Feature: Attending G-EIGHT, the Indie Convention with an Area for Erotic Games

For an event still in its infancy, Taipei-based indie expo G-EIGHT immediately appears accomplished far beyond its years. Its sophomore effort – conducted on the Taipei Expo Park on a sunny weekend in early December – was bustling with enthusiastic attendees, all eager to test drive the latest efforts from local Taiwanese developers, spanning established names like Red Candle through to up-and-coming student projects from freshly minted graduates.

This was not a damp, grotty rented room with some Alienware rigs running Unreal Engine asset swaps: it was a fully realised convention in its own right, and a credit to its creators, Taiwanese YouTuber Thomas (Ting-Tse) Chang, streamer 6tan (Kuang-Lei) Wang, and Rayark Inc co-founder Tony (Yung-Ting) Li. With the Taipei Game Show also relying heavily on its enormous independent games section, we spoke to Thomas Chang to learn a little more about the origins of an expo only in its second year.

“We think Taiwan’s homegrown game scene is strong enough to support an exhibition that focuses more on local and self-made games, albeit on a smaller scale,” Chang told us, enthusiastically. “G-EIGHT is all about giving developers without much marketing help a chance to show off their stuff to players. It's a way for people from Taiwan and around the world to see what’s special about our games, which are full of life and variety.”

Among the games we played on the day, roguelike Storm Edge from Shield Breaking Games and cyberpunk point-and-click Minds Beneath Us by Bear & Bone stood out. The creator of the former told us he’d quit his job as a mechanical engineer to pursue production on his dream isometric roguelike, while the latter has been built by a ragtag group of university graduates who all met on campus. The futuristic art stood out to us here, with local retail chains like convenience store 7-Eleven and pharmacy Watson reimagined in a dystopian future environment.

But the intriguing Beyond the Curtains from Narrator was our biggest surprise on the day, a “tranquil and relaxing game about casually gazing out of the window, longing to witness interesting events and surprises”. Despite adopting a vibrant, cartoon-like pixel art visual style, the developer showed us reference photos of the real-world windows it had used to create its backdrops. While we didn’t get a sense of what the actual gameplay will entail here, we found the idea of an ever-changing environment, where the plot unfolds through pure observation, fascinating to say the least.

In most cases, the projects were far too early to have firm release windows, and speaking to various developers, it became obvious that Nintendo Switch was their preferred target console compared to PlayStation. That desire could perhaps be attributed to the popularity of the Super Mario maker’s device in the region, but it’s also perhaps a reminder that Sony doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to connecting with smaller, unknown studios – and it’s an area it simply has to improve.

Wherever the titles end up, however, G-EIGHT believes it’s providing an essential service to studios of this scale. “Exhibitors have shown a lot of gratitude for the exhibition, as it’s allowed them to experience first-hand the passion gamers have for games and the enthusiasm of other developers,” Chang noted. “Many developers have also utilized G-EIGHT to test market reactions, facilitating adjustments before the subsequent launch of their games.”

In conjunction with the Taipei Game Show, Chang reckons that both events are helping raise the awareness of the unexpectedly vibrant Taiwanese gaming scene. “We believe that both events are contributing to Taiwan's gaming industry, fostering mutual growth through inspiration and stimulation. We feel a sense of duty to promote games by local developers to a wider audience and to bring more enjoyment and fun to visitors.”

But as an independent convention shielded from the greater attention of the Taipei Game Show, G-EIGHT’s unique selling point is its ability to service underappreciated aspects of the Taiwanese game development scene which may not necessarily vibe with its peer’s more mainstream target audience: namely the emerging erotic games scene, which is gradually growing in importance and stature on increasingly open-minded platforms like Steam.

In fact, the name G-EIGHT itself could be considered crude, as in Taiwanese it uses the characters 膣屄, pronounced ji-bai or tsi-bai, which quite literally translates to the name of a lady’s genitalia. Naturally, we had to ask Chang about the origins behind this. “When we were brainstorming the name for the exhibition, we wanted something related to gaming, so the first thing that came to mind was the English letter ‘G’. Then, we thought, what should follow ‘G’? As a half-joking reference, we used the Taiwanese slang ‘G8’, which was both witty and easy to remember. It also had a playful nod to the G8 Summit.”

The organisers told us that, initially, it wasn’t expecting G-EIGHT to become a recurring event, and it’s since attempted to bring more meaning to the name and distance itself from that original gag. “Each letter in G-EIGHT represents a feature or theme of the G-EIGHT game show: G is for Gamers, E is for Entertainment, I is for Indie Games, G is for Gathering, H is for Hee Hee, and T is for Taiwan.” That so-called Hee Hee is essential, however, as it acknowledges the abovementioned erotic games.

To be honest, we were taken aback entering the walled-off, 18-only section of the convention, where we were instantly bombarded by banners depicting virtual breasts, vaginas, and penises. “In the past couple of years, erotic games have been gaining significant traction on Taiwan’s Steam platform, with numerous development teams and substantial output,” Chang explained. “Based on our observations and further understanding, many developers in Taiwan have a strong interest in this genre of games.”

Chang told us that developers of these titles often lacked a location to promote and showcase their efforts, and that’s where G-EIGHT presented a unique opportunity. “G-EIGHT is a privately-run exhibition with themes centred around indie development and Taiwan-made games, so the substantial market for erotic games is undeniable and is part of the industry. Therefore, we should not shy away from discussing it.”

He continued: “Moreover, the quality of Taiwan-made erotic games is generally quite good, and we believe they deserve to be recognised and understood by more people. G-EIGHT provides an excellent platform to showcase them in a very positive and healthy manner, which we think is a good thing.”

Looking at the attendees interacting with the erotic games, we observed a fairly even split between males and females, suggesting the target audience for these titles is not as one-sided as many may unfairly assume. It’s unlikely you’ll ever see titles of this type go mainstream – Sony, for example, has introduced increasingly stringent censorship policies on the PS Store, to the detriment of many non-erotic games – but it’s clear they have a market, and a need to be serviced by exhibitions such as G-EIGHT.

With a genuinely surprising number of projects in the works, both of an erotic and non-erotic nature, we wanted to understand what Chang believes is next for the Taiwanese game development scene – and G-EIGHT along with it.

“Compared to other countries, Taiwan has certain advantages in terms of development efficiency, quality, and cost-effectiveness. This includes adaptability to the global market and language advantages among Taiwanese developers. With the help of platforms like Steam and other overseas publishers, we believe there will be one or two world-class productions every one or two years.”

He continued: “As a platform, we hope G-EIGHT can gather many high-quality works annually to attract customers and influential industry leaders alike. We hope overseas publishers and investors discover more self-made Taiwanese treasures at G-EIGHT, who can then help bring these worthwhile projects and development teams to the international stage. We firmly believe that Taiwan’s capacity in game development will soon hold a position of undeniable significance internationally.”

Thank you to Thomas Chang for speaking with us, and to Leslie (Kuang-Li) Wang for organising our entry into G-EIGHT and co-ordinating interviews with us. Please note, the quotes in this article have been lightly edited for clarity. G-EIGHT will return between 29th November and 1st December later this year.