为了将快速发展的社交游戏市场扩展至其他地区，游戏发行商Mentez目前致力于为拉丁美洲用户将现有游戏本土化。

虽然北美的热门社交游戏大多依托Facebook平台，但Mentez却瞄准Google的Orkut平台，游戏邦发现Orkut平台是巴西等国家的主流社交平台。Mentez目前发行的5大热门游戏中，有4款是投放于Orkut平台。

公司充分考虑合南美用需求，重新调整游戏内容，实现游戏本土化，可能还会开发围绕特定节日主题的道具，配合当地用户的文化结构。

Mentez游戏目前在南美每周有2200万左右的活跃用户，游戏邦发现该公司已和中国游戏开发工作室以及Playdom等美国开发商签订合作协议。

Gamasutra日前采访了Mentez产品和业务拓展副总裁Juan Roldan，主要谈论公司的本土化策略，公司同海外开发商的关系以及中国游戏机制为何会吸引南美用户，游戏邦根据采访内容做了如下编译。

公司目前推广的游戏主要为南美和社交领域现有的游戏。这仍然是你们的业务重心，对吧？

是的，这是我们当前的工作重心。我们首先瞄准巴西是因为那里机会最多。那时开发商们都青睐Facebook平台。于是我们决定专攻Google的Orkut平台，我们从那里发现了机会。我们在那推广自己的应用，我们推广的是社交应用，而不是游戏，我们的应用和第一代的社交应用颇为相似。

我们在Orkut稳固了自己的根基。这让我们有机会发行其他公司和其他地区的社交游戏，如中国。中国是我们本土化进程的起点。和中国合作伙伴的关系已经确立，现在就只剩南美部分了。Mentez将把业务范围拓展至南美的所有西班牙语国家，其中主要为墨西哥、哥伦比亚、智利和阿根廷。

以上4个国家的有近6000万的用户，且用户数量还在不断增长。该地区在整个南美潜力最大。这就是有趣之处；那里的用户有充足的时间。就拿Zynga、Playdom游戏和其他大型游戏来说，有的游戏有进行语言转换，但并没有进行本土化。该地区的用户大多体验英文版本，所以没有开发商将游戏真正本土化。

但是你们并没有和开发商合作，针对当地用户开发游戏？

没有，但我们曾经有尝试过，（笑）但行不通。当时合作对象是中国开发商，但没成功，所以我们决定只做发行。需要注意的是，这个地区实现有太多方面可供挖掘，以致开发商常常无所侧重。所以我们决定专攻当前业务，因为这是我们最擅长的。我决定先打好我们在该领域的基础，然后再考虑拓展其他业务。

接下来的这个问题在传统游戏行业并不鲜见，但我觉得你们可能会有不同的答案。你觉得社交游戏领域的语言转换和本土化区别何在？

语言转换不过就是翻译游戏文本的语言，对吧？这项工作完全可以外包。目前开发商存在的一大误区就是他们只是简单地将游戏进行语言转换。而我们认为本土化不仅包括文本语言，还涉及当地用户的语言习惯。

所以开发商如果要在当地发行面向年轻女孩的游戏，游戏语言就得融入年轻女孩常用的俚语，而不应该过于正式。这是我们的任务之一。我们会分析目标用户的语言习惯，然后借鉴他们的语言表达方式。

这不仅仅是语言或者文本的转换；还要考虑设计、整体感觉、虚拟商品以及当地的风土民情。例如，巴西有狂欢节，那么本土化的巴西游戏就应融入许多狂欢节的元素，因此就会备受当地用户的欢迎。游戏不仅吸引新用户同时也留住了原有用户。不仅如此，还包括本土化的支付方式。本土化的支付方式包括Paypal之类的支付方式及其他国际化支付网站或者支付方式公司。

这些本土化的支付方式并不适用巴西或则某些拉丁美洲国家，因为这些国家只采用国际信用卡。所以只有这些支付方式能够为这些国家所采用，游戏才能真正实现本土化，完全呈现给当地用户。但结果是这无法实现，于是在这些国家就出现了本土支付方式供应商。而我们就得和这些供应商寻求合作关系。

我们希望这些本土支付方式供应商能和我们一同创建一个网络，让用户可以通过信用卡、银行卡或者借记卡进行在线支付。当然也有公司通过网吧线下出售游戏预付卡。这些都是本土化，同时也是我们的工作任务，我们就是靠此提升自己的价值。

