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Mobile Games Global Direct Entry Strategy Seminar: Japan

Published : Tuesday, February 7, 2017, 3:33 pm
ACROFAN=Hyung-Keun Kim | hyungkeun.kim@acrofan.com | SNS
On the afternoon of the 6th, 'Mobile Games Global Direct Entry Strategy Seminar: Japan' was held at the Google Seoul campus in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

The event was prepared to share relevant know-how that could help mobile game developers when entering the Japanese market directly, and representatives from three companies including Latis Global Communications, Ambition and Ventom attended as presenters.

 
▲ 'Mobile Games Global Direct Entry Strategy Seminar: Japan' was held.

For the first order, Lee Ga-ram, a team manager of Latis Global Communications, presented with the theme of 'Cases to See Localization of Korea and Japan'.

He said that it is important to 'grasp the characteristics of the game' when deciding to expand into Japan and making preparations for the localization project. This is because it is necessary to use a different style of language in the same genre to express the language of the game.

For example, when comparing a role-playing game in a general fantasy world with an elf or dwarf race and a martial-base role-playing game, both games can be grouped into the same genre as 'role-playing' in aspect of the game's atmosphere or playing style. However, the language styles used in the games are entirely different.

He then recommended to write 'glossary' and 'style guide'. 'Glossary' is a simple and effective way to provide a consistent experience for users through the unification of the game's terminology and improve the quality of localization. 'Style guide' is a document that summarizes the basic rules to apply to localization. It is a great help for the worker to understand the game, and also prevents the unnecessary shifts when two or more workers are put in at the same time.

In addition, he said, "As there will be many difficulties in localization work if translation of a specific part is difficult to understand or is not intuitively communicated, writing a 'checklist' might help when having a problem with expressions translated into foreign languages due to cultural differences and improving text quality, which is essential for deployment."

 
▲ Choosing the language that matches the game atmosphere is necessary.

 
▲ You can work more easily with set data.

 
▲ When you request a translation, you must take care of the necessary data.

For the second order, Jo Ki-won, a director of Ambition, gave a presentation on 'About Trends and Operation Methods of Japanese Game Market'.

In the beginning of the lecture, he introduced that Japanese smartphone game market is steadily growing as much as Japanese game market ranked the 2nd in worldwide sales after the US. Moreover, the size of the market for Google Play and AppStore is maintained in a similar way without any big difference.

As features of the market, he mentioned that the downloads of casual and RPG games account for more than 75% among the top 200 games, while RPG games are occupying sales rankings as they occupy more than half of the profits.

Next, for differences between Korea and Japan, he introduced cases largely in product, billing, market and event.
In the case of product, which is game, Korea is centered on 3D real graphics and hardcore action RPGs and PvP, auto function are essential. But Japan prefers a cooperative play that 2D cute characters appear, and auto function is not considered important.

In the billing system, profit creation of Korea is mainly focused on time-saving items and advertising, while that of Japan is focused on ‘Gacha(Random box: Gashapon-style item distribution)’ instead of low advertising.

In the case of market where games are downloaded, in Korea, the role of Google Play Store is big, while One Store and Kakao Market play some role. But in Japan, Google Play Store and App Store are similar, but local markets are less.

For the way of events, Korea is mainly using CPI boosting and centralization of users through community establishment. Instead, it is having difficulty in developing offline media. In Japan, it is actively utilizing pre-viral and offline media, and collaborations with famous IP also frequently happen.

In addition, he chose 'Continuous Marketing and Operation' as the key to success for successful entry into Japan. In the case of the Japanese market, the customer transaction of obtaining genuine users is 4 to 10 times higher than that of Korea, so it is important to keep the users who once have flown in. For this, it is emphasized that marketing will be necessary after launch as well as pre-publicity through various media.

Moreover, when selecting a local partner, several things to be checked; 'if the partner has an abundant marketing experience,' 'if the index of the content currently being serviced is high', and 'if there is no problem in communication'.

 
▲ Korean market and Japanese market have many different parts.

 
▲ Continuous marketing and operations are essential.

 
▲ When selecting a local partner, a lot of thought is needed.

At the end of the event, a member of Ventom, Lee Dan-woo gave a lecture on 'The first step of Japanese market marketing.'

He said, in terms of app download size, Japanese market is in the ninth place, but the ARPU per user is the highest in the world, so it is worth challenging.

It is introduced that viral promotions, Twitter and game broadcasting are the trends of digital marketing promotion trends in Japanese mobile game market.

First, in the case of viral promotion, Gravure Idol or You Tuber is used at the pre-booking stage, and it is used to attract attention to the timing of large updaters. Next, Twitter is actively pursuing an anonymity that matches the tendency of Japanese people, and game-related live broadcasts are also being used for the purpose of increasing game retention.

Promotional budgets are expected to be around 500 million ~ 3 billion won for large-scale, 200 ~ 400 million won for small and medium-sized businesses, and about 100 million won for small-scale businesses. Companies that want to maximize efficiency with minimum investment can also advertise their games with effort as they can conduct marketing through reservation sites, PR distribution, Twitter official account, etc.

 
▲ Japan's ARPU is the highest in the world.

 
▲ Viral promotion, Twitter, video, etc. are mainly used.

 
▲ There are various marketing methods for small budgets.


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