Eastern Games in the West. Reasons why Eastern Games Succeed in Europe & USA PG Connects Digital #2

fascinated by what how successful eaten games have been Asian gaming I'm Western markets but it's not been necessarily the case the other way around for lots of reasons I'm imagine we might touch on later but enough of me talking eros over to you hi I think Oscar it's great to be here again so today I'll try to talk about how like this Asian gaming industry especially on mobile started to take over the best part of the world and like what can we do to like as publishers or developers to better understand and take this directions on this so like when I

started I'd like to talk first about you know the global game market we just try to understand how mobile gaming is becoming number one and gonna be like keep saying number one as you can see like today almost 45 percent of the whole revenue of the global games market is coming from you know tablet and smartphones basically on mobile devices and on top of it we see that it's growing fast and while the others are like not growing that much we see mobile growing really really fast compared to others so and when we see where is this coming from we see that the asia-pacific is making almost 50 percent of the total revenue and combining you know China where we don't know the you know the for example Google revenue because it doesn't exist

and there is a big Android Market over there we can think that it practically might be much larger but on top of it we have Japan Taiwan Korea like these four countries leading the gaming industry in mobile and also like USA and UK and some of the European countries are following strictly behind it means that this is a huge place to be in terms of Asian Games becoming really top you be coming into the top charge of the customer market Oh first to the great I think I I find this very interesting because Street Fighter has a heritage of like maybe history of 30 years in the coming and we see this game becoming so particularly important for the gaming industry because like it

started with real and camp real is your humble I mean like occasional speaking you know this cool guy who doesn't who represents like Japanese or like Asian culture and you can which is a like really on par in terms of ability to real but like a loud-mouthed the family guy talks a lot jokes a lot and so on so in the beginning of you know gaming industry the the Asian market thought that they need this kind of aster type to be attracted to the last market and in time I mean like there are like millions of certified to games and today they differ in ability a lot Andrew you became like the iconic face of the game and you see that their ability is different in the beginning their abilities were exactly the same now their abilities is like very different from each other the moves are different you know the kicks are different and everything is pretty much different so it's the same as of today and I want to take you through time to show you what's

happened between 2016 till today in terms of like top charts and you know in 2016 may we saw that you know the strategy games kinda to cover the Western market and there weren't many RPG titles back then and you see that in the Asian market it's almost 100 percent more focused on RPG or action RPG or kind of similar game so when we slowly like move forward we see that Latino clash of clans mobile strike before fire rage or left on the pop charts then in 2017 we started to see you know the clash for Elle and you know games like red escapes like penetrating western cards then we see a mixture of you know survival games in 2017 2018 same time we

don't see much of a difference in the Asian market take they kept staying on the hardcore RPG games and the only difference was obviously are no failures it became like a huge phenomenon in China because the kids particularly managed to bring mobile genre like League of Legends to the mobile platforms and it fills days by today and number one in China so moving forward we see that you know obviously in the United States we saw like slot games or like gambling soft gambling games X photo mania always like being in the top 10 charts we saw the surge of four tied to the west and we saw the surge of you know pop G mobile on the east and then they completely is a different story because in less than a year these charts really shake it off with no introduction of roblox for tonight pop t-mobile roll stars and we see that on

the West roblox becoming like one of the top games in the West while there is nothing to be seen in the east nobody I mean obviously it's not in the top ten in any countries and in the East while in this we see that still Japan China Korea differ from each other but still very much focused on battle ground games like knives out or pop G mobile or a fader like mobile and the rest is a RPG or you know RPG titles so you see this is less purchase UK top and we'll see very similar means that these cultures are practically moving together in terms of you know information flow communication you know friendship and so on like people exactly play similar games and they you can see like you know you see forth matters

you can request Agatha you see roblox and you see like you know all escapes that is all very similar while the Western cultures as a whole is very similar to each other we don't see the same in Asia you see like Japan Korea and China back in 2017 was almost there was another single game sharing top spot again look at this like a few months ago top ten China top ton Japan there's not a single game in the same chart so this is a completely different situation there so this is practically gives Asia a lot of different options a lot of different games to me play with in the Western world like almost like four or five times more games to play compared to rest top one of the major reasons of this my opinion is because of