目前如果有开发商想和你们合作，在你们的市场将其游戏本土化，你们会首先确保游戏内容符合本土文化。那么开发商就是主要负责开发游戏吗？这个合作过程是怎样的呢？

不是的，内容是由我们来制作的。但我们刚开始和开发商合作的时候，是由他们来制作游戏内容的。我们大部分的合作伙伴都是中国公司，所以为巴西用户重新制作游戏内容对中国开发商来说难度很大。我们有试过那么做，但结果失败了。（笑）所以我们两年半前聘请了一位设计师，专为游戏设计道具。我们取得了成功，受到了广泛的关注。

我们根据游戏的规格设计内容，将规格融入本土化的游戏。如今设计团队已经扩大至13人，他们是来自不同文化背景的插图画家，各有所长。

你所说的规格，是就游戏体验设计和画面设计两方面来说吗？

是的。我的意思是说，我们在游戏规模及其他方面有自己的规格，但其同时也得参考艺术总监的意见。有时艺术总监会不喜欢某些东西，我们就会问，“那你喜欢什么？我们要怎么改进？”他们通常很注重品质，常常会说，“因为这里不好或者那里不足。”所以我们通常会按照他们的高标准来制作游戏内容。

但就发行的热门游戏来说，这更多是取决于选择合适的游戏以及品质高的游戏。你们所处的位置很有趣，你们通常是要选择游戏而不是开发游戏。这对你们有没有什么影响？

这个商业模式之所以有趣是因为从某方面看，其灵活性很高。我可以随意在游戏中加入管道之类的道具。如果游戏反响不好，我们就知道我们得推出更多的内容。从经验来看，我们已经发行了20多款游戏。我认为其中有6款是相当不错的。我们80%的营收是来自于那5、6款颇受欢迎的游戏。

从这方面来看，这是个相当灵活的模式，但也存在不足。我们得和许多工作室合作，适应不同的合作要求和合作方式，同时还得建立和维持各种各样的合作关系，特别是我们的中国合作伙伴工作时间比我们早12、13个小时。

如果你有自己的开发商模式，那么产品投放市场的速度会快很多，这点很棒。所以如果你有开发产品，推广活动就变得尤为重要。对我们来说，这更为困难，但我有规划系列流程。通过和合作伙伴规划流程，我们缩短了产品投放市场所需时间。但是我认为发行商的商业模式十分有趣，因为你可以从不同的发行商身上学到不同的东西，同时还可以了解世界不同角落所发生的事情。

这很有趣。数字平台的出现，似乎会将我们带入后发行商时代，但事实上这是不可能的，对吧？

是的。

作为发行商，你是怎么看待这一现象的？

我不认为这一模式在美国行得通。因为当地社交游戏行业是由开发商支撑的，而他们同时身兼发行商的任务，你可以发现像Playdom之类的公司同时也发行其他游戏。我不知道结果怎么样，但他们确实有发行游戏。这一模式在美国之外的地方效果很不错。

我们刚开始发展时，有2家公司也刚刚兴起，1家在美国，1家在台湾和香港。我们都使用类似的模式。公司刚成立，我们就明白自己要朝发行商的方向走。我们希望和新兴市场国家的开发商合作，借助他们的优势成立一个网络，通过网络实现创收。

这是我们最初的想法，我们现在也是这么认为的。我们只是对产品内容进行调整，这与广告和营收无关，这更多是关于社交游戏和微交易。我认为这是因为相对于外部世界来说，美国市场已经相当成熟，因此情况大不相同。

到目前为止，你们主要和中国开发商合作。这是出于成本、人才或者游戏品质方面的考虑？在这些合作关系中你们最看重什么方面？

有两个方面。首先是人才，其次是商机。在和中国开发商合作之前我们当然也有自己的专业人才。我们在南美有个汇集200名开发商的联盟，他们分散在南美、南非和土耳其等地区。所以人才不是问题，关键在于投放市场的时机。我们听说中国的社交游戏发展迅速，而很多人还没意识到这一点，于是我们就来到中国，和当地的开发商建立合作关系，我们亲眼目睹了该市场的迅猛发展势头，这完全是由当地的网络带动的。

中国的翻版Facebook平台是校内网，现在更名为人人网，该网站为许多社交游戏开发商提供了创收平台。当我去中国的时候，我见到了校内网的高管，我就问他们，“你们有兴趣和我们合作，一同把游戏推广到巴西吗？”他们回答表示，“这是个好主意，我会为你介绍一些开发商。”

我因此见到了一些开发商，他们急切想要赚钱。他们知道自己在中国很难赚到钱，因为竞争太激烈了，所以他们表示愿意到外面发展。他们有看到机会，但没有思考怎么抓住这些机会。他们没有想过，“我们要怎么应对这些机会呢？从中可以赚到多少钱？我该怎么投资？”我们当时也处于相同的境况。

