Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang Mahjong uses 144 tiles, 8 flower tiles, the most complex point-calculation system in the world, and an unwritten teaching method: Elders play it in front of you but don't explain it to you. You can only learn from being scolded. In 2001, IGS released Celebrity Mahjong, letting the voices of Wu Zongxian and Wang Caihua accompany you as you practice. This game has lived for over twenty years and remains a money-printing machine in the Taiwanese mobile game market. But what it truly achieved goes deeper than making money: it turned a culture that was only passed down orally on the mahjong table into something anyone could explore on their own.
The Table During the New Year
On the second day of the Lunar New Year, at Grandma's house. After the adults finished eating, before the bowls were even cleared, the square table was set up.
Four people sat down, and the tiles were poured onto the table with a clatter, the sound of shuffling drowning out the "Cheers" song on TV. The kids were sent to the living room to watch cartoons, but you peeked through the door crack: Grandma drew a tile, glanced at it, and threw it out without looking again. Three seconds later, she shouted "Win," and the other three started calculating the money.
You asked how much she won. She said, "Three base, six points." You asked what that meant. She said, "Kids have ears but no mouths."
This is the mahjong enlightenment scene for most Taiwanese people. No textbooks, no rulebooks. The knowledge system of Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang Mahjong has been passed down for decades through a very primitive method: sit nearby and watch until you get it. Asking too many questions makes you seem annoying. 1
The Most Complex Mahjong in the World
Taiwan plays Sixteen-Zhang, which is different from other mainstream mahjong games worldwide.
Japanese Mahjong uses thirteen tiles, has a "Riichi" system, and the rule is "no points, no win," with a clean structure. Chinese National Standard Mahjong unified official rules, with 81 winning patterns, like a reference book for exams. Hong Kong-style Mahjong also uses thirteen tiles, with simple point counting and fast pace. 2
Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang? Three more tiles in hand, leading to an explosive increase in combinations. The 144 tiles include Characters, Dots, Bamboo, and Honor tiles, plus 8 flower tiles: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum. Flower tiles directly add points; collecting specific combinations can also lead to an immediate win. "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" (collecting all 8 flower tiles) counts as 8 points, equivalent to popping champagne immediately. 3
But what truly breaks outsiders is the points system.
The unit of scoring in Taiwanese Mahjong is "points." The winning formula for each hand is: (Base + Points) × 3. The sources of points are diverse: self-draw adds points, closed hand adds points, flower tiles add points, specific patterns add points. A closed-hand self-draw has at least 3 base and 10 points, which is the most traditional big hand. 4 Each table can also add or subtract "house rules," such as adding points for consecutive wins, adding points for pulling wins, or how many points for "fishing the moon from the sea bottom." All of these are verbal agreements, written nowhere.
📝 Curator's Note
Taiwanese Mahjong rules have never been unified. Japan has the "Japanese Mahjong League" to unify rules, China has "National Standard Mahjong," but the "official rules" of Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang are "my family's rules." The point calculation method for each family has subtle differences. This itself is part of the culture: rules, in the end, are the concrete existence of family memory.
The Company of Three Gamblers
The story of IGS (IGS Co., Ltd.), the maker of Celebrity Mahjong, is like a game of mahjong itself.
In 1989, three classmates from Taiwan Industrial Technical College (now National Taiwan University of Science and Technology) decided to start a business together. Chairman Li Ke-chu, General Manager Jiang Shun-cheng, and General Manager of the Commercial Machine Business Group, Chen A-jian, were ball buddies and mahjong partners during their student days. Jiang Shun-cheng was originally a hardware engineer at Philips, and Chen A-jian worked on firmware at Sampo. Both were well-paid electronics elites. Li Ke-chu invited them to join, and the two voluntarily took a pay cut. 5
In the early days of the startup, they stayed up late modifying machines during the peak season, and in the off-season, the three of them played mahjong and table tennis. IGS started by making commercial arcade game machines. In 1996, they developed their own 2D game console, PGM (PolyGame Master), becoming the only manufacturer in Asia, other than Japan, to have a proprietary game console. 6
But what truly turned IGS from an arcade machine factory into the "King of Game Stocks" was a very Taiwanese decision: turning mahjong into a computer game.
