Over the years on Arcade Heroes, we have covered many of the trade shows organised by Taiwan’s Game Time International (GTI) – originally the GTI Asia Taipei Expo in their homeland, then the GTI Asia China Expo on the mainland. Both have run concurrently most years since 2009, with the latter attracting most attention as one of the two major Chinese amusement industry expos (May’s AAA Expo being the other). But now we have a new third event to add to those – GTI Southeast Asia Expo.
This show recently had its first ever inaugural edition in Malaysia. Given GTI’s heritage, a lot of the exhibitors here are from China and the territories within its orbit (Hong Kong, Taiwan etc), which makes it a small preview for those big two Chinese shows. With all the amusement growth in neighboring countries over there though (it feels like major chains such as Timezone open new locations every other week), it’s only right they have their own show with new arcade games, especially with GTI being proven expo hosts.
Since we couldn’t attend the show ourselves, much of the media you see below is what has been shared by GTI and companies themselves online (we should however have some original coverage from the floor of the aforementioned AAA in China and the UK’s new ARE Expo soon from our international co-contributors), as well as a couple of Facebook posts here and here. Thanks to Ted for organizing it all.
GTI Southeast Asia Expo
The new GTI Southeast Asia Expo has just been held from the 22nd to 24th April at the World Trade Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. From this official walkthrough stream it looks like it occupied two halls there across a couple of floors; these weren’t too big, so there aren’t any all-out exhibitor booths with big event stages (more co-joined cubicle stalls for every company), but there were a number of conferences with specially invited speakers held by GTI on their own stage.
In terms of what’s relevant to us here, interestingly the majority of exhibitors here were also the smaller, typically younger companies on the Asian arcade scene – big Chinese names like Wahlap and UNIS were nowhere to be found. However they are most likely holding off on their new developments for AAA Expo in a few weeks time, where we certainly do get the whole blowout trade show experience, and most of the companies you see below will also appear.
3MindWave
First up, a name that should be becoming very familiar to a number of you out there: 3MindWave. Since being founded in Hong Kong during 2017, they have had a prolific relationship with Sega Amusements (as well as Wahlap, where some of their members hail from), working very closely with them on their various titles such as ATV Slam, VR Agent, and Apex Rebels, among numerous others, including the soon-to-release Alpha Ops VR Strike. That was naturally the showcase for them here:
As well as the updated motion base lighting design which debuted at DEAL, the marquee on this does seem slightly reworked now, so unless any other changes happen during its route to the West, take this to be the final production version. We’ll have more details on it when it ships next month.
It’s also worth noting that 3MW have appeared at an event themselves before in the form of the VR/XR-focused AWE EU with a pared back VR Agent setup, but this seems to be their first proper amusement show appearance in their own right. It looks like it went well for them, and we have to thank Pang, Aaron and Josie at 3MW for helping here with the photos of their booth and the following two exhibitors 🙂
Baohui
Baohui have been operating for a good while now, with history dating dating back to 1992, but haven’t been mentioned here on AH all that much over the years. When they don’t work with Wahlap, IGS’ games are usually handled by them for hardware and Chinese sales, including Speed Rider 3 and the recent Hyper Cross, another game sold by Sega Amusements out West. The latter was the main video game they had here, but interestingly enough in a new single cabinet, instead of the twin one only seen up to now. This retains its motion base, so if it ends up being sold elsewhere it should be about half the price in theory:
HY Technology
Another emerging Chinese factory, HY have been most prominent of late for the Demolition King wrecking ball game, which became a success particularly in Europe. It looks like they also have a relationship with Sega Amusements, as alongside them bringing their Vigor Ball (known over here as Ball Zania), HY sell official Chinese versions of Apex Rebels and Bop It! Arcade into China. Here they had the latter of those, as well as their whacker merchandizer Blocks Party, which Smart Industies are selling in the States as Knock ‘Em Blocks. It isn’t pictured here but it looks like they also made the Mini Pinball piece.
Joint Fun
One of the newer, lesser known names here is China’s Joint Fun; they only started up in 2018, but haven’t had much overseas representation yet, and first came to our attention at last year’s GTI Asia China show. That might be changing now though as they are starting to push their product pretty hard, which includes the new Buggy Empire (a bug-themed interpretation of Superwing’s Skywalk, itself much like Ace’s Air Strike), Drum Pop (a clone of IGS’ old Percussion Master), and most notably the off-the-wall two-screened Running Ostrich DX racer, which has started to pop up at other regional overseas shows like FEExpo in Italy and DEAL this year. Could it get major representation from a US or EU-wide distributor soon too? That remains to be seen…
They recently started posting more to an official YouTube channel if you’d like to take a closer look at some of these games, as well as a couple of shooters they seemingly didn’t bring over here. The quality on some of the videos looks pretty poor, but it’s the most detailed coverage they have out there right now.
Joint Fun also still have a sizeable VR business, Daka VR, that got co-located booth space. This included a new VR bicycle racer Ace Rider (which looks like it has the exact same bike models as Super Bikes 3), a VR version of the ostrich riding game, and a circus-themed motion shooter called Nightmare.
Other
Many other companies with less of a video game focus or less prominent booths attended the show as well, so here a bunch of them can get reeled off before the post wraps up.
Superwing would’ve been with the companies above, as they have been making several pieces that have seen major representation out West since Ice Man (which popularized water gun shooters), but their booth was so small that it didn’t have any actual machines on hand. It did promote newer games of theirs e.g. The Future, Marksman, and the aforementioned Skywalk though.
Raisefun haven’t been mentioned on the site before at all, but they get a namecheck here just for an interesting looking new rhythm game they showed off at the event called Magic Sound. This has the distinct upright shape and design of a Chunithm or Polaris Chord cabinet, though seems to use a touchscreen for all its controls. Perhaps we’ll get to see this at IAAPA, if they attend that show later this year?
Though most of the companies who exhibited at the show were from China and adjacent regions, there were a couple from Japan – Tokyo Dome & Nihon XR Center. These two have recently made a partnership for an original XR attraction at the Tokyo Dome itself, and would seem to have plans for more from this.
Palm Fun have been one of the more prominent companies online of late, and have started to see representation from the likes of Amusement Source International, though still mostly make redemption.
Still not entirely sure who made this one, but it looks like the “Star Wars” shooter seen at one of the Chinese shows last year has been wisely renamed to… Stardiluo War. Can’t say they didn’t try to at all, although that title does kind of feel like it was run through an AI image creator…
Yuto Games were there too, and of course have already posted a video from the show. They’re less our thing here but neon crane-focused companies such as Unique Anime and Neofuns also attended.
Overall
Though nobody at AH could make it to the show in person, the impression from what has been sent and posted about it does seem to suggest it went down pretty decently. The smaller booth sizes are to be expected of an event only just starting out, so perhaps if we see a second GTI Southeast Asia show (maybe elsewhere in the SEA region, and not as close to AAA?) it will get an upgrade. As mentioned before it is also interesting how most of the arcade-relevant companies here seemed to be from either the newer or lesser-known side of things, but some are certainly advancing.
Once again, a big thanks to the team at 3MindWave for providing the photos of their booth, as well as the couple companies seen after them at such short notice – we look forward to Alpha Ops VR Strike releasing here soon, and whatever’s next from them with Sega Amusements. Which of the above arcade games shown off at the GTI Southeast Asia Expo take your interest?
