The opportunities for developers in Japan's mobile games market

[Music] so as you can see I am NOT Japanese and I'm not going to talk to you about Japanese market from the Japanese point of view I actually want to talk to you about the Japanese market from the Western point of view of someone that has believing there and working with the Japanese market for the last four years and my impressions of it and how I work with them okay so oh by the way I don't live in Tokyo which is a big difference I live in a place called sand life and this photo is from Sendai is actually my favorite place where all the bars and restaurants are so I'm good to party and if you don't know where Sendai is just think where the tea tsunami hit in 2011 that's exactly where I live which is

very exciting my decision of moving to san diegans exactly because the idea of my company is to help startups to establishing the area where startups are needed okay so just to introduce myself really quickly nowadays I have struggled to tell that but nowadays I can say that I'm a media and localization specialist I have been working with creative media and localization for 25 years which is sad positions how old I am I have lived in seven countries before I lived in Japan I am Brazilian and I have visited 34 countries in the last four years which is cool and there is a goal for that because I want to wanted to know international markets in creative media and work with different people and then I just decided to put some fun things for you that I'm fluent in five

languages and working in Japanese I have a lot of tattoos and I like rock I'm really good singer and I like cutter okay and well okay sorry I try to be funny but it doesn't look like you guys are and yeah okay thanks thank you now it's just to say I'm especially it's an international market and that's what I do for a living I don't know why I try to be funny it doesn't work okay what is the idea basalt this will besides behind these music so I can explain I have been working with Japanese market for the last four years usually invited by the Japanese government I lived in England then they would invite me to Japan to teach their students about game development and about international business and while visiting and meeting companies in Japan I realized what an awesome place Japan is but at the same

time how scary it is especially for Westerners to get into the market the language is very different the culture is very different the whole system works differently and I kept talking to them and complet Japanese companies kept asking me the same things the Western companies asked me when I went to Japan they kept asking how did they get into Western markets how could the Japanese companies be successful in Western markets if they knew the right partners if I knew the right people to talk to and I realized that the Western markets are also very scary for Japanese people it works both ways we don't know how the Japanese market work they don't know how we work either so then I realized that most mistakes that the companies do can become really good assets and they can learn how the Japanese work at those so

using that and the fact that I am a blabbermouth I talk a lot I decided to open a company in Japan and to help Japanese companies explore their products and Western companies getting to Japan that's the quick one so why Japanese market the Japanese games market is the third biggest in the world you can get that a fairly easy online is really good so 52% of them the gamers in Japan are mobile gamers differently from from India and using my colleagues saying the Japanese have really high-end really high-end mobile devices Internet is really easily accessible in Japan everybody has Wi-Fi and the monetization is really strong in Japan Japanese people like spending money and they like engaging in the game they are very

different from other audiences the cool thing about them is that if you have a Japanese user he becomes a really good friend of your game he's going to spend a lot of money and he's going to spend a lot of time in your games I'm going to explain a little bit later how the sessions work there is luckily different but they are a really good audience to engage on and they really love casual games and RPG and there are very cool differences about the market there and I don't know where Chris is I'm trying to talk faster because we were already late and I want it to be nice this time but look at the mobile market specifically so these are some data for you to get the revenue mobile market is raising rising rapidly it's about to to be raised the growth is not that big because they already are on their limit

of of of sales but what the Japanese markets are trying to do now and which makes it a good timing is they are trying to open for international apps the whole idea is the market with the companies they have now they already generate everything that they can generate and they want to bring international games and international apps to the country to explore this market so people can spend more the really cool part is that the rarp you it's about 90 dollars per user per month okay and there I know users have spend a whole lot of money more than that and one interesting thing most of the Japanese games they get really good revenue in China because the Chinese people really love Japanese culture an

interesting story just just a break I went to China to judge mobile games and there were Chinese mobile games developed in China with Japanese art and in Japanese language because they wanted to and they put subtitles in Chinese for the Chinese users so there is a really cool interesting place of overlap between China and Japan now comes the part that I wanted to get and I went because I want to do that so why most Western games are not in Japan or are not successful in Japan and why are your games not there what you're waiting for it so the big and scary Japan the problems are the process is if you have a mobile game if you're working or buy them in this is a mobile game conference so I imagine all of you do

that's the place for you okay they have the best paying users they have very dedicated users there is a large amount of users of course they don't have as many people as in China but they have a very good amount of users excellent internet connection so you wouldn't have a problem with that and you can make quite a lot of money while you're working in Japan that being said you have to localize similar to other Asian countries most Japanese people although a lot of them understand they can read and they can write in English they cannot talk speak English really well but they can read and write they are scared they are mostly very scared of working with English they feel a lot more comfortable and immersed in the game if they can do it in their own language so localizing is very important besides that it's not only the language the Japanese people did well how can I

put that not everybody in Japan actually is very aware of Western culture they do not always they are not always exposed to Western culture and I have many discussions with friends in Japan that I asked well I can give an example my colleague from Japan that came to a conference I had talked about that Nicolson with him which turned to me and say who is Jack Nicholson which for me was what he didn't know if it's not a common reference for them certain actors or something certain cultural aspects are not very clear for Japanese people so it's very important that you check that everything in your game oh the jokes oh the little things that make your game special or fun are

