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亚洲是手机游戏的未来的5大原因

发布时间:2017-02-03 17:04:33 Tags:,,,,

作者:Yonatan Erez

正如人们所知道的那样,游戏开发者总是专注于主题,用户界面和其它能够成就一款优秀游戏的必要元素。

而如果他们能够更多地重视亚洲市场,这个拥有世界上60%人口的区域,他们便能够获得更大的优势。

中国,日本,韩国以及其它亚洲国家的孩子们都很喜欢玩游戏,特别是在自己的设备上玩游戏。这片区域是全世界手机游戏发展的主要贡献者。根据Newzoo的全球游戏市场报告,在全球游戏业务(游戏邦注:包括PC,主机和手机游戏)的1000亿美元收益中,该区域便占据了其中的47%。亚洲市场占据了全球游戏市场将近一半的份额,即466亿美元,自2015年以来增长了10.7%,而其中大部分的增长是来自手机游戏。根据Newzoo,比起其它设备,中国,日本,韩国以及新加坡玩家更多地是在手机上玩游戏;在2015年,智能手机游戏在亚洲游戏市场总收益(466亿美元)中的比例是36%,即为166亿美元。

与往年同期比更是非常显著:单单在中国,2012年手机游戏便占据该国所有游戏的5.4%。到2018年将会有更多人在自己的手机设备上玩游戏,所以其中的比例也会继续增加。在2015年,非亚洲公司在亚洲市场上赚取了53亿美元的收益,其中的69%便是来自手机游戏。

但却并不是说开发者100%能够在此获得成功。在进入任何全新市场之前,游戏开发者都需要做好万全的准备,如果未能做好准备,他们将可能遭遇失败,所有努力和金钱也会付诸东流。

为了应对包括语言,文化,财务等种种问题,游戏开发者需要采取以下具体步骤:

1.本土化—-尽管美国电视节目和电影具有极高的普及度,但大多数亚洲人民并不懂英语,所以如果想吸引他们的注意,开发者就必须使用当地语言。包括菜单,加载页面,广告,网上资料,对话,文本,名字,图标,角色,截图等等游戏中的内容都需要以当地语言体现出来。

虽然了解普通话是一回事,但即使是住在中国的青少年也不一定了解一些最新的俚语的使用方法。例如在普通话中,每个音节的语调可能决定着一个单词的不同含义。所以开发者在创造角色对话时必须清楚这一点,否则玩家便会误解所讨论的内容。

2.文化问题—-如果你希望人们能够关注你的游戏,你不仅需要尊重他们的语言,也要尊重他们的文化。就像在中国,白色象征光明与纯洁,但同时也和死亡有关,所以开发者应该谨慎使用这一颜色。拥抱可能引起歧义,直率也可能被误认为太过鲁莽。

cultural difference(from bbs.zhan)

cultural difference(from bbs.zhan)

除了整体文化问题外,还有游戏文化。在日本,玩家更喜欢益智游戏和RPG游戏,而在中国和东南亚,玩家则更倾向于社交游戏(许多人是在微信上玩游戏)。游戏盈利方式可能决定一款游戏是否能够获得下载。在这里绝对是文化说的算。如果一款游戏不能满足玩家的文化期待,或违背了当地文化,它便可能遭遇忽视。所以为了避免这一命运,开发者必须提高警惕。再一次地,本土专家能够在这方面提供重要的帮助。

3.盈利—-在这个世界上应该很少有人愿意花钱从自己所不熟悉的发行商那下载自己并不了解的游戏吧。所以开发者可以先采取免费模式,即让玩家先免费获得游戏然后通过广告,升级或应用内部购买去获取游戏盈利,这会是个不错的开始。不同国家的玩家希望看到的盈利方式也不同,所以如果玩家面对的是自己所不熟悉的盈利策略,他们可能会排斥游戏。

在面对像中国这么大的市场更需要考虑不同的盈利策略,但市场也向我们展示了一些策略比其它策略更受欢迎且更加成功。在玩家并未像西方玩家拥有那么多资金或者并不像日韩那么富裕的区域,广告便是一种很受欢迎的策略。除此之外像“花钱获胜”或VIP会员制等方法也是可行的。

