BUSAN, South Korea, November 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- China's leading mobile game publisher iDreamsky took part in the G-STAR Global Game Exhibition recently held in South Korea. At the event, Jeff Lyndon, co-founder and executive vice president of iDreamsky, was the only Chinese mobile game corporate executive invited to share his experience with his global peers concerning the release, management and promotion of mobile games localized for the Chinese market.
The 7th G-STAR Global Game Exhibition was held in the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center (BEXCO) between the 14th and 17th of November, 2013. The world's leading vendors including NC Soft, Nexon and NHN attended the event. Besides occupying the convention center, the event, the largest in scale to date, took over the auditorium as well as an outdoor exhibition area for additional booth space. The entire area of the Busan Cinema Center was also used for exhibition.
In his G-STAR presentation entitled "How to be successful in China", Jeff shared the reasons behind the huge success of Imangi Studios' Temple Run and Fruit Ninja in China's mobile game market and how foreign developers could establish a firm footprint in that market.
Jeff repeatedly emphasized and explained the core concept of game localization in his speech by analyzing the differences between China and western countries in terms of both the gaming environment and the user base while providing in-depth insights into game content, form and methodology. Through its partnerships with industry-leading developers such as Halfbrick, Imangi, Rovio, Gameloft and Lima Sky and having released dozens of products for which it serves as an exclusive agency, iDreamsky has fully and successfully localized many of its products. By comparing Plants vs. Zombies 2 with Temple Run 2, the Temple Run series has a notable competitive advantage in China due to its localization.
The challenge with localizing games is how to do it efficiently. The first step is to capture users through different channels. Jeff said that the environment for commercializing mobile games in most foreign countries is quite basic as there are usually only five to six widely accepted distribution channels.
China has 2,600 different operating channels both online and offline, making entry into the market quite different from that of other countries. Unified distribution across different channels will greatly increase downloads and installations, as evidenced by Temple Run 2 whose download rate reached into the tens of millions per hour after the game was released.
Western game developers have not taken full advantage of the huge potential of the Chinese market. Although part of the blame can be attributed to the stereotypical attitude of many Chinese players towards foreign games, the fault lies mainly with the Western developers' lack of an effective approach when entering the market. It is simply wrong to copy the success they may have achieved in America when modeling the approach for China. Jeff revealed in his speech that when iDreamsky first introduces a new game to the market, he has already planned out how the game will be managed and marketed post-roll out.
Localization has always been one of iDreamsky's core competencies. As the most widely recognized Chinese mobile game publisher worldwide, iDreamsky continually focuses on quality when introducing the world's hottest mobile games into China. Phil Larsen, chief marketing officer of Halfbrick Studios, Australia's largest mobile game developer and iDreamsky's partner for the joint launch of Fruit Ninja in the Chinese market, said at this year's China Joy that about 30 percent of Halfbrick's users come from China. Temple Run, created by North America's major game developer Imangi Studios and published in China by iDreamsky, is also highly popular among China's players and holds the top position for the number of downloads among the long term rankings across all the major channels, providing testament to the importance of fully and effectively localizing foreign games when entering the Chinese market.