起初他们受到了一些挫折，但投资最后取得了成功，他们获得了大笔收入，不仅仅通过和我们合作，还包括和一些俄罗斯公司以及我提到的台湾、香港公司。随后，其他的中国开发商也开始纷纷效仿这一模式。他们看到了机会，现在已有很多公司涌入该市场。如今你可以发现像Playdom、Zynga或者Crowstar之类的美国公司也开始为拓展业务而设立国际团队。

在南美市场，哪些开发商是你们的竞争对手？

Vostu是我们的竞争者，但它是开发商而不是发行商。它的模式和Zynga类似。他们自己开发游戏。我发现该地区没有像我们一样的发行商。或者即使有，那也是非常小的公司。但Vostu和我们在市场竞争上可谓是不相上下。

在中国GDC大会上，开发商们发现吸引中国用户的许多机制对于美国用户来说毫无吸引力，探究不同文化背景下不同机制的吸引力是件非常有趣的事。所以南美文化和中国文化似乎还是颇为共通的。

是的，它们的确颇有共通之处。在中国收欢迎的游戏在南美同样也会收欢迎。

中国游戏机制会在南美大受欢迎是在你们的预料之中的吗？

不是的。事实上我们有段时间是和美国开发商合作的，那段时间十分艰难，因为当时他们的发展速度急速下滑，而且从没想过要开拓国外市场。因此合作过程很困难，现在似乎依然如此。说服中国开发商和说服美国开发商的难度实在是天壤之别。

你也知道，中国人并不需要什么商业案例。他们确定合作关系也不需要思考6个月，也不需要不断拜访和奉承。而和美国人合作，你得提供商业案例，你得做出预测等诸如此类。

这对大公司和小公司来说都是一样的吗？我能理解为什么像Zynga和Playdom之类公司当时会做出那样的反应了。

这可能会出乎你的意料，这种情况是针对100人的工作室，而不是那些10、20人的工作室，而且100人的工作室规模还算小的。我的意思是说，如今行业已经变得越来越强大。游戏品质已经不可同日而语了。如今开发商们对于细节的关注度越来越高，而不再是看谁处在市场的领先地位。

Zynga的《CityVille》采用的是既有的游戏模式，该模式的游戏已经层出不穷，然而其却能够在激烈的竞争中脱颖而出，凭借的就是细节的处理，我认为现在很多小公司也开始变得越来越专业，它们通过雇佣业内人士来提高自身的专业化水平，这也是我们目前所要做的。

你们还会想要和美国公司合作吗？

我还是很希望能够和他们合作。原因之一在于品质。他们的游戏品质很高，编码和制作技术比其他国家的公司更胜一筹。他们有些游戏制作方式确实和国外的公司大不相同。一些海外开发商的编码技术实在令人不敢恭维，还有很大的提高空间，同时推出的游戏还存在很多漏洞，在这种情况下，作为开发商，你就有很多事情得处理，比如应对接踵而至的投诉电话。所以，我还是很希望能够和美国开发商合作。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Interview: Mentez On Publishing, Localizing Social Games In South America

In order to help bring the growing social games market into other regions, game publisher Mentez focuses on localizing and distributing pre-existing titles for Latin American audiences.

While most popular social games in North America end up on Facebook, Mentez releases its games on the Google-owned Orkut, the leading social networking service in nations such as Brazil.

games developed by tailoring content to suit the expectations of South American players. The company might make specific holiday-themed items, for example, that fit the cultural framework of a game’s audience.

Across all its titles, Mentez sees roughly 22 million active users each week, and has signed deals with a number of Chinese development studios, as well as U.S. developers like Playdom.

Gamasutra sat down with Mentez’s vice president of content and business development Juan Roldan to discuss the company’s approach to localization, its relationships with overseas developers, and why Chinese game mechanics appeal to South American audiences.

Your company has primarily been involved in bringing games that previously existed in South America and the social space. That’s still the focus of your business, correct?

Yes, that’s the focus. We initially started in Brazil because that’s where we saw the most opportunity. At the time, everybody was focusing on Facebook. We decided to focus on Orkut, which is owned by Google. So, we saw our opportunity there. We brought our applications, which were like first generation social apps — not games, but social apps.

We built up this base in Orkut. That allowed us to launch social games from other companies and from other places, such as China. That’s where we started developing that industry. We basically built it, and now it’s all South America. So, Mentez is coming out to all the Spanish-speaking countries in South America, or essentially for Mexico, Columbia, Chile, and Argentina.

