Customers in Asia

[Christian]

Hi, i want to ask if someone is getting sales from Asia.
I see that there is a huge oportunity in selling our games there,
so, i just want to know how many sales you get from there,
what are the asian portals that sell games, how do you do
to translate your games, have customer relations, investigate
the asian gaming market, etc.

I have been thinking this, and i will be hiring a chinese, korean and japanese
translator here to help me with this things, i think it is more
secure than contracting people online, but maybe im wrong,
can anyone give advice on this?.
Thanks a lot.

[steve bisson]

remember to translate your webpage , they have to understand your download and order page too if you want them to enjoy your korean game

[Christian]

Yes, although i also have planned to use very little text, and mostly graphics to communicate, and use very simple words to make the translation job easier to various languajes and to reduce the probability of grammatical or other kind of mistakes.
Its not an easy task anyway, thats why i ask for help, guidance.

[kjs335]

Hi, I'm from korea, I'm not sure if you will be able to get sales in korea.
Majority of gamers have already played loads of korea games (mainly MMORPG) out there and the ones that are comming out are advertised on TV,popular websites and on streets.
Some people play package games but many ppl download the package games from internet for free.
I've seen a korean indie FPS game which was not yet released to public. But then it was delayed and the project was discontinued.
I guess you need a good marketing to get sufficient people. Probably sending news to famous portals,etc.
My mom's a translator, only if we were close it might be possible to think about a contract

Just my 2 cents

[Jason Chong]

Hi, I'm from korea, I'm not sure if you will be able to get sales in korea.
Majority of gamers have already played loads of korea games (mainly MMORPG) out there and the ones that are comming out are advertised on TV,popular websites and on streets.
Some people play package games but many ppl download the package games from internet for free.
I've seen a korean indie FPS game which was not yet released to public. But then it was delayed and the project was discontinued.
I guess you need a good marketing to get sufficient people. Probably sending news to famous portals,etc.
My mom's a translator, only if we were close it might be possible to think about a contract

Just my 2 cents

Heya, since you're a korean, I have some questions to ask about sales of games for the GP2X handheld console in korea.

Do you think there's a market for games on that unit ?

Apparently you can use gcc and libSDL to create games for it.

http://gp2x.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gp2x

[Escapee]

In Malaysia, very few here are willing to pay USD 19.95 for a casual game , not to mention a retailed game that costs USD 49.95 .

Ironically, Majority of the gamers are willing to spend hundred or thousand ( over a period of few years )for add-on digital items/bonus or monthly subscription on MMORPG games like Gunbound , Knight empire/online , WOW , Gunzonline, ragnorak online and etc.

I think you should see the same situation in China & Korea.

In japan , i believe the market is dominated by consoles (PS2) but i could be wrong .

[Pogacha]

Is there someone from Japan?

I'm interested in Japan for my product ... but is only a dream I guess .
If someone could bring light to that part of the world, and tell how is the market I'll really apreciate this.

Thanks

[Jason Chong]

Is there someone from Japan?

I'm interested in Japan for my product ... but is only a dream I guess .
If someone could bring light to that part of the world, and tell how is the market I'll really apreciate this.

Thanks

I am not from Japan, but I have played games from Japan.

I can tell you the market is very competitive.

If your game doesn't contain any anime quality characters or mechs, you can pretty much forget about selling it there I think.

You should check out some of their indie games, the code and graphics are, nothing short of fantastic. Their shooters are also FANTASTIC.

Even without proper art, the stuff they can do with their code, FANTASTIC.
These guys can do wonders with only 16 colors!

I base my side scrolling design/graphics style on the japanese whenever i can.

[electronicStar]

I am not from Japan, but I have played games from Japan.

I can tell you the market is very competitive.

If your game doesn't contain any anime quality characters or mechs, you can pretty much forget about selling it there I think.

You should check out some of their indie games, the code and graphics are, nothing short of fantastic. Their shooters are also FANTASTIC.

Even without proper art, the stuff they can do with their code, FANTASTIC.
These guys can do wonders with only 16 colors!

I base my side scrolling design/graphics style on the japanese whenever i can.

OTOH, you can go the other route and promote the gaijin distinctiveness of your products. Japanese are famous for falling in love for one western product or another as long as it's sufficiently high standard (luxury goods) or it is rather weird (tom Selleck). Best way would be to announce it's a product develloped specifically for the japanese market. In this case don't try at all to be competitive, just try to be original and weird.
The japanese culture has a special taste for products that are both bad-taste and a bit on the sucky side. Search fo kuso-ge.

Joke aside, if I wanted to try and sell my game to a foreign country, I would:
1-make sure it is sufficiently localized for it to be understood
2-give the consumers signs that you are making an effort specifically for their country (flatter national pride a little bit)
3-use an original approach and don't go for frontal competition against the local player because you can't compete.
4-promote it as a luxury item

[Pogacha]

I see no way to get into Japan market ... comunication will be a problem that can't be solved easily, and the risk is higher than in the USA market ... except if I found a kind of affiliate or partner.

[kjs335]

Heya, since you're a korean, I have some questions to ask about sales of games for the GP2X handheld console in korea.

