By: Maggie Greene

On a sunny afternoon in the middle of May, I made my way from the familiar streets of Da'an District, Taipei, all the way down to Zhonghe District. I drove by streets full of betel nut stands and motorcycle repair shops, but my destination was an inconspicuous office tucked into a generic high rise office building. Other than the EverQuest II poster that is hung next to the door, there's no indication that Sony Online Entertainment's Taipei branch, SOGA, lies inside.

Of course, a few months ago, most people outside of Asia had probably never heard of SOGA. With the announcement of a game based on Stephen Chow's 2004 movie Kung Fu Hustle, people have at least started wondering about the little studio tucked away in Taipei, on a little island that a lot of people can't find on a map. Not wondering enough to send anyone down to take a gander at the place, apparently, since SOGA's general manager, John Laurence, commented to me that "We haven't had a visitor in 4 years or something!"

Four years is about the length of SOGA's history. The studio's roots lie in EverQuest II; historically, Western character models - the more medieval style that anyone who has seen a game like World of Warcraft is familiar with - haven't worked well in Asia. Armed with the concept art of Japanese artist Hisanowo (who is also doing work on Kung Fu Hustle), the guys at what would become SOGA came up with the CG artwork that was found in Asian localizations of EverQuest II.

Even cool concept art and a solid attempt at faithfully recreating those stylized 2D, paper-and-ink renditions in CG didn't help EverQuest II in Asia. The game was shut down in most of Asia for a host of reasons, which Laurence thinks related mainly to game play. But Western gamers liked what they saw of the SOGA characters, and they were released in America and Europe. In a classic example of making lemonade out of lemons, Laurence said that the character models were a big success for the fledgling branch: "It was really cool, because we were able to nail a relevant graphical style for EverQuest II that worked the world over, and the source was here - it was the CG creators, who are all Taiwanese, and the concept artist, who's the Japanese guy."

After getting their feet wet with character designs, SOGA co-produced EverQuest II's The Fallen Dynasty adventure pack with San Diego-based SOE, taking full advantage of the wealth of Taiwanese imagery and Chinese culture at their fingertips. Most people wouldn't recognize the Taiwanese landscapes and facets of traditional Chinese culture, but they're in there. "[The adventure pack] was a big hit for EverQuest II," Laurence said. "And it was all based on Asian imagery, particularly imagery from Taiwan. Nobody knows that - well, probably most people - but ...we went out and took a lot of pictures of places in Taiwan."

Despite the failure of EverQuest II in Asia, Laurence was adamant in his stance against the idea of targeting games to consumers on a cultural basis, at least in terms of the way it's been talked about in Western press recently. "I think it's foolish to say that 'Chinese gamers like this, Korean gamers like this, Taiwanese gamers like this, and American gamers like that.' And I think the first thing people need to do in order to understand what they're really talking about to be successful out here - they need to abandon that outdated idea. There's just too much stuff with too much in common culturally to think along those lines."

With one blinding exception, that is - the variation in play styles, how people play games, must be taken into account. We spent a long time talking about the culture of internet cafes in East Asia something that is relatively unknown in the West. The free-to-play model, which is regarded, at best, as a bit odd in Western markets and at worst, degraded as a model that simply allows companies to nickel and dime consumers, is pretty much the gold standard in Asian markets outside of Japan. Consoles have never had the market penetration they've enjoyed in Japan and the West in China, Taiwan, or Korea, and so gaming emphasis has been elsewhere.

"This doesn't have to do with taste so much, it has to do with the evolution of how the games came about. Here in Taiwan, people's houses - same in Mainland China - you don't have big houses, it's unusual for kids to say 'Hey, I want you to come over to my house to play.' It's more like, 'Let's go to sing karaoke together, let's go someplace else ....' I think that whole culture of doing things outside, which started with things like ... the karaoke bars, turned into the internet cafes."