very clear for the Japanese market as well that they can understand why is it there the other thing that is very important is that the marketing approach for Japanese market is very different it has to be done upfront with local partners in the the tools that they are used to although it's they have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram the way the marketing is used in Japan is different not most motor ponies are not very interested in in Facebook to begin with they like Instagram and Twitter very much so if you go and do your all your marketing in facebook you're not going to reach the same amount of people there the other thing is that Japanese markets are used to propaganda way before the game is actually out they want to see the ads before they can actually reach the game which is a weird concept for Westerners we are used to doing the

propaganda at the same time so it's very important to you work with a local partner that can give you the right insights for the marketing and then it comes apart like the most that's and after that in Japan there is a thing called gotcha I think you guys seen these in different places have you seen these machines that you have the balls with little toys inside and you put a coin in your turn and it misses gotcha the Japanese really love this and they really love the system of surprise that I can get I can give some money and I can get something from the game that I'm not choosing necessarily it is a random chance award so if you put these kind of things in your game they really love it the other thing is that Japanese audiences use two events they're going to spend a lot more money if your game offers different kinds of events different

kinds of competitions that can engage the users further so for you to just put the game on iOS and Google Play and wait for it to get downloads the the users will lose interest if there isn't anything going on weekly or monthly so they can follow up besides that I forgot to add there but besides that in Japan also you have besides Google and iOS there is a possibility of working directly with the mobile providers so there are other ways of getting your users besides the traditional ways of website one thing is that most of the Japanese users are female users differently from India its balanced as it is in other countries but the thing is the men work 15 hours a day and usually they don't have much time to

play men are going to play to three-minute sessions in their coffee break or during their transport to home will transit to home women they play more often especially if they are housewives so there are a lot of very good market if you focus your game on cute and and casual and very interesting games for women which is something that a lot of companies have been trying to do and not always successful in Western company I'm very sad the martinis not here my colleague markings pens were here before she is specialist in games for women she would be good to comment on that but these kind of games are very very successful in Japan and Japanese like IP so if you can make a game that has a very famous IP they are going to consume it like crazy really love famous ip's near Yemen time

so okay as you can see there are a list of different problems that you can have there are actually quite easy solutions for things as well so so these are them I the idea that I had of comment talking to you about Japanese market is because the timing is very right now the Japanese government is investing very heavily in having international companies in Japan they understand that their market grew to their limit and they need international companies and they need their companies to export to be able to boost the company further and with the Olympics 2020 the government wants as much technology and as much as many good companies to come to the pen as possible so there is a lot of

government support the Japanese government started giving extra support for international companies it startups coming to Japan how one thing that is very hard in Japan is if you want to open a company in Japan you need one yen that's not a problem but for you to live in Japan to keep this company you need a lot of money like a lot of it and what the government is doing is to giving the startups more time and a more lenient program so that you can have your office in Japan without having to show that you have a lot of money in the bank account so it's pretty cool but for that my best advice for you guys would be find the right partners if you try to go by yourself to Japan without knowing anything about the market you're going to have a big difficulty especially oh

one comment especially because Japanese are not the fastest people in the world and a lot of my client is these guys are some of my clients but a lot of my class and one thing that they commented is that they took months negotiating with Japanese companies and they took months in meetings in dinners and exchanging gifts there are a whole code of things that you're supposed to do and then they said and nothing's going to happen and they gave up and then when I went to talk to the company that they were talking they actually gave up a week or two before the time of signing the contract they were so you have to have a lot of patience it's it's very different with the Japanese market be very open-minded do not go to Japan with the idea of Oh Japanese or close and traditional and do not do that the same way that you cannot say that all

Russians are decent is in this way or dopers Indian dirty you shouldn't go with this mindset the Japanese people are extremely friendly when you get to know them they are very nice people they are very crazy if you think that your game is weird go to Japan they are going to love it like they they do not look at they they go to the craziest most bizarre things yes they love that so be very open-minded be flexible because they are not very flexible so it comes from the western side the need to be flexible and to help them work out the way to get in okay because the Japanese are that's one thing negative thing the Japanese are not flexible they are working very hard and trying very hard to be but no they are not but I'm above everything please don't

give up and try to come and I try to I have a lot of stuff to say and I didn't want to put much data but and my time is almost over but one thing is please I'm here the today's I'm talking tomorrow as well so reach out I'm happy to like see your game and give you advice and and explore ways for us to do to work with the Japanese market and I'm here any time you guys need [Applause] okay so that was great we put on for one quick question we realize one does anybody have a question about working Japanese market there's one of the background man the blue I think it's blue thank you hi hi yeah thanks for a very interesting um so you mentioned

that uh Japanese really like famous IPS kind of like what are the top five western IPS that you know you think the Japanese market really uh what something to they are usually very receptive for example I can give you that I have in the computer I don't have it here but one thing that the Japanese really love is if you can connect it with curtains or with films or that they are they are they like they are very good I have to remember I think Independence Day was one of the last ones that they got really successful in Japan but I'm very sorry I promise I give you the data on the computer I don't have in the head there's no lock line yeah aqua okay I'm offline at the moment but I promise I share with you the top five okay thank you very much particle she'll be right back today's ok yes you [Music]