual test drive for PC and distributed for free via the BMW web page. It was part of the launch activities for the new BMW M3. The game was downloaded more than five million times.
Knowledge Development Centre (KDC), a market research company, expects that by the end of this year gamers worldwide will generate a total of US$99.6 billion (3.4 trillion baht) in revenue, up 8.5% compared from last year.
For the first time, mobile gaming will take a larger share than PC, with $36.9 billion.
Thailand is the 23rd-largest games market in the world, and the largest in South East Asia. Of the 17.2 million gamers, 9.5 million spend money on games, a player-to-payer ratio of 55%, above average for South East Asia. The average annual expenditure per payer, of $35.32, is also above the regional average.