Working with Both Eastern and Western Developers as a Service Provider

[Music] so hi guys alright so my name is Owen and from Maine and China obviously today I'm gonna talk about this topic right here so so before I start I want you guys to imagine you know in this game it's a first person shooting game and in the game you have just shoot down one of your enemy and instead of you know being dead and lying on the ground you add the very enemy you have just killed simply waves back and you okay with a freaking smile on his face also in a very peaceful way and on top of that this enemy also give out all his weapons to you also in a very friendly way like this so this sounds like a very stupid

game that I made up just right now I could tell you that this is actually a real game that has been played by millions of players right now so I'm gonna reveal the name of this game later on in my talk so before that let's get started with my talk introduction of Mac background so we are a fifty people and came out our sourcing company is in China I mean in China to be specific and you know we make well using all these amazing tours to make the beautiful arts for the game developers around the world and we provided 2d services starting from Twitter concepts you know illustration graphic man panting no and also we we have our developer clients with the modeling texturing rigging so literally everything you can see in Sonic game so so you may ask why do I have to work with both Western and Eastern clients at the same time the

simple the answer is simple is that I simply have to work with these guys so as you have already probably notice that some of the top names in the industry and as you can see that they come from where different backgrounds cultural backgrounds and time zones so first of all if you're working with these guys it means that you have to work on different time zones so personally speaking I have travel around the world you know but the good news is that I don't really have a fixed timezone anymore so I don't really suffer from any chill act anymore so you can obviously obviously see from my eyes right okay so so what is so different I can't I like to break it down into four factors the difference in culture the difference in our style which has been well it's blended by the previous talk by refinery and the third one will be in market and policy so when it comes to this this part since I'm in from the

mainland China I'm gonna talk a little more about what is really happening in you know in a man in China okay so the first of all that the cultural difference as you can see that this is typical you know business scenario you can find in the Western world you know people wearing suits you know shaking hands with a smile on the face while in Japan you can see something like this you know people take it deep bowels right and people are literally taking notes during meetings and things like things could be a little bit more formal compared to the Western culture and the last one is little bit more interesting so anyone who any one of you who have ever talked or worked with a Chinese businessman will you know share my feelings on this so actually you are very likely to be in the same situation as in the middle so in Chinese we call it change yo and you can roughly translate it into English as you know force the drinking yeah so it's cultural that still exists believe or not and but you know statistically

speaking 99% of the business talks only Koshi asians happens on the dinner tables in mainland china so this is something you I think you're probably gonna encounter if you are going to work with Chinese businessman so get ready for it and don't don't get yourself too drunk okay so this part is my my favorite you know before I talk about this part I I want to say a disclaimer on this target because you know everybody knows that stereotype is not good I'm not trying to advocate for stereotype of course but I'm trying to share my personal experiences you know throughout the years I mean the gaming industry okay as you can see I kind divided this whole game industry into four sorry three different regions they are western Japan and China and this works for me and also I kind of score them with three different factors they are loyalty communication and a generosity loyalty

means that how long your client is going to stick with you and communication means that how easily you can talk with each other well generosity means that how much money they want to pay you are the budget Oh are they generous so for the western part people are very easy to talk with you know you can just go directly to the point and talk about business business you know without any just talk with them but sometimes you know they leave you easily for some reason I think it's a cultural thing you know you know sometimes they leave you for a better option for better price for you know I don't know there is a why but to me is the situation in the you know Western market well what comes to Japan is quite different Japan Japanese people are as you know that they're very conservative so at the very beginning everything goes very slowly so

it's very hard to get their trust on you at the very beginning so the Japanese clients will go to your office they will pay a visit to your you know company and check everything's out to see how is everything is going actually you know before they make their decision and work with you so but the good news is that once you pass their you know tests and the due diligence they're gonna stick with you forever you know so they are extremely loyal to you we earn their trust okay and you know and most of them are very generous in terms of pricing yeah so when it comes to China it's a completely different story obviously I'm gonna talk about this more in my in the next part so the difference in the in ours I think this one has been you know where explained it but from the preview preview talk and you can see that this is the art style that is going to be

popular in China well this kind of style is gonna be you know popular in the Western world as you can see that the you know the solid color the very boxy and bulky shapes after character designs and obviously this kind of manga and chibi and you know cartoony kind of style is going to be popular in Japan so as our stars house we know we have to you know cater for different kinds of our styles because were just simple simply a bunch of artists who make the arts for the game developers and the difference in the market is even more obvious as you probably know that the the Chinese development and publishing market is kind of dominated by few big brothers you know that tension last in the East End's and I so take tension for example as you know that transient is literally buying everyone and you know their games it's among the most profitable ones inside of China and even