Do you think there's a market for games on that unit ?

Apparently you can use gcc and libSDL to create games for it.

http://gp2x.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gp2x

Majority of people who play mobile games play through cellphones.
I don't know if there's an opportunity for GP2X. Some manias get them.

[steve bisson]

Japanese are famous for falling in love for one western product or another as long as it's sufficiently high standard (luxury goods) or it is rather weird (tom Selleck).

hahaha Tom Selleck sorry to be off topic but yeah japanese can be interested by the weirdest things. I remember i had two japanese friends that photographed meat packs at the grocery store, they were very amused and in awe in front of the "family packs ".

I dont think it needs to be mech or anime style characters tho... i mean look at nintendo. It does seem to need to be cute, overly happy and colorfull or very stylish imho.

edit :
http://nfg.2y.net/games/aichoaniki/
http://seanbaby.com/nes/naughty02.htm

haha that kuso ge search string really finds treasures

[Darth Nader]

I've been quite interested in looking into distributing my game to Korean and Japanese markets once I get help with localization, but I was pretty concerned with the Korean business model with games as described earlier, and I always believed that the Japanese market regarding PC games is not exactly booming (shooters and dating sims notwithstanding).

I was thinking that the monthly payment and the purchase of special items as the main source of income for some Korean games was a by product of the popularity of game cafes. I've been keeping my eye on a few of the game portals as well (www.gamengame.com being the most recent), considering the possibility of going through one of these guys as a way into the market. I'm going to look at Japanese PC gaming a bit more. I have seen a handful of US games get to Japanese players over teh course of time, and it gives me a little hope

[mrkwang]

Well. It's very late reply, around 1 year after. Anyway hope this could be helpful for someone.

In Korea, Game Market is very different from Western Market, as you see. Almost every games are made for Online - Competive system at now, as MMORPG or MMOG. Even Casual games are made for Online - Competive usually, for example, Kart Rider - Maple Story.

Anyway there are also western style Download Casual Game Portal in Korea, at Daum or Mgame. They are using the service of Oberon. Not sure how they do business to each other, and not sure how many people really purchase through that portal, anyway.

And as I know, some (or few) Korean people visit abroad internet by themselves & get demo and purchase some indie games.

[mrkwang]

Heya, since you're a korean, I have some questions to ask about sales of games for the GP2X handheld console in korea.

Do you think there's a market for games on that unit ?

Apparently you can use gcc and libSDL to create games for it.

http://gp2x.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gp2x

As I know, GP series are more popular in Europe (or UK only?) than Korea. They used it handheld emulator.

I even saw a UK Fanzine dedicated to GP32(if I remember correctly), and that Fanzine was full of emulation things.

[MrQ]

I recently sat in a developer chat with some people from NCsoft and other Asian publishers talking about that market.
The big things I got out of it was:

- play asian based games to get an idea of thier style look and feel
- work with local asian companies to localise and culturise your game for that region
- You must TRAVEL there to do business with local publishers/web portals
- not very accepting of western content (need to build custom content)

They emphasized the importance of travelling to the place you want to sell in to get a better understanding and build good business relationships with local publishers/distributors.

[zoombapup]

I would assume that would require a translator etc.

Incidentally, this would be an ideal opportunity for an indie in australia to work with an indie in asia to deliver indie games from the west. Given the proximity, you'd have thought that they could do some good business.

I'm definitely designing some "asia friendly" concepts, because I have a great love for asian culture and art style. Plus I prefer online gaming, so I have a warm fuzzy feeling for a country (korea especially) that embraces that.

[MrQ]

There are some Australian companies with good asian publisher relationships (namely auran) and have had some success in Asia. However I think the main issue is with the cultural barrier and alot of companies probably won't be interested in a middle-man when they could approach these publishers directly. But you may be right about the geographical location making it a bit easier for Austrailan companies to develop closer relationship.

[mrkwang]

Forgot few more things to tell, about Indie Game at Korea.

- I told you about Daum & Mgame sells Casual Game, through Oberon. Right? Some of those games has KOREAN LANGUAGE VERSION. Not sure how they worked to translate, anyway. Almost every Popcap games (including [Rocket Mania]) might have Korean language version, and some more. Don't know how many of them, because I play only some of them through Korean portal by myself.

- I saw some Casual Game has Japanese Laugnage version, too. Maybe shockwave Japan page could show you some example. http://www.shockwave.co.jp/

- Even [Virtual Villagers] has Japanese language version, if I remember correctly.

And please make sure about this.

- I saw some game with Korean Language Version has bad translation, or bad fonts to see. Even if you hire some translator, you might need some Beta Testors to check. And Bad Font could be very serious problem. You might not be very friendly with Korean language itself, so might not see what's the problem. But Bad Fonts makes game very Bad.

[zoombapup]

I think we sold the rights for Worms 2 to Wizgate in Korea, who then put it into china.

I remember them telling us that while we have like 20 testers and a few hundred beta testers, they had ~5 MILLION beta testers in china

Its really not about money though, I just like the asian take on games. It'd be great to get my own products out there, even if it wasnt for profit.

[MrQ]

Thanks for the information Mrkwang