[Topic]Asian MMOs Going Global

Asian MMOs Going Global By Vasily Tedeev V is happy that he took up writing again, something he had dreamed of doing ever since he was nine years old. Being a nonconforming combination of a social party animal and a gamer, he realized that his life amounted not to just games and women, but that he had to pursue his passions and self-development in other areas as well.

Asian MMOs have greatly increased their presence in western markets and this trend continues with a fresh crop of next-gen games already in development and slated for international release. Most of these games are launched in their country of origin first and then exported elsewhere. One would expect for a game that already proved to be popular in one country to repeat the same accomplishment in another country with relative ease. However, that is not usually the case.

Games that may have a large subscriber base at launch soon face the decline of population numbers in just a couple of months. This is usually attributed to the difference in tastes and mentalities between players from the East and West. While this certainly is a large contributing factor, it is not the sole reason for phenomenon. This may be hard to believe at first, but - it's the companies themselves that are the main obstacle to their game’s success. Let's look at a typical release pattern of a popular Asian game.

Once a title launches at home and builds a more or less stable customer base, the developers start to feel that the time has come to release the game in other markets. A lot of these companies do not have a continuous physical presence in the West due to additional costs this brings. So, the only viable option is to create or hire a small franchise office to oversee the game overseas. This office is responsible for westernizing the title – a process that ideally involves carefully examining the franchise in order to tweak game mechanics and certain gameplay elements that are not suitable for the tastes of Western players. However, this is usually reduced to simply translating the game's text and interface with some minor fixes to gameplay. In most cases, a franchise office has relatively little power and authority over the original development team and thus, only small and convenient changes usually make it in.