2001: Wu Zongxian Teaches You to Play
In 2001, IGS released the PC version of Celebrity Mahjong. The concept was intuitive to the point of genius: hire Taiwanese celebrities to voice the game, making you feel like you are playing with stars. 7
Wu Zongxian, Tang Cong-sheng, Wang Caihua, and Cheng Yu-ling, with over 14 celebrities participating in the recording across two versions. Each character has their own voice pack: mockery when claiming a "Pong," arrogance when winning, and wailing when causing a "Gun." Wang Caihua's laughter and Tang Cong-sheng's imitations turned the act of playing mahjong from "quiet mathematical calculation" into "a table full of people bickering." 8
In 2002, the second generation was released, distributed by G-Net (Zhiguan Technology), with 120,000 sets distributed across the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and 35,000 sets in the first batch in Taiwan. In the golden age of internet cafes, Celebrity Mahjong shared the screen with CS and StarCraft. 9
But Celebrity Mahjong achieved something those games couldn't: it taught people who couldn't play mahjong how to play.
The game included the complete rules of Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang Mahjong. Every hand automatically calculated points, and when winning, it listed how many points you won and how each point was earned. You didn't need Grandma to explain; the computer directly told you, "Closed hand + Self-draw + 2 Flower tiles = 5 points." For a whole generation of young people who grew up before DOS or Windows, Celebrity Mahjong was the mahjong textbook.
✦ Grandma's teaching method is "Kids have ears but no mouths." Celebrity Mahjong's teaching method is "If you play wrong, Wang Caihua will laugh at you." Both are effective, but the latter won't make you cry from being scolded during the New Year.
The Lifespan from PC to Mobile
There were two near-death experiences in IGS's history.
The first was in 2000, when China rectified the game industry, and commercial machine orders dropped sharply. IGS faced its first loss since its founding. The second was in 2013, when mobile games rose and the PC game market shrank. IGS's earnings per share (EPS) fell to only 1.7 yuan. 10
Both times, they survived through transformation. In 2000, they shifted to PC online games, establishing an online business division. In 2013, they allocated two-fifths of their manpower to mobile game development. Initial attempts at various genres failed, but they eventually refocused on board/card and gambling products, regaining their core strengths. 11
Celebrity Mahjong followed the shift. From single-player to online, to web version, and finally to the mobile version in 2017. The mobile version was listed in the Top 10 Games on the Apple App Store in Taiwan for two consecutive years in 2017 and 2018. 12
By 2024, IGS's annual revenue hit a historical high, with annual and monthly revenues breaking records, and employee bonuses were substantial. 13 Listed under code 3293, it is known as Taiwan's "King of Game Stocks."
Celebrity Mahjong's payment rate in Taiwan has reached the ceiling. But IGS opened new markets through Southeast Asian licensing and overseas platforms. 14 A company that started from a table tennis game among three gamblers has become an empire with annual revenues exceeding 10 billion.
💡 Did You Know
IGS's Q1 2025 revenue was 5.359 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.3%. March's single-month revenue broke 1.8 billion yuan for the first time. This company's market value has already exceeded many traditional tech manufacturers.
Why Mahjong?
The Taiwanese mobile game market is fiercely competitive, and products with a lifespan of over three years are few and far between. Celebrity Mahjong has lived for over twenty years. Why?
Because mahjong satisfies a specific need: wanting to play mahjong but not being able to gather four people.
This need always exists. Wanting to play a few rounds at 10 PM on a weekday evening? You can't call three friends over. Wanting to practice your skills before the New Year so you don't get beaten by Grandma on the second day? You need a table that can be opened anytime. Celebrity Mahjong fills this gap: it is not competing with other games; it is competing with the eternal problem of "not being able to gather people." 15
And the uniqueness of Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang Mahjong makes this market almost impossible for outsiders to take over. Japanese Mahjong games play thirteen tiles with different rules. Chinese Mahjong apps play National Standard or local rules, which Taiwanese people are not used to. To make a mahjong game that Taiwanese people are willing to use, you must understand Sixteen-Zhang, points, flower tiles, and the fact that "every table has different house rules."
The three founders of IGS are themselves gamblers. They are not just making a mahjong game; they are moving the mahjong tables they have played on for decades onto the screen.
Hokkien Grown from the Mahjong Table
The penetration of Taiwanese Mahjong into this island goes far beyond the mahjong table itself.
"Gun" (Fang Qiang) on the mahjong table means playing a tile that allows someone else to win, and you are responsible for paying. In daily life, "being gunned" has completely detached from the mahjong context, becoming a synonym for "being stood up" or "being harmed by someone." Friends plan to eat together but don't show up? Call it a gun. A colleague promises to help but doesn't do it? Also call it a gun.
