Why do mobile games often fail in the international market?

According to WSJ, the value of the global mobile gaming market is likely to be eight times times 2017, from $3.77 billion in 2010 to $29.6 billion. In the world, the Asia-Pacific region, led by China and Japan, is the biggest market for mobile game developers, with 48% of the global revenue coming from here, and the number of paid players here is 3 times times that of the second-largest North American region.

Based on this data, we will not be surprised at the number of mobile games that are trying to expand overseas markets every year, but there are few games that actually make a real success.

Part of the reason is that mobile gaming has become a contemporary phenomenon of gold rush. Developers from around the world flocked to the market hoping to make a windfall, leading to competition in today's mobile gaming market – both domestically and overseas.

But the most important reason is that developers often underestimate the challenge and importance of the localization of mobile games.

Based on our experience in helping mobile games to the world, I will list the 6 issues that developers often commit when entering international markets. If you can avoid these problems, you can effectively improve your chances of success.

Localization (from GameDev)

1. Lack of clear international strategies and plans

One of the most basic early mistakes that a game developer can make is the inability to understand localization, not just language translation.

Whenever you plan to bring the game to the world market, one of the localization strategy questions you need to answer first is: What elements can shape an attractive market for your company? (Game state Note: such as population, GDP, cell phone penetration rate, competitor, language, regulation, cultural elements, collaborators, etc.). ）

What are the top 10 world markets you choose based on these criteria?

Can we test the needs of the market before making the final decision?

What are the needs of each market?

Is your company able to enter multiple markets at the same time?

Should you be looking for a local partner?

What is your market strategy in each country?

A lack of local knowledge will stifle your international actions.

Therefore, you need to ensure that your company has a strong backing to drive deeper research, and once you have made international decisions you need to explore the target market and act on it.

If you fail to develop the right strategy and act, your game will fail, no matter how many languages it supports.

2. Neglect of localization in the early stage of game development

Many game developers have delayed the issue of localization to the late stages of development, but failed to realize that they had made a serious mistake when they started writing the first few lines of code.

This means that when you need to add new languages and native requirements, they can only rework a lot and spend an extra cost to go back and change the code, which will cost your company a lot of money and time, and may even delay the timing of the game's issuance to overseas markets.

Your team should make decisions about the internationalization of the game in advance rather than after a period of costly rework.

Is your code suitable for the pre-translation phase? Did you materialize the UI string? Do you carefully consider the internationalization of non-textual elements such as symbols, colors, time and date formats, currency symbols, etc.?

If your code is not localized in the first place, the problem will become more serious as you add code constantly.

3. Lack of a "cultural" process

In order to improve the chances of a game's success in the international market, you must focus on cultural elements.

Basic language translation is just the basic thing that any game developer needs to do. Ideally, your translator will adjust the content of your game according to the culture of the target market, because it is necessary to be culturally-based.

"What we've learned about international markets is that it's not enough to translate game content into localization," said Craig Alexander, vice-director of product development at the game Studio turbine. On the contrary, we need to be culturally. ”

In order to create the best gaming experience, your translator must understand the foreign cultural traditions, the latest popular culture in the target country, and some of the local reference objects and so on.

This also applies to non-text assets. For example, while in the United States it is more common than v gestures, it is an insulting sign in Britain.

Why is the art of plant vs zombies becoming one of the most popular mobile games in China? Let's focus on the local design of the game and the Great Wall in its background. What we need to keep in mind is that we can improve the loyalty of our players by presenting some unique experiences in the game.

Plants vs Zombies (from GameDev)

4. Underestimate the challenges of global mobile gaming distribution

If you think each country's mobile game distribution channels are the same, you are wrong! If you are rushing to push the game overseas, you will often overlook the problem.

Do you know that Google Play is not available in China? Instead, there are nearly 200 Android app stores and create a highly fragmented market. Without an appropriate system to track the performance of these channels, you will not be able to accurately develop a strategy to distribute your application in this country.

Each App store attracts different users with its own characteristics. And you need to focus on their different behaviors and adjust your game to suit different situations. For example, market leaders often create different versions of games based on different app stores. In other words, if they have 20 target stores, they will create 20 different versions of the game and a marketing strategy.

Given these complexities, many Western game developers will choose to work with local publishers or homegrown companies as they enter the Chinese market.

When your team formulates a localization strategy plan, you need to make sure you can discuss it with the local market collaborators.

5. Failed to localize the profit strategy

While your code and content may be the most significant localization goal, your profit model is just as important.

In developing countries such as China, gamers may not earn as much as the average American player. So your business model needs to reflect that reality.

When "Plants vs. Zombies" came out of the Chinese market, they tried to optimize the profit model, making the game more complex and expensive, but it led to a negative trend in user ratings and the game rating dropped from 5 stars to 2 stars. To overcome this situation, they learned lessons and changed the economic model of the game. So now the negative evaluation of this game has been greatly reduced.

"The Chinese market is different and you have to be prepared to face any situation that differs from the western perspective," said Leo Liu, general manager of the China office at the game developer Conference. ”

6. No test and translation evaluation on equipment prior to release

This is an easy-to-avoid layman's problem, but we have again this problem again and again.

You worked hard to create the game, made a good localization plan, translated the UI strings, and released the game, but suddenly you realized something was wrong. You find that some of the longer German writing destroys your game ui! But in the worst case, when your CEO asks you why it happened, you say, "I thought the translator would do it." ”

Don't take responsibility to anyone. Finally, if there is a problem and you could have stopped it, then the responsibility must be on you.

Professional translators sometimes make mistakes, especially in the complex, decentralized and fast-growing world of mobile phones.

You must ensure that your local collaborators are able to provide localized testing and evaluation services for a variety of mobile devices, because you can not afford to disappoint users because of a flawed game. When you get a bad rating, you can't hide the bad quality of your game in the Mobile world.

Conclusion

Indeed, the promotion of games for the international market is not an easy job. Therefore, it is important to define property rights, to formulate effective strategies beforehand and to implement actions. So your mobile game will be able to effectively use the huge international opportunities!

Why do mobile games often fail in the international market?