around the world so you are very likely to talk with these guys you know these big brothers if you want to launch your game in China so here comes the very interesting part is that you know the publishing in China is quite different when you talk about the App Store I mean Apple's App Store we have a special special version in China on which you can never find in the most popular apps or games around the world like you know Twitter Facebook Instagram you can never find them on this but instead what you can you can find all these preferred games which or you know developed and published by the local Chinese game developers so that's quite different and also when it comes on the other hand when it comes to Google Play you know Google services all Polacks in mainland China so it means that the Chinese can game players they can only get their games from these guys so if you take a

real close look at these guys you'll notice that the first of all of them are actually filmmakers believe or not they are actually you know the the phone the physical for manufacturers so they can't we kind of choose to pre-install their preferred games on their phones so any anyone who brought their films will inevitably get access to their games they prefer and for the the fifth one is by two I'm not sure if you guys know that is actually the relevant I mean equivalent of Google email in China so obviously people you know player players search for games they were clear recommendations from this search engine but the last one is very interesting is it's literally an antivirus I mean who get their games from antivirus right it's like it's like buying marijuana from a police officer right it doesn't make any sense but you

know this is the situation here in a minute China so and before you want to launch your game in China you simply have to cap this triple works it means that if you want to define your game is to making money in China it takes a lot of time to get this you know take my personal experience for example I in the publishing mobile game publishing industry for two years and until now I just don't get my SPM so you can't measure how long the queue is so this page is quite you know yeah abuse next somebody from China notice this so this page is literally something you have to put in front of your loading page so inevitably it's gonna make any game it look like a horror game right obviously right so imagine this page on you know on candy crush mix don't mix no freaking

points okay and you know also before you come to China you have to you know localize it and also harmonized they record it it means that you have to follow all these three principle principles for games so first of all non-sexual contents and um violence and non-political obviously so let me explain it to you non-sexual so means that no cleavage I'm sorry guys no cleavage for games you have to cover it with your creativity whatever you want to do is just look a okay and so now let me review the game that I mentioned before I talked the name of the game is actually pop G mobile you know is published and developed by chincin and in order to get the paper works I mentioned earlier they literally change the name of the game from pop we move out to him for peace

right of course you're you're playing your friends for peace okay yeah and it games if you ever whenever you shoot down your enemy the enemy will wave backs and queue at a very friendly way okay so to show that you know it's a peaceful game okay and no one is this is involved even you're using weapons you know to shoot your enemy of course yeah and also people keeps out there are weapons peacefully in a very peaceful gesture like okay and of course the Pilates is going in China obviously right I mean is it even is even blood I think it's like you know lighting ball or something so my personal advice for you know for working with both Western and Eastern clients will be you know just don't do it honestly it's just too much efforts and too much you know time on it okay but if you if you

unfortunately have to do it and you kind of make a living out of it here are my tips so for for Japan try to be more patient and be very professional but with hogs with you every business talks and you know pay great attention to every single details because they're watching you okay and talking about until you kind of build a long-term relationship with you okay you know it's gonna be pay off in the in the future collaboration with them so for the Western market is much sin simple so you could you know the Kami shows like this and you can go directly to the point and talk a business with them for China it's a limited special I think you should social connections first before you do any business with anyone so this is very important in the mainland China this is the cultural background what we have okay and install WeChat on your phone obviously I think everybody here has a wheelchair on their phone and you know good dinners and try

not to get yourself to charge thank you oh the the black screen page is called the the healthy advice page it's actually something you know you know it's a healthy advice given by the Chinese government telling you that's how to play game healthy healthy and stay away from sexual contents and stay away from piracy centered on you know it's a it's a mandatory if you launch game in China very good for players yeah it works for me yeah any questions

can you tell any case of clients that you were working market yeah that you like the biggest mistakes you made when you were still learning how to deal with them okay I have example for the Western clients because you know I'm from the Asian background time for men in China so when I joined the mark I joined the country you know eight years ago I was a rookie and I you know they rooted in my couch Chinese culture so when I talk about you know Western Western clients you know I like to you know dance around with them you know and not talk about the pricing local power talk about it you know schedule the very important stuff they want to know but in

order to show respect to me it ends with me you know so it end up you know dancing with each other for hours without talking about real stuff so so my advice for you for any you know anyone from the Asian background just get to the point directly and talk business I'll come to the shows ideas it really works for me [Music]