With a gripping theme of “Imaginary FAIrground: AI-Powered Entertainment in the Web 3.0 Era,” Hong Kong’s Digital Entertainment Leadership Forum (DELF) 2024 was held last August 16-18 at Cyberport, a business park and home to a creative digital community.
In between sessions and workshops, visitors of all ages freely roamed the venue and over 50 interactive smart lifestyle, gaming, robotics, culture and arts experiences, experiencing first-hand the seamless blend of the virtual and the real.
The PhilSTAR Tech team got to explore three experience zone: the “Van Gogh DigiVillage,” an exhibition that integrated AI and immersive tech with Gogh’s timeless art, the Roborn Robot Barista, where coffee culture met robotic technology, and the flexible movement capabilities of humanoid robots powered by Unitree.
Cyberport is dedicated to nurturing tech talent, and some of the highlights of this year’s DELF were student drone show presentations and elderly esports tournaments.
“As Hong Kong’s digital technology flagship and incubator for entrepreneurship, Cyberport’s goal is to raise public awareness. We’re so lucky that we get good support from the Hong Kong SAR government,” said Cyberport chief corporate development officer Georgina Chu in an exclusive interview with PhilSTAR Tech. “Last year, we received the funding to develop the Web 3.0 ecosystem so now we are able to cultivate the talents of university students and establish partnerships with AI industry leaders and companies so they can co-create Web 3.0 solutions.”
Gamers of all ages gathered for a glimpse of what evolving video games have in store for the future, too. The three-day forum brought together many industry leaders to discuss with the industry the transformative potential of AI and Web 3.0 technologies in shaping the future of digital entertainment.
Warren Cho, World Wide Azure Gaming Vertical Leader at Microsoft, said in an exclusive interview with PhilSTAR Tech: “We’re very inclusive at Microsoft. We’re here to assist any game developers to develop great games through our solutions, whether they’re very small or very large or whether it’s Web3.0 or blockchain.”
Cho said gaming could be more enhanced, thanks to AI.
“Right now, the triple A, the big budget games, have very similar genres. Whether it’s open world or shooting games, it’s very predictable where the next big games are coming from,” he said. “But with AI, to reduce the development costs, now the developers could challenge other areas where we haven’t seen before—other genres like casual genres and it could be more immersive.”
And in the future, there are endless possibilities. “What I want to see more in the future is more high-quality games in many genres, not just the usual genres that we’re used to like the casual genre, role playing games. A good example is mobile, when we transitioned to the App Store, you can now see so many different games like BTS games aside from the usual Tetris and Pacman.”
The Philippines, Cho added, is one of the key gaming markets that Microsoft wants to support.
“In the Philippines, I see many good casual and Web3.0 games. There are very strong games, especially for the Xbox platform. There’s a strong gaming community too,” he said. “We’re here to collaborate with anyone and it’s only a matter of time that we get to work with the Philippines to develop games.”
