泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
The first step is localization to enter the global market
Game Next Summit 2014 was held not long ago. A lot of people in the gaming world participated in the event and there was plenty of conversation. It was about performance in 2012 and expectations or concerns, various service index, and directions in 2014. Of course, I don't write this to introduce the game event. I'd like to mention a lot of gaming companies considering planning to take their firms abroad.
Looking at the domestic situation in the recent mobile game market, a small number of games generate the majority of profits and many in the bottom barely make a much smaller profit than their production costs. Despite such reality, consumer's expectations increase for game quality, which leads to cost so much to make. Of course, there is no fairy tale where every developer earns money as long as they make games. In spite of a game with the efforts and cost of a lot of employees, it cannot generate profits if the game doesn't have a better chance of succeeding.
Unsurprisingly, every product is traded on the market and sales have been up and down depending on the volume and price of the products. Likewise, mobile game sales and profits depend on markets, users, revenue per paying users. While there had been various marketing strategies to increase the number of users and revenue per paying users, the latest trend in the gaming industry is to extend its business abroad to expand the market itself.
But I found that most individual developers are badly prepared for opening overseas doors when I actually talk with them. They mainly rely on an indefinite plan based on a vague story and presentation of other companies. Besides, they seem not to have gauged the exact market situation. The Korean mobile game industry has grown dramatically and it is also expected to show better outcomes in the future. It is natural that game makers try to expand potential users, increase revenue per user, and enter overseas markets and now is the time for them to rack their brain on how to grow. But a video game is not an industrial product but cultural content, which appeals to consumers' emotion than persuade through their rationality. The overseas expansion without an understanding of overseas markets and cultural practice is just paying for an expensive tuition fee to learn about cultural differences.
In early 2000, many foreign video games were localized to launch them in Korea. Some of them were hugely popular and the other performed dismally, however, there are no examples of success with a mistranslation of the game's text. The correct translation is common courtesy for a user in the country. Yet many games still don't meet user's expectations about localization. I felt ashamed when I heard that a manager of an overseas publisher said, "I'd rather recommend some of them to use Google translate."
As the competition is getting much tougher in South Korea, domestic game developers will have to consider overseas expansion for a while. I also support the companies to succeed in overseas markets. I just hope that the firms won't spend extra production costs due to clumsy localization and poor game service.
I used to hear that foreign publishers take too much profit considering the work they are doing. And I also heard that many game developers want to get involved in the game service directly because of revenue allocation. It is challengeable for developers with enough money and sufficient preparations. But I'd like to stop the firms, which show an interest in revenue allocation without preparations, from planning global service. They can share the profits only when revenue is created. Clumsy localization, poor game service, and misguided marketing only pump up production expenses.
Recently many foreign publishers are luckily interested in global service of domestic games. Of course, some firms might be poor, however, there should be good publishers which will make a good partnership and desirable results. Overseas expansion is emerging as trends now and seems not to be an option. Partnership with a good foreign publisher is a good way if a domestic developer lacks confidence in localization. Proper localization is the first step for making inroads into foreign markets and it's worth spending. I hope that a lot of domestic game companies will be successful in pioneering overseas markets.
※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.
(http://www.khgames.co.kr)
Translation by Kim Ki-hui
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