而在日本和新加坡,玩家更熟悉经典的IAP系统以及使用信用卡进行消费,但文化同样也开辟了另一条道路,特别是在日本,即我们所熟悉的Gacha机制让玩家能够购买自己所需要的电子商品/角色,同时还伴随着博彩的刺激感。但是如果是在并为普及使用信用卡去进行IAP的国家,与平台合作便是不错的选择,就像中的微信,它们能够直接提供给玩家游戏链接。

这里需要记住的是,尽管亚太地区在统计数据中被归为一体,但其实在这里每个国家(甚至是国家中的区域)都拥有属于自己的盈利文化。

4.市场营销—-对于那些在创造并销售iOS游戏的开发者来说,面向玩家传递游戏相对直接一些,即他们是通过App Store出售游戏。而对于Android游戏开发者,如果是在拥有Google Play的区域,情况也和iOS游戏一样。

但是在像中国这样的国家,开发者需要决定自己将面向200多个不同Android下载网站中的哪些网站合作(这里并没有Google Play)。尽管这看起来是一大麻烦,但其实也有其优点,因为这些商店都拥有各自的不同特色。如果能够使用合适的广告,内容和本土合作者(游戏邦注:如在中国的微信,韩国的Kakao,日本的Line等等),开发者便能够创造出不错的结果。

5.时机—-假期,节日,活动,甚至是一周中的其中的一天都可能影响着营销一款游戏的方式或时间;在中国,智能手机是一种很受欢迎的节日礼物选择,因为经常会有很多新款的发行,所以这也是发行一款新游戏的最佳时机。当然了,包括当地开发者在内的其他开发者也会做出同样的决定,所以你应该根据不同情况做出考虑。

“亚洲崛起”已经出现了数十年;一开始是在20世纪80年代进行巨大经济扩张的日本,然后则是“亚洲四小龙”的崛起(香港,新加坡,韩国和台湾),再然后便是中国。但除此之外还有许多其它亚洲区域也在快速发展着,例如2015年,越南便成为该地区发展最快的国家第一,被Bloomberg称为“新兴市场的典型代表”。虽然这里的游戏势力不断扩张,但这并不意味着西方玩家将遭遇忽视。只是对于开发者来说,如果要更好地迎合不同区域的玩家喜好就必须认真考虑这些简单的规则。

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

Top 5 Reasons Why Asia is the Future of Mobile Gaming

by Yonatan Erez

Game developers are, as one would expect, usually focused on developing the theme, user interface, and other essentials that go into making a game great.

It would also serve them well to consider ways to engage with the Asian market, where some 60% of the world’s population lives.

As it happens, kids (and adults) in China, Japan, South Korea, and other Asian countries love to play games, especially on their devices. The continent is a major engine for the worldwide growth of mobilegaming. In 2016, the region was responsible for 47% of revenue in the $100 billion plus global gaming business (including PC, Console, and Mobile gaming) according to Newzoo’s Global Games Market report. Asia is responsible for nearly half of the global gaming market – $46.6 billion, growing 10.7% since 2015; much of that growth has been in mobile. According to Newzoo, gamers players in China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore played more games on mobile devices than on any other screen; in 2015, 36% of revenue in the $46.6 billion Asian game market came from games played on smartphones, for a total of $16 billion.

And Year over Year (YoY) growth has been blistering: in China alone, mobile accounted for just 5.4% of all gaming in the country in 2012, but by 2015, 36.6% of all gameplay in China took place on mobile devices. By 2018, more people will be playing games on their mobile devices than on any other screen, so growth will definitely continue. And there’s room for everyone in Asia, the numbers show. In 2015, non-Asian companies made $5.3 billion in the Asian market; 69% of that generated from mobile gaming.

But success is far from guaranteed. Before reaching out to a new market – any new market – game developers need to prepare themselves and their games for success; if they don’t, they will fail, and the money and effort they expended on their move east will have gone to waste.

There are practical steps that need to be taken in order to deal with the many issues – linguistic, cultural, and financial – that will almost certainly come up. Here are some of them:

1.Localization – Despite the ubiquitous presence of American TV shows and movies on their entertainment channels, most Asians don’t have a real in-depth knowledge of the language so in order to get their attention, developers have to speak their language. Menus, landing pages, ads, web materials, dialog, texts, names, icons, characters, screenshots, and anything else in the game or associated with it needs to be in the language of the land, with the right slang.

