Looking Ahead: GC Asia

We had to have some changes in Leipzig because of the decision taken by the industry [to move to Cologne], but what we had to learn from that is that the online business is the fastest-growing part of the business - in Europe anyway - and we learned a lot out of Asia-Pacific.

So basically we turned the whole thing around - first we learned from Europe and created a spin-off into Asia-Pacific, and now we've gathered a lot of experience in Asia-Pacific in general and can learn from the business model, especially in the mobile and online spaces, and bring that back into Europe for GC Online.

This year Korea was the partner country for GC Online, and I definitely believe we can bring in many more countries if the business is good for them in Europe. There are a lot of Chinese companies looking into business development opportunities in Europe, and they definitely will do for that in the coming years once we put them on the right path.

It certainly concerns us, but the question we always ask is: "What does the industry want?" When we decided on being very close to the Tokyo Games Show it was because we wanted to offer the international audience a round-trip possibility.

So an industry person from, let's say the US or Europe, can have it all within one and a half weeks basically - travelling to Singapore for GC Asia and then making another stop over in Tokyo the week after makes complete sense. And on the way back, if they book a return flight via Singapore they have watch the Formula One race the weekend after...

But for the region you're right, it's a bit of a trouble point. You'd probably have to decide whether to go to Tokyo or Singapore - but again, we have a complete difference in terms of the concept we're driving. The concept in Singapore is very much business-oriented - it's in English, and is international in a total sense, whereas Tokyo, although it attracts a lot of media, is a very Japanese-centric event.

That's why I feel there's not really a conflict of interest - we have a different target audience, we have a different audience attending, as well as doing business, in Singapore.

So it's up to the industry to decide whether it's the right timing or not - the only conflict we have, which is a real one, is the clash with Austin GDC, as we kind of cut out the North American continent in terms of mobile and online development.

That's something we seriously have to think about, maybe getting rid of that conflict for next year.

We'll definitely take that forward. The thing is that it's not always something we have to announce in public, but it's something we might do to bring those guys into Singapore and have a meeting behind closed doors.

Then we could take the opportunity from the event in 2007 when we brought those associations together, find an understanding of what we can do in the region in order to drive the business forward.

Is it about ratings systems? Or is it about outsourcing and co-production, and generating terms and conditions for the entire region? Or simple things like having a region-wide directory?

Things like that will be brought together on an agenda - I've sent out invites to 13 association presidents, and so far seven or eight of them are in. We'll have a gathering, but it's not really for the public.