Laurence expanded on his thoughts on the traditional package- or subscription-based model, where he says the sales channels dictate what goes into game and how a game is designed, not leaving "any flexibility at all for the creator." Going further, he described what he sees as an "unwritten pact" between game designers and the users that so much content has to be supplied to justify either the initial purchase price or subscription fee. The free-to-play/microtransaction model really works for both designers and consumers, he says:

"It makes it so we can say, 'Hey, we don't have to make an MMORPG, we can make an MMO action game, there's still a way to give the player value for their short time playing the game.' If they don't like it, they can play it for free until they decide they don't like it. If they do, they can pay a little bit of money to continue or to get cool items. But it means when we're making a game like Kung Fu Hustle, we don't have to say 'We have to create enough content for you to grind 60 hours a month in order to justify the subscription price.'"

All this ties into the game version of Kung Fu Hustle, which will utilize the free-to-play, microtransaction-based model. Utilizing game points - which in a lot of Asia means purchasing cards associated with games or publishers at any convenience store or internet café, getting a certain amount of points depending on how much you want to shell out - they're going to make sure that "the game points will be a fun part of the game that won't be a nuisance to players." We'll have to wait and find out exactly how the in-game items and game points will work, and as of right now, release outside of Asia isn't confirmed, though it's something that the team is shooting for.

In designing the game, the SOGA team obviously had the Taiwanese or Mainland Chinese internet café phenomenon (and common microtransaction model) in mind, as well as an older arcade feel. Just as the movie version of Kung Fu Hustle pays homage to the tradition of Hong Kong kung fu flicks and the wuxia genre in general, the game version seems to want to pay homage to its own forerunners in the game department. "We wanted to recreate the experience of the video arcade when we were kids, where you can not only play the game yourself, but have the experience of a video arcade, with your challengers and opponents standing around you, waiting to challenge you."

In response to criticisms of the free-to-play, buy items and other things model, Laurence dismissed them as unfounded - criticisms that exist only because the model is largely unfamiliar:

"I notice on the streets, when you even mention the model of the game cards, and the paying for items, and getting the game for free, everyone's like 'Oh, you guys are just trying to nickel and dime us. And to screw us,' and stuff like that .... But the truth is, it gives the player a chance to try out a lot of different things. But the best thing for us as game creators is that you're not shackled to how the sales channels dictate what goes into the game .... For us, I'm really happy because it makes it much easier to pitch ideas up and get projects green lit and it's also easier for us to try new things, because ... we can almost decide the business model after we make the pitch."

While information about Kung Fu Hustle is scarce right now for a number of reasons - namely, John Laurence feels that "Stephen should be the spokesman for this, and not me," and the game isn't even in "pre-alpha" yet - we did get to talk about the thoughts and feelings behind the game. The SOGA team seems acutely aware of the speculation and sensitivity surrounding the game, and also cognizant of the plethora of "crappy movie-based games," something that they definitely don't want to replicate. The 'essence' of Kung Fu Hustle is what they are going for, with the input of Chow; they are also trying to create a game that is an homage to those older, classic kung fu and beat 'em up games like Final Fight or Streets of Rage, games that were killed by 3D, at least to Laurence's eyes.

Of course, no one sets out to make a bad game based on a well-liked movie, but the obvious sensitivity with which they are approaching Kung Fu Hustle was reassuring at least, as was the stack of classic kung fu flicks and a book on the Shaw Brothers Studios kung fu movies occupying a prominent place. "When they saw Kung Fu Hustle, Stephen Chow surprised them," Laurence said. "When they play Kung Fu Hustle, Stephen Chow is going to surprise them. So I think in a nutshell, that's the message - and there's only a little bit of information out, and I want to talk about it, I could talk about it for the next 15 hours, but we can't right now."

At the same time, the studio is excited by the reception (anxious though some articles may be) over news of a Kung Fu Hustle game. "How often can you say to people, 'Hey, we're making this game in Taiwan for the Chinese market,' and then a bunch of guys start to really want to talk about it, and ... all of a sudden - you're at our office!" Taiwan is largely off the radar of most people, and Laurence said it makes it the perfect place to develop games. With the heavy hitters like Blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, et al. setting up studios on the Mainland, there's a distinct lack of jockeying for prime talent on the little island that could.

But more than that, the unique variety of cultural influences that pervade Taiwan also make it a great place to set up shop. "Once you get here, you'll find that this is such a cool place, because you've got the Japanese influence, Chinese influence, American influence, and of course strong Taiwanese aesthetic sensibilities," Laurence said as we were wrapping up. "This is the perfect place to make games."