作者：Motoi Okamoto

日本是世界上最大的手机游戏市场之一。这里所创造的收益一年比一年多。实际上，日本在手机游戏市场上所获取的收益比美国还多。（当然了如果是就iOS平台来看的话美国市场的收益还是更大的。）

几乎所有的外国手机游戏都未能在日本市场获得成功。根据AppAnnie最近的报告，日本超过90%的手机游戏收益是来自日本本土的公司。在这样的日本市场环境中，外国手机游戏需要努力越过好几道门槛。

日米Top10s（from gamasutra）

如何才能成功面向日本市场发行游戏呢？

以下便是日本手机游戏市场存在的6大特殊属性，希望这能够帮助你们更好地面向日本市场进行游戏本土化。

1.智能手机是主要游戏平台

根据CESA的报告，自2007年以来，日本主机游戏的市场规模便逐年缩小。另一方面，手机游戏的市场规模则逐年扩大。现在的日本游戏玩家主要玩的是手机游戏而不是主机游戏和PC游戏。

比起美国手机游戏玩家，日本手机游戏玩家的游戏时间更长且在手机游戏上的消费也更高。日本游戏玩家的ARPPU（每付费用户平均收益）和转换率高于美国玩家。

为什么在日本手机游戏平台会变成主要游戏平台呢？主要有两个原因。

首先，在过去日本最受欢迎的手机网络设备i-mode从1999年起便一直提供给日本用户简单且有效的服务。在这里许多应用和服务都是从i-mode手机发展起来的，所以日本手机用户习惯于在手机游戏上先花钱。

其次，因为日本游戏玩家从2000年中开始逐渐从主机转向掌上设备，而现在许多日本游戏玩家也开始从掌机转向手机。日本游戏玩家并不需要去购买额外的游戏硬件，因为在这里几乎所有人都拥有一台智能手机，这也是现代设备的必备工具。同时手机游戏也更容易开始。

再而，智能手机的性能已经超越了像任天堂3DS和PlayStation Vita等掌机。现在的日本游戏玩家已经可以在手机上体验到与掌机游戏同样质量的游戏内容。

2.RPG便是手机游戏之王！

众所周知，从20世纪80年代以来RPG便已然成为日本最受欢迎的游戏类型。同样地，手机RPG便是日本最受欢迎的游戏类型。像《智龙迷城》，《monster strike》，《Colopl Rune Story》，《Fate/Grand Order》，《GRANBLUE FANTASY》等受欢迎的RPG游戏便一直占据着这里的App Store和Google Play的排行榜上方位置。在所有游戏类型中，RPG拥有最多活跃用户，所以它们的成功机会也就最大。

另一方面，RPG也是最具竞争性的游戏类型。首先，许多竞争者都在争夺着RPG玩家。其次RPG玩家拥有一双非常苛刻的眼睛和与众不同的偏好。因为手机玩家喜好的各不相同，这里也存在一些子类型，如传统的RPG，益智RPG，行动RPG，模拟RPG，MO/MMO RPG等等。

日本手机RPG拥有非常出色的盈利周期能够鼓励玩家通过游戏中的任务和战斗以及滚动GACHA去提高自己的身份，收集更多角色，武器，开价和魔法道具。

日本手机RPG机制在收集和提升方面和《宠物小精灵》很像。日本RPG玩家喜欢收集角色和武器等等，并会非常努力去提升自己在游戏中的地位。而这样的机制能够推动用户投入更多钱去收集角色等东西。

3.Gacha！

在日本，Gacha是一种较为贪婪的盈利模式。大多数日本免费手机游戏都拥有gacha盈利机制。即当你花钱后，你便可以滚动gacha去获取一个角色（游戏邦注：或一个武器，魔法道具等等）。而你能获得怎样得角色是取决于每个角色设置的机率。