the social media platforms you know all we know is is like we know YouTube we have Instagram what's up facebook Messenger and Facebook and to a certain extent we already know that you know China Japan and Korea they have their own apps for communication and while what's up properties for you know in-game invites or you know blogging details is almost non-existent we see in the beachhead and you know in Japan in line or in Corydon Kakao Talk receive all the gaming communities having their own channels on their blogs or the information channels they talk to each other they can invite each other through the app this is like similar to the Facebook's at 2016 27 to the 2017 in facebook where people could like really invite people to play you know

games from Facebook but today this is driving a much larger communities in this Asian countries while for example do YouTube I mean China has its own YouTube has his own Instagram has an own Facebook which is not shared by another country and for example Japan is in the middle of it like they also use Facebook Instagram and YouTube but also they have their own channels and what's a practically replaced by light which gives them in a better communicated community for like especially mobile games oh this is fun but you know this is very important because in games this is like really takes a step forward in my opinion as a social nor female attractiveness invest is very looks very white like you have

all this type of women that we find attractive but on the opposite side when you see Asia cheap all this woman fills us in our eyes is also low to the average Western this could practically look like one woman 25 different outfits over here is that which is not the case so this is a like a hard evidence or you know the cultural differences this is like practically happens a lot of in the games which I'm gonna show you next and because of this it's fundamental to understand basic differences so we can use those differences in our games and at this to a moderate success or like a better success in the future so I'm going to show you some examples of what is succeeding and what why is succeeding first of all look at this this is practically a game that has been

launched in the West just by you know changing the language of English and pulling out that which failed miserably we took the same game combined with Marlowe he practically the same you know game mechanics almost similar monetization system obviously as you can see less I mean lots of less buttons to my flame it to be honest and you have a hit so one of the things that is important while the IPS you know and in IPS or other IPS are really important in Asia in the best IP like Marvel DC Disney or you know Simpsons or whatever that kind of like on Star Wars practically really make it appealing for the Western notice so this is one so but this is like a big project of course that you need a collaboration with a large IP owners which might be the case all the time this is one of the very important things that created a lot

of success for a lot of Asian companies another thing is you know the lot tweaks that has to be happening in the ui/ux part you know on the left you have the original lobby UI on the right is directly tweaked UI on the left you have almost 65 bottoms some of them hidden when we tested this for example when you - this is impossible to be understood by a westerner because you know we have this practically we have this you know left-to-right reading understanding since our childhood but on the same time you know Asians have this kanji culture where every letter has you know four sides so they have this whole idea of looking at a picture of looking at a screen and

understanding the whole thing from left to right right to left up down or whatever so it's important for us to be like from left to right to have the most important buttons on the left and not only go by going to the right as well so this is very very important part another thing is like you know in the tutorial is a each part of the process all almost all Asian people like very familiar with tutorials they like to read tutorials they like to read those stuff before trying out product or some market but on the west we really tried to jump into the game as soon as possible so while on the left the original game has liked you you actually see the game at the fourth step we did this in the second step where you immediately get into the game and win and then you start to get tutorial one by one he's the whole process but I mean

like a longer period of time instead of giving you the all in the beginning this is like a rule of thumb this almost always happens for any aging game they have to change the story immediately to make it much easier for Westerners another thing is you know localization this is pretty straightforward so I'm not going to stay on it because like you know the most doctor I mean one of the recent successes in the mobile in strategy now is it was rise of kingdoms and practically of course being a spectacular game one of the like reasons if you can show successful for example in our region is because it has to optimize higher in it so everybody has a like a culture motivation to play the game this is like something that has to be done especially in you know for example Middle East has like almost 350 million people and they have different kind of understanding in many different things for their culture this you know very important as much as Spain of UK or you know France

so you have to take care of it as well don't forget about different cultures again this is something funny but like really tough to understand sometimes you know the same I mean in the past we really look up to more like real characters in the shooter games or action RPGs well in Asia you know the fairy type fantasy illusionary characters are more common and more popular well if you like use those characters these are immediately perceived as a kid in the West so you have to change those like most of the games especially in Japan and this kid characters or you like a child is looking characters were like when I see those characters I think that this is not a game for my age but it's a game for my kid or you know a 10 year old so I think like Asian gaming

