Prommitr Production has joined up with PromptNow, IBM Thailand and Asiasoft to develop an Internet game called King Naresuan Online, which will not only provide amusement to local gamers but should also entertain the international gaming community from next year.

      MC Chalermchatri Yukol, project manager of Prommitr Production, said his corporation had invested around Bt20 million and spent three years developing King Naresuan Online for the local market. The project is nearly 80 per cent complete and should be officially launched in the middle of this year.
       He said the game allowed players to understand and learn more about Thai history. The game will be available on the Internet free of charge, and players will be able to purchase more than 1,000 game-related items. "I think this new game will encourage the new generation to learn more about the country's history and will also offer an alternative to gamers," Chalermchatri said.
       Under the cooperation, Prommitr is taking care of the content, PromptNow is overseeing the game development, while IBM is providing its BladeCenter infrastructure as well as the hardware to support about 50,000 con-current users.
       Siriwat Vongjarukorn, an executive at PromptNow, said the new game was being developed on grid-computing methods and would be expanded to cloud computing later.
       Thanwa Laohasiriwong, general manager of IBM Thailand, said this online game was a perfect example of how technology could go hand in hand with art, culture and history, and this in itself should help leverage the local gaming industry.
       Pramoth Sudjitporn, CEO of Asiasoft, said King Naresuan Online would not only encourage gamers to play local games on the Internet, but would also encourage developers to come up with new options for the local gaming market.

       Besides, the firm will also distribute the game outside Thailand from next year.

      "We will initially provide a Thai version for the local market in the middle of this year, and develop an English-language version for the overseas market next year. The international version will be launched in Singapore through our branch there," Pramoth said.
       Thailand currently has about 4 million online gamers, while its online gaming industry is valued at around Bt2 billion. Pramoth said with the new game, his firm hoped that more local gamers could be encouraged to play online, thus increasing the market share of local online games to around 3 to 5 per cent of the online gaming industry.
       The local gaming industry is worth Bt3.3 billion and is expected to grow by around 10 to 15 per cent this year.

       King Naresuan Online will be demonstrated at the Thailand Game Show 2010, which runs until Sunday at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre, or it can be experienced on www.kno.in.th.


The Nation