所有角色都将根据稀有性被划分成标准（N），稀有（R）和极端稀有（UR）。越稀有的角色往往拥有更高地位并在战斗中拥有更加强大的技能。

所以最重要的便是创造出像美丽性感的战士Scathach，坚定的征服者Iskandar，可爱的骑士Charlotte等真正吸引人的角色。

我们必须清楚，角色不仅需要拥有较高的地位和强大的技能，同时也必须具备吸引人的外观。这是推动人们去滚动gacha的重要元素！显然，gacha的收益会不断提高。而让著名的声优为游戏角色配音与强调角色外观同样重要。

日本创造者已经在游戏，动画和漫画中创造了许多吸引人的角色，日本人也都非常喜欢这些角色。在这里大多数排行较高的游戏都能够通过gacha盈利系统出售给玩家具有吸引力的角色。

如果游戏中能够添加这样的系统，日本gacha游戏玩家便会因为游戏结果和滚动gacha的过程而兴奋不已，这也与外国gacha玩家形成了鲜明对比。特别是你最好呈现出预告内容让玩家期待自己将获得怎样的角色。这种简单但却强大的方式能够从情感上真正影响到游戏玩家。而这是否是博彩游戏呢？是的，它确实长得就像博彩游戏。

4.各种活动

日本社交游戏开发者经常会说游戏活动对于手机游戏来说非常重要，因为游戏越强大便意味着用户留存和销售推广都在频繁进行着。

大多数手机游戏都会在几天时间内或2周内举办活动，在活动结束后几天或者刚结束时，下一次活动又会展开。因此不管是用户还是开发者都会非常忙碌。而你必须记住举办这些活动的一大目的便是用户留存。

游戏内部活动代表的是面向用户的目标和奖励。而这两个元素都能够激励许多用户去玩游戏。设计师必须小心平衡目标和奖励。如果不能做到这点将会让许多用户感到受挫。

同时游戏活动的举办时间不能太长也不能太短。如果你是在较短的时间内举办一个活动，那么许多用户都能够实现该活动的目标。而如果你是在一个较长的时间内举办活动，许多用户虽然会实现目标但也很有可能对此感到厌倦。

频繁地在游戏中举办活动的政策根植于日本手机游戏产业中。当我们回顾历史时会发现这是源自2010年i-mode功能手机盛行的时候。那时候社交游戏就像网页浏览器游戏一样，在一页纸大小的空间中包含了所有局限于100KB i-mode规格的图像。而当时的日本手机游戏开发者始终努力让用户可以在这种局限条件下感受到游戏乐趣。

5.IP与合作

通常情况下，游戏如果能够利用大受欢迎的IP便能够更轻松地吸引许多用户的注意。

在美国的iOS市场中，大约有10%的前100名游戏都使用了像《漫威格斗冠军》，《星球大战：银河英雄》，《侏罗纪世界：竞技》等大受欢迎的IP。而在日本，大约有15%的前100名游戏使用了像《LINE: Disney Tsum Tsum》，《七龙珠Z：爆裂大战》和《Love Live! School idol festival》等大受欢迎的IP。

此外，大约有10款主机游戏的身影出现在了前100名游戏种，包括《FINAL FANTASY Record Keeper》，《星之勇者斗恶龙》，《怪物猎人：探险》等。这一数值在日本和美国市场则是不同的。就像在第2点所提到的，智能手机才是当下日本最主要的游戏平台。

许多手机游戏通过合作而将其它作品上的角色带到了手机上。例如《智龙迷城》便通过与其它作品的多次合作成功吸引了许多用户。《智龙迷城》的成功也影响到了其他竞争者们。

合作与gacha机制都能为游戏创造用户获取和推广优势。而基于合作的游戏甚至能够在排行榜上取得更好的成绩。

6.许多游戏瞄准了女性玩家

女性向けゲーム日米（from gamasutra）

不言而喻，50％的手机游戏玩家属于女性玩家。除了像益智游戏等休闲游戏外是否还存在其它适合女性玩家的游戏？如果我们着眼于美国iOS市场排行前100的游戏便会发现，只有3款适合女性玩家的游戏，即《Episode》，《Kim Kardashian：Hollywood》和《Covet Fashion》。

