BY RACHEL CHAN

KOEI Entertainment Singapore - the local branch of one of Japan's leading games studios - has announced plans to hire more staff.

The company, which developed the popular Romance Of The Three Kingdoms (RTK) Online role-playing game in Japan, was set up in 2004 and has invested 1.5 billion yen (S$24.5 million) of development funds.

It will hire between 30 and 60 more employees over the next two years, said Mrs Keiko Erikawa, the company's founder and chairman, at a press conference yesterday. Koei currently employs 50 game programmers, designers and computer-graphic artists in Singapore.

RTK, which was launched in Japan last February, currently has 20,000 subscribers.

Mrs Erikawa told my paper when RTK will arrive in Singapore, and what else Koei has in store.

When will RTK be launched in Singapore?

We need at least another six months before the English version of RTK can be rolled out here. We wanted to launch the game in Singapore before Japan, but there were broadband-network issues which are now being resolved. But in future, Singapore could be the global hub for the game.

What future plans does Koei have for the gaming industry?

We are thinking about multi-platform, networkoriented games that can be played on PlayStations 2 and 3, personal computers, Wii, and Xbox360.

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