A Taiwanese who has never played mahjong can also say "being gunned" because the metaphor is too precise: that sense of helplessness where "it was clearly someone else's decision, but you bear the consequences" condenses decades of human relations on the mahjong table into two characters. Mahjong teaches Taiwanese people much more than just how to calculate points.
Every Table is a Constitution
Taiwanese Mahjong has never had an official rulebook. Its rules are scattered across millions of mahjong tables, with each table having its own version.
How is consecutive win calculated? Some play "Zhuang Lian N," adding two points for each consecutive win; others play a fixed addition of one point. How many points for "fishing the moon from the sea bottom"? Some say one point, some say two, some say it depends on whether it's a self-draw or a gun. After a Kong, should you leave more tiles? Some leave one tile after a Kong, some leave a stack (two tiles), some say play until there are no tiles left. 16 Does a gun cover all three players? Many tables in the north cover it; many tables in the south do not.
These differences have never been unified because no one has the power to unify them. The rules of each mahjong table are the consensus of the four people at that table. The source of the consensus is "this is how my dad taught me to play."
This sounds chaotic, but chaos itself is culture. Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang is a family ritual. What is passed on the table are rules, but also Grandpa's temper, Grandma's playing style, Uncle's expression when he causes a gun, and that special sense of intimacy and gunpowder smell that only appears during the New Year.
Celebrity Mahjong did not replace that table. It did something else: it allowed those who were not yet qualified to sit at the table to practice their basics on the screen first. By the second day of the New Year, when Grandma asks if you want to join in, you can finally sit down instead of peeking through the door crack.
On a New Year in 2026, in a certain living room, a twenty-something-year-old sat at the mahjong table. Grandma looked at his way of drawing tiles and asked, "Where did you learn that?"
He did not answer.
Further Reading
- Taiwan Game Industry and Digital Entertainment — A panoramic view of the Taiwan game industry from agency to original creation
- Nightlife and KTV Culture — Another social ritual for Taiwanese people
- Taiwan Convenience Store Culture — The 24-hour standby daily infrastructure of Taiwan
References
- Klook: Want to win money playing mahjong with friends? Beginners must see this 16-Zhang Mahjong gameplay — Basic rules and cultural background of Taiwanese Sixteen-Zhang Mahjong↩
- Wikipedia: Mahjong — Comparison of mahjong rules in different regions↩
- Pinkoi: What are the rules of Taiwanese Mahjong? One article teaches beginners from drawing tiles to calculating points — 144 tiles composition, flower tiles, Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea↩
- Wikipedia: Taiwanese Mahjong — Points calculation system, closed-hand self-draw↩
- Commercial Times: IGS's three founders were once ball buddies and gamblers; classmates joined forces to start a business and play their way to success — The founding story of Li Ke-chu, Jiang Shun-cheng, and Chen A-jian↩
- Wikipedia: IGS — 1996 PGM console, only self-made arcade machine in Asia↩
- Time UD: A classic Taiwanese mahjong game! Celebrity Mahjong has sold for over 20 years — Released in 2001, celebrity voice concept↩
- Time UD: Celebrity Mahjong has sold for over 20 years — Wu Zongxian, Tang Cong-sheng, Wang Caihua, Cheng Yu-ling, and other 14 celebrities↩
- Time UD: Celebrity Mahjong has sold for over 20 years — Second generation in 2002, distributed by Zhiguan, 120,000 sets distributed across the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong↩
- Digital Times: Celebrity Mahjong was made by them! IGS's two life-and-death choices — First loss in 2000, EPS of 1.7 yuan in 2013↩
- Digital Times: IGS's two life-and-death choices — Mobile game transformation process, focusing on board/card and gambling↩
- Wikipedia: Celebrity Mahjong — Top 10 on App Store for two consecutive years in 2017 and 2018↩
- Economic Daily: IGS's December revenue hit a historical high at 1.7 billion yuan — 2024 annual revenue of 18.5 billion, employee bonuses of 2.768 billion↩
- Win Investment: IGS's 2024 revenue and profit hit new highs — Celebrity Mahjong payment rate of 2%, TADA Gaming overseas licensing↩
- Digital Times: Da Yu's "Double Swords" officially sold, who will take over Sword of Xian and Sword of Xuanyuan? — Mobile game revenue contribution exceeds 80% for IGS↩
- Wikibooks: Taiwanese Mahjong — Regional differences in rules such as consecutive win calculation, fishing the moon from the sea bottom, and leaving tiles after Kong↩