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为什么成功的中国游戏很难进入西方市场

发布时间:2016-09-18 15:27:35 Tags:,,,,

作者:Mantin Lu

在上篇文章中我提到了中国游戏很少能在西方市场拥有自己的一席之地,即使是那些在中国已经获得了巨大成功的游戏。

如今中国已经成为世界上最大的游戏市场。这个巨大的市场创造了许多在当地非常成功的游戏并在此生成了巨大的利益。但是直至今日,我还未看到任何最初在中国获得成功的游戏也在西方市场取得巨大成功。

几年前,当人们谈论到将一块游戏从一个市场带到另一个市场时,他们说的主要是游戏翻译。随着时间的发展人们的理解不断深入,现在他们逐渐清楚自己需要的是本土化,而不只是将游戏内容从一种语言翻译成另一种语言。当然,翻译文本资产也是本土化的一大组成部分。也就是本土化一款游戏将包含它的美术风格,游戏设计,盈利等等方面的内容。

art style(from gamasutra)

art style(from gamasutra)

美术风格

美术是开发者进入一个全新市场最先要考虑的内容。东西方市场的美术风格差异很大,即包括颜色的使用,角色的比例,头发和衣着风格,脸型,配饰等等。尽管这些元素可能不是整个游戏开发过程中最主要的考虑因素,但是当一款游戏进入一个全新市场时,开发者如果不能有效处理这些因素便会使其变成不利因素。

这便是为什么一些中国公司不得不对自己的游戏改头换面去迎合西方市场的审美习惯。但是美术不只是关于2D或3D图像,同时还将涉及用户的界面。通常情况下亚洲游戏都是伴随着复杂的UI,而西方游戏则并非如此。就像我之前所说的,MMORPG是中国市场的主流游戏类型。虽然它并不能代表所有的中国游戏,但却能说明中国游戏往往拥有较复杂的游戏玩法;所以用户界面也会显得更加复杂。当我们着眼于西方市场的应用商店最高排行榜单时,我们会发现用户总是更倾向于清晰的用户界面。同时不同语言间的文本长度也是UI本土化需要注重的另一个重要问题。

游戏世界背景

在中国,那些以三国或西游记为背景故事的游戏总是很受欢迎。但是西方玩家却很难对此形成共鸣。相反地,从历史时期来看,在西方世界和三国同时代的是欧洲中世纪。所以我认为开发者必须关注于游戏中的文化敏感内容并且不能对目标市场造成任何冒犯。举个例子来说吧,有些来自中游戏中的女性角色为了吸引男性玩家总是会穿着过于暴露的衣服,但这却可能会让西方的女性和男性玩家感到不舒服。

游戏节奏

一般说来,中国玩家的游戏速度总是很快。基于同样的时间,西方玩家在游戏中的前进速度则相对较慢。所以为了满足不同目标玩家的理想游戏速度,开发者需要调整游戏机制的平衡,即包括技能,属性,等待时间,奖励等等内容。虽然乍看之下这些似乎都很简单,但其实调整游戏平衡决非易事。甚至这比从头开始创造一款全新游戏更加困难。

盈利策略

免费游戏盈利模式是始于亚洲,并且在中国大受欢迎,中国游戏玩家也都非常了解这一模式。在中国,花钱获胜是非常常见的方式,人们也普遍能够接受这种方式,尽管这并不是一种值得推荐的方式:因为在中国花钱获胜并不是最佳盈利方法。与更喜欢通过花钱去开启关卡或内容的西方玩家相比,中国玩家更倾向于花钱去打败boss,略过复杂关卡等等。

心理

在所有上述提到的元素中,心理应该是我个人认为过去几年里导致本土化项目失败的最主要问题之一。假设你的游戏在中国市场非常成功,而现在你想将它带到西方市场。你聘请了来自西方游戏设计师和制作人去执行这一工作。当他们创造了一列清单并让开发团队去面向全新市场调整游戏时,你那创造了最初成功游戏的团队将会不愿意改变最初的游戏内容。你应该站在他们的角度想想看。当你在国内市场拥有一款成功的游戏时,为什么你要面向一个未知市场重新创造一些新内容呢?当你正致力于一款每个月能够赚到数百万甚至更多收益的游戏时,为什么你还要考虑那些市场规模只占你所拥有的市场规模一小部分的人群呢?当你正在从自己的作品中赚取巨大收益时,为什么你不在此投入更多努力而是转向那些未经验证的新内容呢?所以显然在这方面看来本土化一点都不顺利。而唯一能够处理这一问题的方法便是让高层管理者明确开拓西方市场是整个公司的最主要策略。清楚地告诉全公司成员这便是公司的优先目标,并为此制定奖金制度。

结论

通过上述内容我想要呈现出东西方市场间在喜好,文化,盈利选择,开发信息等方面的区别。而现在你们应该能够理解为什么当人们问我将已经在中国获得成功的游戏带到西方市场好不好时我会回答“不好”了。

当然了,如果你能在面向西方市场发行游戏前处理好上述的所有问题,你便能够提高自己在西方市场获得成功的几率。如果你决定走上这条道路,那么最佳策略便是与那些曾经成功将东方游戏带到西方市场的知名发行商合作。他们能够有效引导你通过整个过程并确保你的游戏适合全新目标用户。同时我也建议你能够自己评估面向西方市场创造全新游戏的成功和效能,从而有效做出最适合自己公司的策略。

就像我曾说过的,西方市场非常巨大,而中国国内市场的竞争日趋激烈。所以进入西方市场将是创造全新收益流的有效方式,并且来自其它文化的用户反馈也能够为开发者之后的项目带来全新灵感。随着中国手机游戏市场的竞争日趋激烈,现在应该是开发者考虑进军西方市场的最佳时机。虽然向全新市场扩展并不简单,但却能够带给你巨大的回报。所以中国公司需要的全新策略,即包括将有才能的团队带到西方市场去创造具有创造性的游戏并真正跻身这一市场。

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

Why Successful Games in China Rarely Obtain the Equivalent Success in the West

by Mantin Lu

In my last article, I mentioned that games from China rarely find a place in the west, even it is a successful one locally. Since there were some people emailed me showing interest in that topic, I am elaborating more about this topic here.

