Marketing premium services in Hong Kong is a tough business. The region has the cheapest voice call prices in the world, just EUR14 for 2000 minutes, and are considerably cheaper than sending an SMS. Using Chinese characters for messaging makes it even harder. It takes creativity and a playful thinking to come up with application ideas that will attract customers.

Ericsson Mobility world partner Artificial Life in Hong Kong has developed a new game called Virtual Girlfriend. The game is due for launch at the 3G World Conference in Hong Kong on November 15, but has already created a storm of interest, especially in South America, Europe and Asia.

Artificial Life CEO Eberhard Schoneburg says Virtual Girlfriend players establish a relationship with a "girlfriend" and progress to new levels as the relationship evolves.

The artificial girlfriend needs a lot of attention and likes gifts such as chocolates and flowers. Some gifts are free, others cost from 50 cents up to $1. The Virtual Girlfriend product line will include clothes and small gifts and is due for launch on December 1.

To get "boyfriends" playing the game as often as possible, the company has designed play so that the girlfriend needs a visit every day.

"She has secrets the boyfriend needs to discover to get to the next level. She reveals the secrets little by little," Schoneburg says.

He says it is vital to create a game that uses all of 3G's capabilities, which Virtual Girlfriend does. The game uses technologies such as streaming, video and live chat. It has a natural language processor, text-to-speech voices, including English, German, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

"Unlike most other games, the user can chat live with the artificial girlfriend," Schoneburg says. "The user can follow and interact with the girlfriend during different activities, such as when she is shopping, when she is out for a coffee with her friends, at the workplace or at her virtual home.

Schoneburg says: "We're working closely with several operators around the world and they are really happy we've designed a 3G application the public seems to be interested in. We have agreements with operators to launch the service in their networks."

In Asia, Artificial Life cooperates with an operator that tests its 3G network capacity by running the game.

"We have actually timed the launch of our game quite well," Schoneburg says. "Most of the major operators, who haven’t launched 3G yet, are planning to do so during next year."

He says there are plans to release an "artificial boyfriend" in February next year. "Who knows, perhaps there other family members we can create a game around," he says.

The launch schedule for Virtual Girlfriend in Hong Kong and the UK is the fourth quarter of 2004. Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Scandinavia are scheduled for the first quarter 2005.

Artificial Life is an American company founded in Boston in 1994 with its headquarters in Hong Kong. Apart from Virtual Girlfriend, the company has developed a range of e-learning applications with courses in English for foreigners. Artificial Life holds the rights to the Sanrio "Hello Kitty" characters for most parts of South East Asia, which are part of their mobile e-learning products.

Karin Hanson