与之形成鲜明对比的是，在日本市场排行前100的游戏中有许多面向女性玩家的手机游戏，如《Ensemble Stars！》，《IDOOLiSH7》，《THE IDOLM@STER SideM》，《Yume100》，《Yumeiro Cast》，《Ikemen Sengoku和《Osomatsu－san》等等。

你可能会发现大多数这些游戏都属于偶像养成模拟游戏。最近几年这类型游戏在女性玩家间非常受欢迎。即玩家可以在自己的公司寻找全新人才并将其培养成百万巨星。玩家可以在此享受与这些角色间的交流。

因为面向男性玩家的市场竞争非常激烈，所以许多发行商逐渐对面向女性玩家的市场更感兴趣。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

6 unique nature of the Japanese mobile gaming market

by Motoi Okamoto

Japan has one of the biggest mobile gaming market in the world. The revenue has highly grown year after year. In fact, Japan’s revenue in the mobile gaming market is larger than America’s that. (As far as iOS, America’s revenue is larger than Japan’s that.)

As the foreign console games and PC games are, the almost foreign mobile games don’t have a success in Japan. According to the AppAnnie’s recent report, more than 90% of mobile gaming revenue in Japan goes to Japanese companies. Foreign mobile games have to jump over many hurdles in the Japanese market environment.

How will you make your game successful in Japan?

Here are 6 unique natures of the Japanese mobile gaming market that I hope will give you valuable insights to localize or culturize your games into the Japanese market.

1. Smartphone is a main game platform

According to CESA’s report, the market scale of Japanese console games has been declining annually after 2007. On the other hand, the market scale of mobile games has been growing annually. Japanese gamers play smartphone games mainly, not console games, not PC games.

Japanese mobile gamers play longer time and spend more money on mobile games than American mobile gamers. The ARPPU(Average Revenue Per Paid User) and the conversion rate of Japanese gamers are higher than those of Americans.

Why did mobile gaming platform become main game-platform in Japan? There are two reasons.

First, Japan’s most popular mobile internet service in the past, i-mode, has provided simple and useful means of settlement since 1999. Many apps and many services had grown on i-mode cell phones and therefore Japanese mobile users got used to pay for mobile games early.

Second, as Japanese gamers had transferred from console to handheld since the mid-2000, many Japanese gamers are transferring from handheld to mobile. Japanese gamers don’t need to buy a extra game-hardware because almost everyone have a own smartphone, which is a necessity in modern society. Also, the mobile games are easier and free to start playing.

Third, the performance of smartphones already overwhelms that of handheld like nintendo3DS and PlayStation Vita! Japanese mobile gamers can get experience of the same quality as handheld games.

2. RPG is King of mobile games!!

As is well known, RPG has been the most popular genre in Japan since 1980s. In the same way, mobile RPG is the most popular genre in Japan. Many popular RPG titles like, Puzzle&Dragons, Monster Strike, Colopl Rune Story, Fate/Grand Order, GRANBLUE FANTASY, and so on, occupy higher rankings on AppStore and GooglePlay. RPG has the largest number of active users in all genre and therefore the chance for success is the largest.

On the other hand, RPG is the most competitive genre. First, many competitors scramble for RPG gamers tightly. Second, RPG gamers have a critical eye and a subtle different preference. Due to the diversification in mobile gamer preference, there are some sub-genre like, traditional RPG, puzzle RPG, action RPG, simulation RPG, MO/MMO RPG, and so on.

Japanese mobile RPG has a great monetization cycle that motivates players to raise the status and collect characters, weapons, armors and magic items through adventuring in-game quest-and-battle and rolling a GACHA.

Japanese mobile RPG mechanism resembles Pokemon at the point of collecting and raising. Japanese RPG gamers eager to collect characters, weapons and others, and raise the status hardly. This mechanism motivates users to pay money for rolling a gacha to collect characters and others.

3. Gacha! Gacha! Gachaaaaaaa!

Gacha is an avaricious general monetization in Japan. Most of Japan’s F2P mobile games have a gacha monetization. You pay money, and so you can roll a gacha to get a character(or a weapon and a magic item,.. due to each title). Which character you can get is dependent on the probability of each character setting.

