泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ The first step is localization to enter the global market

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

 

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Looking for Ijungballyong

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Looking for Ijungballyong

 

Not too long ago, I was asked about my pen name "泥中蟠龍(Ijungballyong)". To put it simply, it's a hidden dragon, a big snake called Imoogi, which tries to turn into a dragon. The full text of the poem is as follows:

 

八九年間始欲衰 (It began to decline in 8-9 years)

至十三年無孑遺 (There is nothing left in 13 years)

到頭天命有所歸 (You did your best and submitted to Heaven's will)

泥中蟠龍向天飛 (The dragon hidden in the mud will ascend)

 

You may find the details from The Records of the Three Kingdoms. It's been a half year since I started to regularly write the columns and I didn't take an opportunity to explain about the pen name. It's not the only reason I want to talk about it. I'd like to clarify the third line "到頭天命有所歸" of the poem. It means that the time has come at last. It expresses that Liu Bei, who survived in a dangerous and difficult time and situation, now get a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a great man. The only survivor can grab an opportunity. 

There is a famous line from a film, "It is not the strong that survive, but the survivor that is strong." Employees now have a hard time due to low performance in the second half of last year. A few companies with their strong performance assume the attitude of winner-takes-all and the majority of developers and publishers face dark time. Yet, a survivor can be stronger and it will ascend to heaven when it catches a golden opportunity. 

Many online game makers from 2012 to about 2013 did not survive because they wanted to make a big-budget game with from 20 to 30 billion won as they used to be. But some firms developed a tiny-budget game like Ganjang-gejang (crab marinated in soy sauce) full of crab roe now are highlighted among newly released online games. 

I believe that it's time for mobile game developers to prepare to be survived. Survivors only can wait for another chance. They should reduce their size and generate steady profits with a small but solidly-built game to survive and grab the chance. It'll sound corny, but it's a blessing in disguise. I hope to see a lot of ascending dragon like Ijungballyong at this time next year.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Looking back upon masterpieces of the past

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Looking back upon masterpieces of the past

 

Mobile-version games, which were originally superb online games be loved by many game users of the past, have been recently released. Looking back upon the experience of playing, I played some and they led me to play very big game hits released right after App Store's opening. I don't want to talk about my memory of enjoying mobile games. I'd like to mention what I felt while playing the great games and the iOS' hits.

Playing masterpieces of the past, I got frustrated. Even though I played them all night at that time, I've never enjoyed the games. Of course, my age or familiarity were not good reasons. The free-to-play business model in the mobile games put me under stress and I found it annoying. F2P, which was not found in the originals and not common in the games during the early days of App Store, is now taken for granted that gamers should purchase items or pay for access to new content after starting a game.

Free-to-start is applied to almost every mobile games nowadays. I've never played a game without F2P and received an investment proposal without the free-to-play lately. It became a standard business model for mobile games at some point and users don't seem reluctant to play them. It was only 10 years ago when players used to buy packaged games and pay by the hour for enjoying online games. But, at one point, I couldn't find a game with a flat rate or paid packages among newly released games. Furthermore, advanced F2P business model forces users to pay more in many ways. It also makes gamers necessarily stressful. The basic concept of the free-to-play model is to attract more customers entertaining them when they enter a game and give gamers stress by limiting playing when they are satisfied enough to continue to enjoy the game. And it brings in revenue by having customers pay for getting rid of their stress.

It gives players two chances. The first one is that users can decide whether they continue to play after playing a certain level of a game. And the other is that gamers can enjoy playing for free if they put up with stress. On the contrary, players are likely to be constantly asked to purchase content, which gives the users a lot of stress even though they started the game to relieve their stress.

It's definitely hard for developers to choose another revenue model because customers are already used to the free-to-play business model. Yet F2P has been developed just for profit; it leads the users to pay more not to entertain them. Spending a few million won for a game is not a piece of big news anymore. The free-to-play business model, which was started for game marketing and advanced and generalized, doesn't guarantee fun of games. The memory of players paying pay 40,000~50,000 won for a packaged game and enjoying it for hundreds of hours even a few years ago became a thing of the past. So we need to think about the games with free-to-play nowadays which easily lead users to spend a few hundred thousand won: no one can guarantee that they are much more fun than the masterpieces of the past.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui