Here’s a question: how long does it take for Singapore to discover a successful multi-million-player gaming startup from its own backyard?

Answer: Almost a year, especially if you have not heard of Mobile Weapon or TYLER Projects before this post.

To be fair, Mobile Weapon surfaced on the definitive online zeitgeists for Singapore via Tomorrow.sg on June 4 2007 and MrBrown’s WTF! Show a day later. To be grudgingly kind to old media, Arts Central and Lianhe Zaobao separately profiled them a lil’ quicker in Feb and Mar 2007 respectively (via TYLER blog).

Mobile Weapon is a RPG game that was launched July 7 2006 and was one of the 4 presenting startups at the last E27 unconference in SMU on Feb 15 2007. At that time, they had 1.1M unique players and today, they boast a kickass total of 2.97M! A phenomenal growth rate indeed considering they only have 6 full time staff ably supported by another 6 on an adhoc basis.

This is certainly SMU’s BIG Incubator’s proudest startup thus far. To budding entrepreneurs who think business plan competitions are the be-all and end-all of all business success stories, TYLER Projects came in 3rd at the SMU’s Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) Global Business Plan Competition last year. This is a result which hardly does justice to the team ‘s efforts and only serves as a sobering reminder to the judges who could not discern fluff from gold when the latter was paraded in front of them. ;)

LEonard Lin (bottom right in the pic above), the “LE” that makes up the word “TYLER” informs us that the majority of the game’s players are from US, with increasing populations originating from Europe and then China. I think this is another damning evidence that startups need to think beyond our shores when concocting ideas.

Enjoy the following video clip from Mr Brown’s WTF! Show:

What are you waiting for? PLAY IT NOW!!!!!