companies really tackle this world and managed to put like you know more realistic characters while while the opposite didn't really happen in terms of character design but I see this this is also important and see here the same game and characters one for the eastern one for the western audiences you see like to birth and longer and the darker while you have like you know fairy skin the old guy as a main character which really is not killing for Western audiences autoplay is another thing which is like really like you know when western audiences right now you know it's been a part of gaming mobile gaming culture since 2015 in especially China us I mean China Japan and Taiwan also especially in Korea you see everywhere like in Starbucks or in the cafes like people like putting their phones open and like it's just forming over there and it's it's really important it's really important to

understand this this is like part of the process for them and we see more games doing the same while in the West control is more important we see that also in some games it started to be important as well this is also important like I told you about social platform unique includes everything if you Monaco West I'm the opposite as well you have to be appealing you know right now just Facebook there is not enough unity integrate all this kind of platform so people can communicate with each other and talk to each other because like most of the Asian Games has more content in line and Kakao Talk and they are all in English and and they can't find any content in what's up obviously because like you know or you know Twitter but we checked line and Coco talk has all these functions to get the information you need to pick up the game or you know get to the advanced levels where you can understand what's going on if you level up too much or like you and you have to

like tips and tricks and stuff like that it's it's kind of very important other thing this is also like very funny like I had a lot of experience with this in the East when you when you plan an event you know you know you have four or five steps to get the price now I mean like you have to go there pick the stuff I mean combine it with the material and another thing and make the Swart then level it up to like level 10 and then okay you got the big price so when we try to do this in like the Western Western players it was really like I mean people were deleting the game or like they don't really participate you might it was too complicated on the other hand this is like it has to be very straightforward like an one step I mean I think like a property mobile does it really well I mean like for tonight does it really well I mean like you need to have just one thing to do it can be hard it can be easy but you have to do

it I'm like it's it's over its it shouldn't be very complicated and if we use this like simple method in the east also like you know in Japan they will not like it because they will ask for a more challenging and better prices which is I can take the different start again this is like most important things because like if you're if you're trying to become a global game in each you cannot celebrate st. Patrick's Day which is very important in the Middle East it can create or like you know we don't have Christmas in Middle East so you cannot celebrate Christmas in your game in Middle East so it's better to have your html5 pop-ups the geographical available to different regions yeah oh the final part is the like chasing behavior which is also like with from East you know in the East when they see a new game coming in they really tried to spend the game as soon as

possible it's not in the game as soon as possible so they can catch up with the other players on go on but in the West we lately needs some time to understand ok this is our game to play so you need at least a couple of days to like really convince yourself that you can spam games because you're gonna play it for a longer time so these are like easy exam VI pieces to is also spelling it now it's been available in Asia for a long while now and we see more games informatics there are key systems where you pay more you get more bonuses you get more advantages unlike more levels I mean some games has even like 20 20 levels of VIP in their system and it's becoming more and more available thank you for listening to me I mean I try to list as much as possible in like in this 20 minutes I hope it was

useful I mean this is a this is a long presentation like supposed to be like maybe a couple of hours or a day long because it never stops and it always evolves with time I know it's great that was fantastic I mean actually I mean I was out Facebook helped me go out to Beijing end of the Christmas and I was talking a lot of Chinese developers about how they would come to the west and it's interesting kind of there's some things in their differences that I wish I knew when I was out there that you put in there about some of the cultural ization I think your point about things like female attractiveness and the differences between that and the subtleties you know I think a really really insightful and that need to not just localized the cultural eyes I think is essential one thing I did notice though that and to me there was a big thing about gameplay design and socialization design which I personally feel there's a big piece and it's

interesting how when you're talking about how in events that you need that kind of like series of activities in Eastern markets where as you want that direct get on with it in the Western markets I felt I think from a game design point of view there's a lot in my opinion there's a little bit more surface with depth available in Asian Games whereas I think in games that are designed in the in the West they're generally more sophisticated in overall but they're maybe not so much variation once you get past that sophistication I'm not making sense or is that different from your experience yeah I mean like its to be honest like it's similar live like I agree like it's it's part of the process like more and more we see that you know Asian developers worked really hard to be more appealing to his I mean West but we don't see the