All characters are classified as rarity like Normal(N), Rare(R), Super Rare(SR), Ultra Rare(UR). The higher rarity character has higher status and strong skill useful in the battle.

What matters most is creating fascinating characters like beautiful sexy warrior Scáthach, sturdy conqueror Iskandar (Fate/Grand Order), cute knight Charlotte (Colopl Rune Story), and so on.

It is crucial that a character has not only higher status and strong skill, but also fascinating appearance. It motivates many users to roll a gacha! Apparently, the revenue of gacha increase many times larger. Also, Stirring a popular voice actor as a game character is important next to appearance.

Japanese creators have made many fascinating characters in games, animes and comics and so Japanese people love these characters. Most of higher-rank games sell attractive characters through gacha monetization system.

If it will be added, Japanese gacha gamers feel excited both the result and the process of rolling a gacha, in contrast to foreign gacha gamers. Especially, the presage makes gamers expect to get a featured character is very important. It is the strongest, easiest means that sway gachar gamers emotionally. That’s a gambling game? Yes, It looks like a gambling game.

4.event after event, event, event, …

Japanese social game developers usually say the importance of the in-game event held in mobile game because the stronger means of both user retention and sales promotion is holding the event frequently.

Most mobile games hold the event within a period of several days or about 2 weeks. A few days or immediately after an event ends, Next event starts. Therefore, both users and developers are always busy! Remember one of the purpose of holding the event is retention.

The in-game event presents the goal and the reward to users. Both of them motivate many users. Designing carefully the balance between the goal and the reward is very important. The wrong balance causes many users to feel frustration.

Also, the period of the event should be not too short, not too long. If you hold the event within a short period, many users would accomplish the goal of the event. If within a long period, many users would reach the goal but most of them might feel bored.

The policy of making much of holding in-game events frequently is rooted in Japanese mobile game industry. If we look back on the history, the cause is during the time i-mode freature phone was thriving around 2010. At that time, social games were quivalent to web-browser game that one page size including all image sizes is restricted to 100KB under i-mode specifications. Japanese mobile game developers tried to make it fun for users as possible under poor expression due to the restriction.

5. IP & collaboration

In general, the game titles utilize popular IP are able to attract many users easily.
About 10% of the Top100 in America’s iOS market consist of titles using popular IP like MARVEL Contest of Champions, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Jurassic World: The Game. In Japan, about 15% of the Top100 consist of titles using popular IP like LINE: Disney Tsum Tsum, DRAGON BALL Z DOKKAN BATTLE and Love Live! School idol festival.

Moreover, about 10 console game franchises are in the Top100: FINAL FANTASY Record Keeper, Hoshi-no Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter Explore, and so on.The number of them is the difference between Japan and America. As stated above as the second narture, smartphone is a main game platform in Japan.

Many mobile games hold the collaboration-event that some characters from other works appear in. Representatively, Puzzle&Dragons make a success in the acquisition of many users by many times collaborations with other works. The great success of Puzzle&Dragons affects other competitors.

The method of collaboration event & gacha brings two advantages of both user acquisition and gacha-sales promotion. The title holds the collaboration event leaps up store ranking.

6. many games targeted at female gamers

It goes without saying, 50% of mobile gamers consist of female gamers. Then, are there a various kinds of games for female gamers other than casual games like puzzle? If we look at the Top100 of America’s iOS market, we find only 3 titles — Episode, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and Covet Fashion.

In contrast to that, there are many mobile games for female gamers in the Top100 of Japanese market, like Ensemble Stars!, IDOOLiSH7, THE IDOLM@STER SideM, Yume100, Yumeiro Cast, Ikemen Sengoku, Osomatsu-san, and so on.

You might recognize that most of them are idol raising simulations. This genre is very hot in recent years among female gamers. You scout new talents for your show biz production company and raise them toward brilliant superstars. So, you can enjoy the communications with them.

As the market targeted at male gamers is excessively competitive, many publishers are interested in the market targeted at female gamers.（source：gamasutra）