It's a good year for SG music gamers on content and a terrible year on wallet and affordability. And an especially good year for me as far as being a music gamer is concerned, hahaha.
I must say that we have KACA and a very devoted fanbase in Taiwan/HK to thank for Sound Voltex, Pop'n Sunny Park, and presumably RB Colette coming into the Asia region so quickly (And even coming in at all in the case of Pop'n and Voltex).
My personal observation is that gamers there are really quite an amazing bunch of people. Queueing 2+ hours just to get "front row seats" on the floor, bringing the Tricoro poster, drawings of Pastel-kun, every album of Sota Fujimori's Synthesized Series (1-3; 4 only just got released) - no way in hell you'd ever see that in Singapore, seriously. Sure, it's survivor bias but I really doubt we even have enough of such people to make a crowd. The scene just can't compare. You just won't have people screaming "WE WANT SOUND VOLTEX AND POP'N IN TAIWAN" to Sota/Qrispy. In any case, Qrispy did say that they'll bring the issue up to management and see where that got us. It's great to witness it all in action rather than have one lame email saying "Colette will come in March 2013".
Even competition-end they are more passionate. Look at this, a player-organized tournament to commemorate the opening of Colette in Korea. It's been a grand total of two days and everything's done already. None of that bureaucracy crap or team spirit or community, these people are just passionate for playing the game. (I still stand by the opinion that if you really want a successful turnout at any event you organize then you should use any means necessary to achieve it. Trying to act aloof and pretending things are going well will do you no good when said event ends up a failure as far as turnout is concerned. Yes, I'm pretty explicit here if you're in the know.)
It's kind of tragic that all this comes at a time of a revenue-sharing model that makes games $2.50 each.
There's more I'd like to write but argh 3.20am in the morning. Urgh