opposite much like we see whenever the game is becoming successful in the east by a rest publisher or developer we don't see much of a tweak but everything is changed in asian games like you see pubs in Mobile China which is pubs in Mobile Europe I mean not Western built it's so different like so many differences they are really trying hard to make it appealing for us to well mention pub genie I mean I was doing some we had poker game with Jordan last year and I did some analysis and worked out the Saudi Arabia with the largest source of revenue overall for pubsey mobile yeah and on average the population about five times the revenue per user yeah exactly it's crazy like I mean like it's it's also viewed that only Asian companies like realize this I'm like focusing on those those regions of the world like that's crazy we should be in the West we also should be like taking care of this but like in our idea of

course like you know USA is like for a European or you know Middle Eastern developers we always try to go to USA right like that's that's the that's the biggest that is closest to us but again like for Asia it's like Middle East as well like a selected its interest remember when I was at PlayStation and it was basically us UK Europe and Japan had it's obviously Japan and expect a place in Sony don't get me wrong but in terms of revenue they were that was why we slice things up I better answer some of these questions got quite a feeling racking up so from 2017 in the Korean charts a lot of old-fashioned MMO games started turning up and given the the evolution of mobile gaming is mobile gonna become they kind of sauce you know the main main area where mmo's might be played is MMO on mobile gonna be as big as I'm trying to summarize is quite a lot so

you know what does that mean in terms of is MMO mobile a thing that's going to come in to the west or is it something which is really an Asian mindset well I think personally I think that it's an Asian mindset it's well I mean III was one of the I mean when I was the CEO of netball EMEA we launched lineage to revolution which is like a big IP and so on but you know this complex 40 to 40 100 200 and more fights that's happening on mobile it's still too much for less than people like we don't like it to be honest we are used to like large screens we are used to you know like played on your Playstation and so on it's it's kind of still too much for us old school runescape and you know turning up on mobile I mean my feeling is a bit like mobile shooters yeah it's we haven't culturally adapted yet but it'll happen some yeah yeah yeah exactly I agree like not now I don't think it will happen a

year or so because now it's a time for you know westerns to get used to survival games you know like methyl group games do you like it you know and you look 40 versus party at four that does it roblox does it you know we see them top of the charts but we couldn't see em more pidgeys cracking it up because it's very complicated to localize to west when you have an asian IP and like 90% of those IDs in they are in the east they are making a lot of money already they'd like spend a long millions of mana or to like localize it to us we did it once will they take a massive part of the mind space of somebody yeah such a big burden and I think familiar experiences are bite-sized so I suspect we'll see you know people using mmm airline mechanic spa there are more determined around the the the incident level play rather than long session play yeah next question here in Sam what's

the number one mistake you see Eastern developers making when trying to localize their game for the West well this is this is this idea to blend the office time so I expressed on making mistakes I'm gonna say the the classic phrase all your base are belong to us yeah exactly like you know I spent seven years in Asian companies that marble not else and so I practically watch a lot of games and most of them failed so one of the major problems is that when you come to the localization it's very difficult how we don't understand them as a culture is a thing it's same for them to let them understand what's happening with our culture and it's not just about the word so I mean like first doesn't mean the thing when you localize it's also important but you need to have the characters Styles the words it's all of a package so one of the things that Eastern developers do is like just translating the game putting on the market especially in the marketing side especially the marketing the user

acquisition campaigns that they do when they do it with just the translations using the same you a banner or the video they use in the Asia they all fail and they have like faced extreme user acquisition costs and they like pick up and go that's why you know big companies that can sound or you know like Nettie's they do a good job to you know manage this user education campaigns very locally it's like local partners and so on yeah exactly I think having that scale makes a huge difference on that note I've so many questions I want to ask you about you know the number one you know that the quirks the Turkish market and so on and so forth unfortunately yeah Haim has escaped us to Eris thank you so much for your time thank you very much Oscar please just take her for time everyone taken her species it yeah you