For the first time, Japanese Game developers have meet up with the local game developers and discussed potential partnerships on the recently concluded Game & Creative Contents Networking Philippines 2014.

The said event was held at the Peninsula  Manila Hotel in Makati City last May 19, 2014 organized by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) in partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Japan Centre and the Nikkei Business Publications; who were also the organizers behind the Tokyo Game Show.

A number of Japanese game developers, animation studio and event organizers have traveled to the Philippines in hopes of exploring new opportunities in the field of gaming and animation. Some of the companies involved in the networking event include SEGA, D2C, Klab Cyscorpion and Studio Pierrot.  Unfortunately, Bandai Namco was not present at the event but they provided a video of Executive Vice President Shin Unozawa congratulating the organizers for the successful event.

Representatives from the Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP), the Animation Council of the Philippines inc. (ACPI), the Philippines Software Industry Association (PSIA) and the Board of Investments (BOI) met with the Japanese developers to discuss on potential projects and partnerships for the local gaming and animation scene. There were also local indie game developers and other business groups invited on the event to talk with the foreign and local organizations.

Aside from the business matching, there were plenary sessions from Japanese and local organizations, some of them include Hiroshi Kono of SEGA Networks, Fumikazu Yanase of D2C, Jhermin Anne Cruz of Klab Cyscorpion, Keiru Henmi of Studio Pierrot, Shinri Endo of Nikkei Business Publications and Alvin Juban of GDAP. Also present during the conference were Yoshikuni Ohnishi, Secretary General of ASEAN Japan Centre, DTI Undersecretary Ponciano Manalo Jr. and Kent de la Calzada of PLDT Alpha Enterprise.

Alvin Juban also announced an upcoming gaming event this coming October 4 & 5 at the SMX Convention Center and it will be titled as (Philippine Game Festival) PGF: Game On, this will be organized by GDAP and not be confused with the eSports-oriented Pinoy Gaming Festival or also much known as PGF.

With the successful event, we can look forward for another similar gathering and hopefully  more Japanese developers will be interested in venturing to our country for more projects and collaborations  with our local developers and animators.