Japanese: Chinese MMORPGs Are Better Than Korean Games

In Japan, online games made in China gradually displace those made in South Korea. Some factors like the development of Chinese online games and the growth of browser games just weaken the competitiveness of Korean online games.

Similar Numbers

Though about 15 Korea-made online games in total including Aion have started operation or been unveiled in Japan during the recent 3 months, this number is still not great when compared with the number of China-made online games operated in Japan.

That's because there are a total of 12 China-made online games operated in Japan, including Butterfly Sword Online made by 9You.

Butterfly Sword Online

The former situation where most online games operated in Japan were just Korea-made has changed a lot since Ragnarok Online started its operation in Japan. And China-made online games are also on the way to the position once enjoyed by Korea-made online games.

What's more, the operation of 7 Korean online games including STING has been stopped. And operators of certain games like PANGYA: Fantasy Golf have also changed.

Cost-effective Chinese Online Games

As for the current situation, someone in charge of a large game company located in Japan said that Chinese online games had become more and more powerful. For example, games developed by China-based Perfect World are now being enjoyed by large amounts of Japanese players. Based on global success with an increasing number of titles featuring unique game content, such games are very likely to present the audience with perfect development results.

Get Away!

That is to say, online games made in China are now able to compare favorably with those made in Korea in the aspects of graphics and gameplay. And the questioned originality of the Chinese online games also helps such game achieve great commercial success.

Here, we also have to mention the advantage of price enjoyed by Chinese online games. According to an insider from Japan, some Chinese online games only cost half the prices for certain Korea-made online games, and are still able to basically satisfy players' demands for game development. So he said that when having to choose between two games offering similar gameplay, they would surely choose the one that costs less and could be localized more easily.

Japanese: We really don't do a good job

The growth of browser games helps Chinese games enjoy advantages.

Additionally, the growth of browser games also endows Chinese games with advantages. Browser games are now becoming more and more popular in Japan. But there's almost no Korean game company occupying the browser game market, since no Korea-made browser game has been operated in overseas market till now.

As an insider from Japan said, flash-based browser games are just developing at an amazingly high speed. Some browser games presented in the current market can even compete with certain online games. Insiders in the game industry all show interest in this browser game market, and more and more companies in Japan have also begun to develop browser games.

According to this insider, online games are mainly operated by medium-sized and small companies in the Japanese online game market, making Korea-made online games hardly able to be accepted in consideration of the price and gameplay. That's also one of the reasons why China-made browser games are popular in Japan.