How Blade & Soul’s upcoming Taiwan launch could foreshadow bigger things

Asia’s mobile gaming market may be grabbing most of the headlines nowadays, but make no mistake: when it comes to gaming markets, PC gaming is still the king. In China, for example, the PC gaming industry brought in US$8.7 billion in revenue in 2013, compared to just US$1.7 billion in revenue from the mobile gaming industry. And when it comes to online gaming in Asia, whichever massively multiplayer role playing games (MMORPGs) are popular are bringing home a big chunk of that money, as Asia has millions and millions of MMORPG gamers.

One of the most popular MMOs in Asia today is Blade & Soul, a fantasy game developed by Korea’s NCSoft. It was met with a very enthusiastic reception following its 2012 release in Korea, and after its 2013 launch in China it has remained one of the country’s most played games. Now, the game is coming to Taiwan via NCSoft subsidiary NCTAIWAN, which will launch the game in open beta on November 20.

But more interesting than the open beta itself is the announcement that the game will feature a new monetization model. In Korea and Japan, playing Blade & Soul requires paying for a monthly subscription, whereas in China the game is free-to-play and monetized via a VIP system, among other things. But the Taiwanese version will apparently feature a different monetization system, the details of which will be announced closer to the game’s launch.

Blade & Soul‘s launch in Taiwan is not, in and of itself, likely to result in a windfall of revenue for NCSoft, as the country’s PC gaming market is relatively small compared to China and Korea. But especially given the new monetization model, it’s possible that NCSoft plans to use Taiwan as a kind of springboard for a future launch of the game into Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia’s PC gamers are, like gamers elsewhere in Asia, major consumers of MMO games, and there is particular interest in Blade & Soul. If the Taiwan launch and its monetization model are later broadened to include the rest of Southeast Asia, it would likely be a major new source of players – and revenue – for the game.

Two obstacles do lie in the path of a Southeast Asian release of Blade & Soul, though. First, its relatively advanced graphics could put a strain on the hardware of internet cafes with older computers, potentially limiting its player base in less developed areas. Moreover, the game is massive and would require quite an effort to localize. An English version has been promised to Western markets, and it’s likely that an English-language Southeast Asian release could be in the cards once the English-language localization is finished. But the release of additional versions of the game in local languages seems less likely, and without local languages beyond English and Chinese the game’s appeal in Southeast Asia will be limited.

Still, as one of the region’s most popular games, Blade & Soul‘s Taiwan launch and the Southeast Asian launch that may lie further down the road are big news. It will be especially interesting to see what the game’s new monetization approach will be like, and whether or not Taiwanese gamers will embrace it. If they do, I bet that Southeast Asian gamers won’t have too much longer to wait.