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每日观察:关注亚洲应用市场的本土产品比例(1.26)

发布时间:2014-01-26 10:39:02 Tags:,,,

1)Distimo最近报告指出,亚洲三大应用市场分别是日本、韩国和中国。

其中日本所占销售额最大,韩国则是2013年发展最快的市场。而中国则是一个很难估量的市场,因为其主要销售额来自本土Android发布渠道而非官方版Google Play。

asia-2013(from distimo)

asia-2013(from distimo)

Android是亚洲最大的手机操作系统,在日本、韩国、中国和台湾市场销售额中占最大比例。

值得注意的是,韩国、中国和日本应用市场均由本土公司所主导;例如,在日本应用商店前300名热门应用中,日本公司就占据60-70%的市场份额,美国公司仅占比25-32%。

top-300-apps-local(from distimo)

top-300-apps-local(from distimo)

在中国和韩国的iPad App Store中,本土公司在前300名热门应用中均占比49%。

2)据pocketgamer报道,索尼日前宣布向移动平台推出首个原创IP《Suits and Swords》。该游戏发布于iOS和亚马逊平台,即将推出Google Play版本,是一款结合了纸牌与RPG元素的单人游戏,玩家将引导Black Jack穿过Heart Union、Diamond Empire、Club Kingdom和Spade Nation四个领域,打败Joker。

suits-swords(from sony-pictures-ent)

suits-swords(from sony-pictures-ent)

经此之前,索尼曾根据《幸运之轮》和《Jeopardy》等IP推出了多款成功的手机游戏。

3)据venturebeat报道,由于受到独立开发者针对《Pac-Avoid》剽窃《Scamperghost》的指责,King公司将从Royalgames.com网站移除《Pac-Avoid》,但并未承认自己错了。

Scamperghost vs pac-avoid(from neoseeker.com)

Scamperghost vs pac-avoid(from neoseeker.com)

该公司发言人表示,King并没有剽窃他人的游戏,在他们发布任何游戏之前,都会对市场上的其他游戏进行一番调查,并浏览其商标注册情况,以确保不侵犯他人的IP。但为了避免遭到质疑,他们才让这款五年前由第三方开发者编码的游戏下线。

venturebeat报道曾经指出,《Pac-Avoid》与MaxGames.com网站上的《Scamperghost》玩法和风格如出一辙。

4)据《华尔街日报》报道,有知情者透露苹果正在开发两款屏幕更大iPhone,其中之一的屏幕有4.5英寸,另一个屏幕将超过5英寸,这两者均将于2014年底面世。

larger screen iphone(from leawo.com)

larger screen iphone(from leawo.com)

早在去年初,就有日本传闻称苹果iPhone 5将采用4.5英寸的屏幕,但结果却并非如此,不过最近也有匿名者向彭博社透露苹果正在开发具有更大屏幕的两款iPhone设备。

5)据gamasutra报道,索尼在线娱乐日前宣布关闭旗下四款MMO游戏:《Free Realms》、《Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures》、《Vanguard: Saga of Heroes》以及《Wizardry Online》。前两款游戏将于3月31日下线,后两款将于7月31日关闭。

Free Realms(from curse.com)

Free Realms(from curse.com)

该公司表示关闭这些游戏是为了重组公司资源,以便实现公司和玩家社区的最佳利益。《Free Realms》发布于2009年4月,是该公司首款免费游戏;《Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures》于2010年面世,这两者由于用户转移到其他游戏而关闭。

《Vanguard: Saga of Heroes》由Sigil Games发布于2007年,之后被索尼收购,由于用户数量下滑而关闭,《Wizardry Online》出自日本MMO开发商Gamepot之手,目前在美国运营,在2013年1月30日才刚发布。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

1)Chart of the Week: They’re lucrative but how open are Korea, China and Japan to western content?

by Jon Jordan

Recently Distimo released a report about the growing power of the Asia app and game market.

One element is worth discussing in more detail.

But first some context.

Asia is dominated by three markets; Japan, South Korea and China.

Japan is the largest in terms of sales, but South Korea was the fastest growing market in 2013.

China is harder to quantify as the majority of its sales come through fragmented local Android distribution channels that can’t be neatly estimated as with the Apple App Store and Google Play. But it’s big and growing fast.

Android rules

Android is the most important OS in the region, accounting for the majority of sales in the top four territories – that’s including Taiwan.

This can be easily seen in the following map, which shows Google Play’s market share in blue.

Again, China is the outlier is there’s effectively no Google Play store available in the country and no-one can yet estimate the scale of the local Android market.

So far, so good. But what’s the opportunity for western developers to get into these countries, which now account for 41 percent of the global app and game market?

Local app store for local consumers

The answer is it’s very difficult.