Between those four, there’s about almost 60 million users, and it’s growing, still growing. It’s a top region. That’s why it’s so interesting; there’s nobody there doing anything. You see that, the Zyngas, Playdoms, and the big ones publishing games there, and they maybe have translated games, but they didn’t do any localization. A lot of people use their games, I think mostly the English versions, so there’s nobody there that’s really localizing games for the region.

But you guys haven’t worked with developers to create games specifically targeted for the region?

No. We went that route once. (laughs) It didn’t work. It was a Chinese partner, but it didn’t really work out well, so we decided to focus on publishing. The thing is there are so many things you can do in this area that you can get unfocused. So we decided to just focus on what we’re doing, because we’re doing it well. Let’s just consolidate ourselves in that industry, and maybe just diversify afterwards.

This is a question that has been answered a lot by the traditional game industry, but I have a feeling the answer may be a little different for you guys. How do you contrast translation with localization in the social space?

Well, translation is just getting the text translated, right? You can easily have that outsourced. Now, one of the things that people mostly don’t get right, they just do translation. For us, localization is not just text. It’s just like talk to the audience in a way that they would talk to, you know, in the social space.

So, if you’re launching a game for girls, for teenage girls, talk to them with the slang that they use. Don’t be formal about it. That’s one of the things that we would do. We would analyze that target, and we would actually use that language.

It’s not only about language or translating the text; it’s also looking at the design, looking at the feel, looking at the items that are available for monetization — eventually that’s the source of our income — stopping to local events. If there’s, for example, a carnival in Brazil, you would expect a lot of games doing a lot of carnival content. That sells amazingly well. It brings a lot of new users, and that also retains users. It’s not only that; it’s also local payments. So, local payments include the likes of Paypal and all these international gateways or payment providers.

These local payments don’t work in Brazil or specific countries in Latin America because they only work with international credit cards. So, unless they have a presence in each of those countries, they would be able to localize, to make the most of it. But they’re not, so what happens is in each of those countries, there are local payment providers. What we do is create a relationship with those local payment providers.

We want to get a lot of those payment providers on board with us to create a network, and get people who can pay online with a credit card, or bank account, or debit card. But also people distribute game point cards offline, game through internet cafes and such. So, that’s all localization. That’s what we do, and this is where we add value.

Now, when a developer works with you to get their game localized for your markets, you discussed making sure there is content that is culturally appropriate. Do the developers end up building that content? What is that process like?

No, we build it for them. Initially they were building it, and when we started. Most of our relationships are with the Chinese, so it was quite difficult to have a Chinese developer create something for Brazil. And we tried that route, but it didn’t work that well. (laughs) So, we hired a designer about two and a half years ago to design items for the games. And it worked so well because we hit this spot.

What we do is we design according to the specs of the game, and we push them into the game for the local market. Now, that team has grown to more than 13 people, and they’re illustrators from different backgrounds, with different capabilities.

When you say the specs, do you mean both in terms of the gameplay design and the visual design?

Yes. I mean, you obviously have file sizes and everything, but you also have to follow the art director’s guidelines. Sometimes they don’t like something, and we say, “What do you like? How can we improve it?” They emphasize quality a lot, saying, “Oh, this is not good because of this or that.” So, we tend to work with their high-quality standards.

It’s the same here, but with hit games, it’s more about making sure you have the right game, the best game available. You guys are in an interesting position where you’re going after those games rather than trying to create them. How does that affect things for you?

Well, the business model is quite interesting because it’s somewhat flexible from one point of view. It gives us the flexibility to develop a pipeline, and then just plug in games. If a game doesn’t work, then we know that there’s more content coming through. In terms of experience, we have had a bit over 20 games. I think six of them are actually top, top games. And we get potentially 80 percent of our revenue comes from those top five or six games.

From that side, it’s quite a flexible model, but obviously it has its disadvantages as well. You have to work with a lot of studios, with a lot of requirements and different ways of working, and you have to develop and maintain so many relationships to work well, especially when you have the Chinese studios 12 hours or 13 hours ahead of you.

When you have a developer model, it’s also a good model in a sense that you can actually go faster with things to the market. So if you see something developing, you can launch a promotion on top of that. For us, it’s a little more difficult, but we have developed processes. With the partners we have, we have developed these processes where we can actually reduce time it takes to get to market. But I think the business model of a publisher is quite an interesting one because you learn a lot from many different publishers, and you can see a lot of what is happening in many different parts of the world.

It’s interesting. I think with digital platforms, we thought we were moving into a post-publisher age, but it’s not really happening, right?

No.

And as a publisher, how do you feel about that?