China is now the largest game market in the world. The massive market gives birth to a lot of successful locally developed games and generates substantial revenue domestically. However, up to now, I have not yet seen any successful game originally operated in China has become wildly successful in the West.

Several years ago, when people talked about bringing games from a market to another, they were talking about translation of the games. As the understanding of people goes deeper over time, now they know that what they actually need is localization, instead of simply translating the content of the game into another language. Sure enough, translating text assets comprises a large part of localization. That being said, to localize a game, it also includes its art style, game design, monetization, to name a few.

Art Style

Art is the first thing to deal with when getting into a new market. The art style is very different from the East to the West, including color usage, proportion of characters, hair and dressing style, face shapes, accessories, etc. Although these factors may not be the most crucial ones considering the entire game development process, they will become major disadvantages when the game entering another market if they are not properly dealt with.

That’s why some Chinese companies will do a thorough reskinning of their game to make it more visually favorable to the West. However, art is not only about 2D or 3D graphic, but also how the user interface looks. Asian games are usually with complicated UI, while in the West it is not the same case. As mentioned in my previous articles, MMORPG is the major game genre in China. Even though this won’t represent all games from China, it is the trend that games from China are relatively complicated in terms of game play; so does the user interface look very busy. While looking at the top chart of the app stores in the West, we notice that a clean user interface is more desired by the users. The length of text between different languages is another big issue to deal with for UI localization.

Game world background

In China, games with background story about the Three Kingdoms or Journey to the West can be very popular. However, western players have a harder time relating. Instead, European Middle Age is the equivalent to the time of Three Kingdoms as the historical stage of the West. Also we need to keep an eye on culturally sensitive contents in the game and make no offense to the market you are getting into. For example, some female characters in game from China show too much skin to be appealing, which would be offensive to both female and male players in the West.

Game pacing

In general, Chinese gamers consume content very fast. Given same amount of time, western audiences proceed the game in a slower pace. So, to meet the desired game pacing of different target players, developers need to adjust the balancing of game mechanics, including skills, attributes, waiting timing, rewards, etc. All these look easy at a glance, indeed, it’s very difficult to tear down a well designed game balancing to recreate another one. Create a new one from scratch could be easier IMO.

Monetization Strategy

Free-to-play monetization model started in Asia and is very well operated in China, and Chinese gamers get used to it. Pay-to-win is something very common in China which people generally accept, despite the fact that it’s not recommended: pay-to-win is not the best monetization approach even in China. Compared to western players, who prefer to pay to unlock levels or content, gamers in China tend to pay their way out including defeating the boss, skipping a hard level, etc.

Mentality

Among all the aspects mentioned above, mentality is one major issue which I personally witnessed a couple of times that makes the localization project failed. Say, your game is very successful in China, and now you want to bring it to the West. You hire domestic western game designers and product managers to do the job. When your western workforces create a list of things that the team has to do to tailor your game to the new market, your development team who created the originally successful product is reluctant to change or even refuses to do it at all. Let’s put yourself in their shoes. When you have a successful game in the domestic market, why you have to recreate something new for an unknown market? While you are working on a game making millions or thousands of millions monthly, why you have to listen to someone whose market size is only a portion of yours? While you are earning a large bonus from your current responsibility, why not put more effort on it to earn a even bigger bonus rather than getting distracted from something not proven? So, it’s very obvious why localization not going very smooth in that way. The only way to tackle that is to have the upper management set a tone that going West is the most important strategy for the entire company. Make it clear that it’s the highest priority to everyone in the company and set the bonus system working for that accordingly.

Conclusion

I tried to explain some of the differences in taste, culture, monetization mindset, and development mentality between East and West above. Now, you should be able to understand why I answer “No” when people ask me if it’s a good idea to bring the successful games in China to the West.

Of course, if you are able to address all the aspects mentioned above right before your West launch, you will maximize your chance to have your successful games in China being equally successful in the West. If you decided to go this route, I believe the best strategy is to partner with a prestige domestic publisher with successful stories bringing games from the East to the West. They can guide you through the entire process and make sure your game is good fit for your new target audience. Meanwhile, I suggest you to evaluate the cost and efficiency of creating a new game for the western market to compare what strategy works best for your company.

As mentioned in my previous article, western market is huge and the China domestic market is highly competitive. Moving into the western market is a good way to bring in new revenue stream, and the user feedbacks from other cultures can inspire innovation for future projects as well. While the Chinese mobile game market continues getting more competitive, there has never been a better time for its developers to consider the western market. While expanding to new market is never an easy proposition, it can pay off exponentially. Chinese companies need a good strategy, including investing in talented team in the West to create original games, to get into the western market. You can read my thought about that here.(source:Gamasutra

 


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