Sure, the likes of Supercell, King and Rovio have done very well, but these are not your common-or-garden western developers and publishers and they’re not releasing your typical western games.

In fact, the Korean, Chinese and Japanese app markets are all dominated by content from local companies.

As demonstrated in the following table, the 60-70 percent market share of Japanese companies in the top 300 titles on the Japanese app stores compares with a mere 25-32 percent in the US.

That’s why so many developers work with local publishers if they want to get their games successfully released in such territories.(source:pocketgamer

2)Sony Pictures launches its first original mobile IP – Suits and Swords

by Jon Jordan

Everyone is getting into the F2P genre mash-up game these days.

One such is Sony Pictures Entertainment, which has announced Suits and Swords, its first original IP release for mobile.

Released for iOS and Amazon, with Google Play to follow, as the title suggests, the single player game is a mash-up of card game Blackjack with an RPG.

The theme continues into the game’s narrative, which sees you leading Captain Black Jack through the four realms of Heart Union, Diamond Empire, Club Kingdom and Spade Nation.

Appropriately, your ultimate goal is to defeat the Joker.

New direction

Sony Pictures has previously had success in mobile games thanks to brands such as Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.

“As we look to expand our portfolio with free-to-consumer titles, we’re creating new game IP like Suits and Swords to grow our audience base and reach a key marketable demographic,” commented Philip Lynch, SVP Digital Networks, SPT.(source:pocketgamer

3)Candy Crush Saga publisher is taking down its alleged copycat game after indie calls it out

Jeffrey Grubb

King isn’t admitting that it did anything wrong, but it has told GamesBeat that it will remove an alleged clone from its Royalgames.com website — although the Flash title is still available at this time.

Social-gaming publisher King plans to remove the Pac-Avoid to avoid the appearance that it was potentially infringing on another developer’s intellectual property. Yesterday, GamesBeat reported that the maker of mobile hits like Candy Crush Saga allegedly hired a small studio to explicitly copy a Flash game called Scamperghost.

While King has informed GamesBeat that it will remove the game in question, it also denied that it did anything wrong.

“King does not clone other peoples’ games,” a spokesperson for the company told GamesBeat. “King believes that [intellectual property] — both our own IP and that of others — is important and should be properly protected. Like any prudent company, we take all appropriate steps to protect our IP in a sensible and fair way. At the same time, we are respectful of the rights and IP of other developers.

“Before we launch any game, we do a thorough search of other games in the marketplace, as well as a review of trademark filings, to ensure that we are not infringing anyone else’s IP.

However, for the avoidance of doubt, in this case, this game — which was coded by a third-party developer five years ago — has been taken down.”

Pac-Avoid is a mouse-controlled game where players must avoid ghosts while eating coins. It’s essentially the same as MaxGames.com’s Scamperghost.(source:venturebeat

4)Rumor: Apple intends to release two large-screen iPhones this year

Eric Blattberg

Apple may enter the “phablet” market this year.

The Cupertino-based gadget maker is working on two iPhones with larger displays than its current models, according to the Wall Street Journal. Citing people “familiar with the situation,” the Journal reported that one iPhone will feature a 4.5-inch display, and a second version will have a display larger than 5 inches. Both would be due out sometime in the latter half of 2014.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about large-screen iPhones. Early last year, rumors from Japan suggested the iPhone 5 would feature a 4.5-inch display. That turned out to be inaccurate, but more recently an unnamed source told Bloomberg that Apple is working on two extra-large iPhones with curved screens.(source:venturebeat

5)Sony Online Entertainment shuttering four games

By Christian Nutt

Sony Online Entertainment has announced plans to shut down four of its MMOs: Free Realms, Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and Wizardry Online. The first two will be shut down on March 31, and the latter will be shut down on July 31.

Sony Online made the decision to shut down these games so “we can refocus our resources on other areas in the best interest of our company and player community,” according to a statement provided by the company to Gamasutra.

Free Realms launched in April 2009 as the company’s first free-to-play title; by that July, it had reached 5 million users. Clone Wars Adventures followed in 2010, and is being shut down by mutual agreement with IP holder LucasArts, according to the statement Sony Online provided. In both cases, SOE stated that the games’ respective audiences are “moving on” to other games or activities.

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes launched in 2007 from Sigil Games, and was later acquired by SOE and revamped, but a “declining player population” has resulted in the closure, the Sony Online statement says. Wizardry Online is a product of Japanese MMO developer Gamepot, and is operated by SOE in the West. It has operated in the U.S. just shy of a year so far, launching on January 30, 2013.

Players of the latter two games are being upgraded to SOE’s “All Access” program for the duration of the games’ remaining operation.

SOE president John Smedley is currently participating in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session to address fans’ concerns and discuss the company’s current and upcoming projects. It began at 3 PM PST.(source:gamasutra


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