Gaming Market (Taiwan)

Interestingly, Taiwanese gamers are among the most impatient, according to Unity research. The average duration of a gaming session is shorter only in Vietnam, where it is ten minutes and one second. Taiwanese gamers play games a whole three seconds longer!

According to 2016 data, paying gamers in Taiwan on average brought the industry USD 35. As a comparison, South Korean users spend twice as much—about USD 86. Given the difficulty of retaining Taiwanese users, game creators should thoroughly develop tutorials and methods of retention if they want to be successful in Taiwan.

On the other hand, the population’s low financial capacity and retention difficulties are compensated by low costs for attracting users. According to data from Chartboost, one iOS user costs USD 1.32, and one Android user costs USD 0.91.

The overwhelming majority of Taiwanese people use one of two operating systems: Android or iOS. The former accounts for 66.57% of the market and the latter accounts for 33.1%.

Device diversity is a bit more straightforward. Apple holds the leading position, with 33.1% of Taiwanese residents using the company’s devices. Next come Samsung (22%), HTC (12%), Asus (9.45%), and Sony (9.21%).

Taiwanese residents prefer Google over all other search engines, with 87.4% of the population using the service. The closest competitors are Yahoo! (11.39%) and Bing (0.98%).

The composition of female gamers by age is very different than that of male gamers. Although the primary group of active gamers is women aged 21 to 35 (they make up 42%), young gamers (ages 10 to 20) account for 35% of the audience. Hardest of all is finding a female Taiwanese gamer aged 36 to 50: they are 23% of the female gaming population in Taiwan.

According to data from July 2018, the most popular game in the Taiwanese App Store was Tower of Saviors, and in the Google Play Store it was Lineage M. Learn more about the ten best games in each app store.

NewZoo research for 2018 shows that men and women in Taiwan are about equally interested in mobile games. The male population accounts for slightly more than 52% of Taiwanese players, and the female population accounts for less than 48% accordingly.

The main portion of active male gamers are between the ages of 21 and 35, and they make up 40% of the overall number of male gamers. Ages 36 to 50 follow; it emerged that this age group makes up 37% of male gamers in Taiwan. Completing the triumvirate is the age group from 10 to 20 years old. This group accounts for 23% of male gamers.

Chinese and South Korean developers are very popular in the Republic of China. However, domestic publishers and developers are also breaking into the market in the region. Let’s name the largest of them.

1. Gamania

2. GM99

3. Wanin

4. LongE

5. ICAN

6. Evatar

7. Mark Brilliant

8. Smart Alec

9. Userjoy

10. Mamba Interactive

It’s interesting to note that in Taiwan Lineage M wasn’t released by NCsoft or Netmarble, but by a domestic publisher called Gamania.

All Taiwanese developers are primarily focused on the domestic Asian market. Because of this, Europeans often don’t even know the names of games released by Taiwanese companies.

Despite the invasion of mobile devices, as of 2015 only 21.8% of Taiwanese residents used mobile banking, while 78.2% preferred more traditional payment methods. The vast majority of the population (58% of people) paid with cash, while 36% used cards.

Taiwanese people enjoy gambling. Because of this, mobile slot games are very popular. As for games from other genres, you can find the love for RPG games that is particular to all Asians.

It’s worth noting that Taiwanese people won’t buy or play games simply because their favorite character or series is in them (like gamers do in South Korea). In a list of the trendiest games, games created as a part of popular franchises were only in fifth place.

It also can’t be said that people in Taiwan like only anime style. For example, when Lords Mobile: War Kingdom was released, the publisher didn’t change the quintessentially European art, and the game was nevertheless well received in the domestic market. Now the project is in sixth place in the top list for iOS. This is an excellent position for a strategy game in an Asian country that was not created as part of a franchise.