Promotion of mobile games in the Asian market. Interview with Ilya Salamatov, 101XP
In the framework of the White Nights Moscow 2016 international game creation conference, Mobio interviewed 101XP business development director Ilya Salamatov.
101XP is a Russian publisher and localizer of online games distributed according to the free-to-play model. The company operates not only in the Russian market, but also in foreign ones, including the Asian one.
Asia is an actively developing region in which more than 4 billion people live. Every year, the Asian games market grows by 20-30%.
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The Asian mobile gaming market is highly dynamic. For 2-5 months, the positions of games in Top Grossing change by 80%, in contrast to the Russian market, where the positions in the TOP remain unchanged during the year. Given this feature, many Asian companies are developing games that linger in TOP for one to two months, and after that the development team starts another project.
Under the cut, we will tell you about the specific features of the monetization of Asian games, which genres of games are most popular for entering this region, about the features of the development and popularity of pirated stores.
Which regions includes the Asian mobile apps market?
The Asian market is gigantic. This year, the market for gaming applications in China alone will be above $ 11 billion, and this is the highest figure in the world. If you count the whole of Asia - China, Japan, South Korea and the entire Southeast Asian region - this is a big chunk of the global gaming market.
What genres of games are most popular for entering the Asian region?
This is not a particular genre, but as a product. If you have a top project on hand that shows itself well in other markets, one of the Asian publishers may be interested. The product can be either a casual game - what Playrix does, or a hardcore game, the main thing is how much the project shows itself. If development is just beginning or coming to the final stages, in order to interest the Asian partners, you need to make a game in a trend genre. For example, in Asia, the genre is now very popular - Action role-playing game. If you look at the Chinese Top Grossing, then half of the projects will be in this genre, the same thing in South Korea. In Japan, a little different, but it is mobile projects. If we talk about the Asian market as a whole, then it can be browser projects, it can be PC client download projects. Naturally, I am now talking only about free-to-play games, since free-to-play is the dominant monetization model in Asia.
If we talk about monetization, Asian applications have specific features?
First of all, Asians are distinguished by a careful approach to various promotions and promo games. Most likely, we will not find such a variety of promotions and promotions in games from Western developers. We are talking about events that are held daily or weekly and are confined to any kind of holidays. This is what concerns inside the game monetization events.
Another characteristic point is that Chinese players like to show what VIP users they are, bragging that they can throw ten thousand dollars into the game, and all other players will see it. In the States, the situation is completely opposite - on the contrary, players prefer to hide how much they spend in games, despite the fact that they also pay well, they can borrow the same money, but at the same time prefer that no one knew.
Tell us about the features of game development in Asia.
First, the size of the teams. What we consider to be a medium-sized team - for example, 30, 40, 50 people, in Asia will be a small team. And the average team is 300 - 400 people in the studio. Large studios in principle have thousands of people and there are many of them. The industry itself is gigantic - it consumes a lot of content: we need large teams in order to produce it. A completely familiar picture: if you enter the Chinese studio, there is a huge open space, and so on six floors. The level of professionalism has grown greatly in terms of the usual in our understanding of quality, how to make good and competent game design, so that games earn, they have long learned.
A few words about pirate storis in Asia.
Strangely enough, but many Asians are not at all embarrassed to use jailbreaked smartphones, and there are really big stories - even officially alternative ones. If they are combined, then in terms of revenue, they will look solid against the background of official stores.
What trends are expected in the Asian region?
Everything will grow, and mobile as well. There is high competition in this market, and large investments are being poured into it.
What are the features of work in the Korean market?
Firstly, there are a large number of very strong local players - these are all companies that were founded 20-25 years ago, and they grew up with the market and reached a large size at the moment - these are really monsters, where 1000 people work in each from companies. Historically, the Korean market has specialized in developing PC client projects - well-known projects like Lineage 2, Crossfire is a wildly popular first-person shooter in Korea that earns a billion dollars annually.
But there was an explosive growth of mobile platforms. Some companies have been able to connect, some have not, or new strong players have emerged - such as Netmarble - a company that currently dominates the Korean market, with partly owned by Tencent. And I sometimes get the feeling that Tencent has stakes in any successful gaming company in the world.
Korean development, even by position, is very concentrated within itself - the offices of large corporations are located next to each other. They wisely acted - they built the buildings themselves, having invested in this way in real estate, and real estate is a great investment. In this regard, they diversified and tried to reduce risks.
Penetration of Chinese projects in Korea is evident: if Koreans are able to develop games that can earn millions on the Korean market, but they find it difficult when they enter the Western world, then the Chinese are developing projects that they earn in China, Korea and Japan and globally including.
Is it easy to adapt the game for the Asian market, you need to change something?
The Asian publisher will submit a list of requirements for project changes and it is best to obey and fulfill all that is required. Game habits are noticeably different from Asian players compared to European ones: they consume content faster, play very hardcore, and this requires more content to make the game show itself well and stay in the tops for a long time.