It’s one thing to know classical Mandarin, but unless one is a teenager that lives in China, it’s unlikely that he or she will know the latest use of slang expressions. For example, in Mandarin, the tones at which each syllable is spoken can be critical to the meaning of a word. Developers must factor that in when building character dialog – otherwise, players might get the wrong idea about what is being discussed.

2.Cultural Issues – If you want people to pay attention to your game, you have to respect not just their language, but their culture. In China, for example, the color white, represents gold and symbolizes brightness, purity, and fulfilment, but it can also be associated with death, so it should be used sparingly. Hugging is looked upon askance, and directness is often seen as rudeness.

Beyond the general cultural issues, there’s also gaming culture. Players in Japan like puzzle and RPG games, while in China and Southeast Asia, gamers prefer social games (many of them played on WeChat). The way a game is monetized (more on that below) could determine whether or not a game gets downloaded, let alone played. The point is that culture counts. A game that does not meet the cultural expectations of players – or violates cultural mores – is likely to be ignored, if not denigrated. To avoid that fate, developers need to be on the ball. Once again, some local expertise will come in very handy.

3.Monetization – Few people anywhere in the world will agree to spend money downloading a game they know little about, from a publisher with whom they are not familiar. So, free, or more specifically, the freemium model, where players get the game which is then monetized via ads, upgrades, or in-app purchases (IAP), is a good way to start. Players in different countries have come to expect certain monetization approaches, and might “revolt” against a game if they are presented with an unfamiliar monetization strategy that they can’t relate to.

A market as vast as China’s is going to include a wide range of monetization strategies, but experience and the markets show that some are more popular and successful than others. Ads, of course, are a perennially popular strategy in a country where many players don’t have access to the kinds of funds Westerners or residents of more prosperous Asian countries like Japan and South Korea do. But several pay strategies – such as “pay to win” (where players hand over cash to get higher on a leaderboard) or VIP memberships (with special gaming rooms and extra benefits/functions) have worked well.

In Japan and Singapore, meanwhile, players are more familiar with the “classic” IAP system, with purchases made via credit cards (as they are in the US). But culture provides other paths as well, especially in Japan, where a system known as Gacha has proven to be a very popular IAP mechanism. Gacha allows players to purchase needed digital goods/characters, combining the thrill of gambling with the action of gameplay. In countries where the idea of credit cards for IAP is practically a non-starter, partnering with a platform – like WeChat in China provides a game with an imprimatur of approval by the local “mavens,” and provides a link directly to players.

The point to remember is that even though APAC is seen by statistic compilers as a single unit, each country – even regions within countries – have their own game monetization culture.

4.Marketing – For developers who are making and selling Apple games, delivering games to users is rather straightforward (taking into consideration, of course, the language, culture, and advertising/marketing system) – it’s done through the App Store. For Android game makers, the same could be said for places where there are Google Play stores.

China is not one of those places and, there, developers need to decide which of the 200 or so different Android download sites they want to work with (Google Play does not have a presence there). While that would seem to be a disadvantage, it could actually be a plus; each of those stores has its own distinct character. The right kind of ads, offers, and local partnerships in each region (WeChat in China, Kakao in South Korea, Line in Japan, etc.,) can do wonders for a game.

5.Timing – Holidays, seasons, events and even the days of the week may be a factor in how or when to market a game; smartphones are a popular gift in China before holidays as many new models are launched at those times of year, which makes it an ideal time to launch a new game. Of course, all the other developers, including the local ones, will be doing the same, so Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV).

“Asia Rising” is a meme that has been in fashion for decades; first it was Japan that experienced a major economic expansion (in the 1980s), then it was the “Four Asian Tigers” (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan), and then it was China. And there’s plenty more growth in store for Asia: in 2015, Vietnam was one of the region’s best growing economies, termed an “Emerging Market Standout” by Bloomberg. It’s also a rising gaming power, but that doesn’t mean that Westerners aren’t welcome. Just the opposite; but for developers to ensure that players are responsive they should remember to follow a few simple rules.(source:gamasutra

 


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