Here in the United States, I don’t think that model is very strong. I think in the United States that model hasn’t worked precisely because the social game industry was born out of developers, and they became publishers. Now you see people like Playdom are also taking that role of publishing other games. I don’t know if they have been successful or not, but they are doing it. But it has worked really well outside of the United States.

When we started growing, we saw two other companies that were also growing up at the same time, one in Russia, and one in Taiwan and Hong Kong. We all used similar models. We did know from the beginning, since we founded the company, that we were going to be publishers. What we wanted to do was take developers from emerging countries and use those skills to get a network, and then us come in and monetize that network in some ways.

That was initially the idea, and the idea has been kept. We just changed the products. It’s not about advertising and monetizing, it’s more social gaming, microtransactions. I think it’s because of how the industry has evolved in the United States compared to the outside world, that the conditions were different.

You work primarily with Chinese developers, or you have thus far. Is that because of cost, or expertise, or quality of games? What draws you to those relationships?

It’s two things. One is expertise, the other one is financial opportunity. I mean, we had expertise already before we met the Chinese developers. We had a network of 200 developers in South America, all across South America, South Africa, and Turkey. So, expertise was not a problem. It was more about time to market. And we heard China was booming in terms of social gaming, and not many people knew about it. We went to China, we developed relationships, and we saw this incredible market booming, and it was because of the local network there.

The copy of Facebook was called Xiaonei; it’s now called Renren. And this network was providing a lot of developers with a way to monetize social games. When I was there, I met with Xiaonei, and I asked them, “Would you be interested in making a deal with me for bringing games to Brazil?” They said, “Yeah, good idea. I’ll introduce you to some developers.”

I met with some developers, and they were eager to make money. They knew that in China they were not making much money because already the competition was really hard, so they said they were hungry to make money outside. They saw the opportunity, and they didn’t think about it. They didn’t think, “How are we going to do it? How much money is it going to bring me? How am I going to invest?” So, we kind of did the same.

It was a lot of pain in the beginning, but it paid off because those guys made a huge amount of money, not only with us, but with companies in Russia, and those companies in Taiwan and Hong Kong that I mentioned. And then after that, other Chinese developers followed. They saw the opportunities, so now you see a lot of those people followed. Now you see the American guys like Playdom or Zynga or CrowdStar, putting international teams for business development.

In the South American market, who are your competitors as publishers?

There’s Vostu, which is a developer, not a publisher. They’re kind of the Zynga model. They develop their own games. There aren’t any publishers like us, that I’m aware of. Or if there are any, they’re very small. But the two of us, Vostu and Mentez, are kind of head to head in the race.

At GDC China, a number of developers noted that a number of mechanics that appeal to Chinese audiences didn’t appeal as much to American audiences, and it’s interesting to see what kind of gameplay mechanics appeal to different audiences culturally. So, it seems like maybe there’s a fit between South America and China.

There’s a fit, absolutely. What works in China is very likely to work down in South America.

Is that something you would have predicted, that for some reason Chinese gameplay mechanics would work the best?

No, never. We were actually going after the American developers for a time, but it was very difficult, because they were growing amazingly back then, and they had not even thought about going abroad. It was difficult to get them, and perhaps it still is. The difference I see from convincing a Chinese developer versus an American developer is huge.

You know, the Chinese don’t need a business case. They don’t need to think for six months before they go with you, and they do not need so many visits and pampering. With the Americans actually, you need to do a business case, you need to do a forecast, and things like that.

Is that for small companies as well as large ones? I can see why Zynga and Playdom and the like would be that way at this point.

You’d be surprised. It is. I mean, perhaps not with studios of 10 or 20 people, but with studios of 100 people, which is still small. I mean, it goes to show that the industries are getting more advanced. You know, quality is very different. The difference is in the detail now. It’s less about the first-move advantage.

I mean Zynga takes a game, CityVille, that is already a proven model all over the place with a lot of competition, and they just slap everybody in the face. So, it’s about the difference in the detail, and I think a lot of those smaller companies are actually becoming more professional, hiring people who come from the industry and can bring that professionalism, and that’s what we’re also doing.

Are you still eager to work with American partners?

I am really eager. And one of the reasons is because of quality. There’s really good content here. You see there’s differences in the way they build up a code, the way they develop things. They have certain practices that are different from a lot of, let’s say, other companies abroad. For overseas developers, you would see that their practices for developing code are — I wouldn’t say poor — but they are in need of improvement. Games get released with a lot of bugs, and then there are a lot of problems for you as a publisher because your help just gets swamped with calls. So, yeah, I’m quite eager. （Source：Gamasutra）