All interviews from the conference can be viewed on our youtube channel.
101XP is a Russian publisher and localizer of online games distributed according to the free-to-play model. The company operates not only in the Russian market, but also in foreign ones, including the Asian one.
Asia is an actively developing region in which more than 4 billion people live. Every year, the Asian games market grows by 20-30%.
')
The Asian mobile gaming market is highly dynamic. For 2-5 months, the positions of games in Top Grossing change by 80%, in contrast to the Russian market, where the positions in the TOP remain unchanged during the year. Given this feature, many Asian companies are developing games that linger in TOP for one to two months, and after that the development team starts another project.
Under the cut, we will tell you about the specific features of the monetization of Asian games, which genres of games are most popular for entering this region, about the features of the development and popularity of pirated stores.
Which regions includes the Asian mobile apps market?
The Asian market is gigantic. This year, the market for gaming applications in China alone will be above $ 11 billion, and this is the highest figure in the world. If you count the whole of Asia - China, Japan, South Korea and the entire Southeast Asian region - this is a big chunk of the global gaming market.
What genres of games are most popular for entering the Asian region?
This is not a particular genre, but as a product. If you have a top project on hand that shows itself well in other markets, one of the Asian publishers may be interested. The product can be either a casual game - what Playrix does, or a hardcore game, the main thing is how much the project shows itself. If development is just beginning or coming to the final stages, in order to interest the Asian partners, you need to make a game in a trend genre. For example, in Asia, the genre is now very popular - Action role-playing game. If you look at the Chinese Top Grossing, then half of the projects will be in this genre, the same thing in South Korea. In Japan, a little different, but it is mobile projects. If we talk about the Asian market as a whole, then it can be browser projects, it can be PC client download projects. Naturally, I am now talking only about free-to-play games, since free-to-play is the dominant monetization model in Asia.
If we talk about monetization, Asian applications have specific features?
First of all, Asians are distinguished by a careful approach to various promotions and promo games. Most likely, we will not find such a variety of promotions and promotions in games from Western developers. We are talking about events that are held daily or weekly and are confined to any kind of holidays. This is what concerns inside the game monetization events.
Another characteristic point is that Chinese players like to show what VIP users they are, bragging that they can throw ten thousand dollars into the game, and all other players will see it. In the States, the situation is completely opposite - on the contrary, players prefer to hide how much they spend in games, despite the fact that they also pay well, they can borrow the same money, but at the same time prefer that no one knew.
Tell us about the features of game development in Asia.
First, the size of the teams. What we consider to be a medium-sized team - for example, 30, 40, 50 people, in Asia will be a small team. And the average team is 300 - 400 people in the studio. Large studios in principle have thousands of people and there are many of them. The industry itself is gigantic - it consumes a lot of content: we need large teams in order to produce it. A completely familiar picture: if you enter the Chinese studio, there is a huge open space, and so on six floors. The level of professionalism has grown greatly in terms of the usual in our understanding of quality, how to make good and competent game design, so that games earn, they have long learned.
A few words about pirate storis in Asia.
Strangely enough, but many Asians are not at all embarrassed to use jailbreaked smartphones, and there are really big stories - even officially alternative ones. If they are combined, then in terms of revenue, they will look solid against the background of official stores.
What trends are expected in the Asian region?
Everything will grow, and mobile as well. There is high competition in this market, and large investments are being poured into it.
What are the features of work in the Korean market?
Firstly, there are a large number of very strong local players - these are all companies that were founded 20-25 years ago, and they grew up with the market and reached a large size at the moment - these are really monsters, where 1000 people work in each from companies. Historically, the Korean market has specialized in developing PC client projects - well-known projects like Lineage 2, Crossfire is a wildly popular first-person shooter in Korea that earns a billion dollars annually.
But there was an explosive growth of mobile platforms. Some companies have been able to connect, some have not, or new strong players have emerged - such as Netmarble - a company that currently dominates the Korean market, with partly owned by Tencent. And I sometimes get the feeling that Tencent has stakes in any successful gaming company in the world.
Korean development, even by position, is very concentrated within itself - the offices of large corporations are located next to each other. They wisely acted - they built the buildings themselves, having invested in this way in real estate, and real estate is a great investment. In this regard, they diversified and tried to reduce risks.
Penetration of Chinese projects in Korea is evident: if Koreans are able to develop games that can earn millions on the Korean market, but they find it difficult when they enter the Western world, then the Chinese are developing projects that they earn in China, Korea and Japan and globally including.
Is it easy to adapt the game for the Asian market, you need to change something?
The Asian publisher will submit a list of requirements for project changes and it is best to obey and fulfill all that is required. Game habits are noticeably different from Asian players compared to European ones: they consume content faster, play very hardcore, and this requires more content to make the game show itself well and stay in the tops for a long time.
All interviews from the conference can be viewed on our youtube channel.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/316020/
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