GDC09 - Europe Online game challenges

Introduction
This presentation was supporting a lecture given at the Worlds in Motion Summit, during the GDC 2009 in San Francisco.
You can find more recent presentations on this topic from ICO Partners on Slideshare:
www.slideshare.net/ICOPartners

The Plan
Europe?
Definition(s)
Territory Profile
Market
Business in Europe
Licensing
Self Publishing
QA & Special Thanks

The Speaker
Thomas Bidaux
GOA.com
NCsoft Europe
ICO Partners
As well as…
University: Foreign Language, Literature and Civilisation - English
Shakespeare, Marianne Moore and the British and American Civilisations

Europe?

Europe? Herman Moll - 1708

Europe?

Political Europe
Many definitions
Euro-zone (16 countries)
EU (27 countries)
Schengen (31 countries)
Council of Europe (47 countries)

Euro-zone ██ Eurozone (16) ██ EU states obliged to join the Eurozone (9) ██ EU state with an opt-out on Eurozone participation (2)

European Union

Schengen

Council of Europe

Europe in Numbers (1)
Superficy
4 300 000 km² (that’s 1 600 000 sq miles)
USA - 3 800 000 sq miles
Population
500M in Europe
USA - 300M
Density
114/km²
USA - 31/km²

Europe in Numbers (2)
Currencies
12
Internet Users (%tage of Worldwide users)
28% Europe
18.4% North America
Comscore January 2009
Consoles
8.4M PS3
8.9M Xbox 360
16M Wii

Europe beyond Numbers
Cultural particularities
History
Metric system
Sports
No Baseball
Football is played using your feet
Rugby
Cricket (actually…)
Comics books :

Humour
France and Germany Arte TV channel
Personal Relationship
North vs South
Marriage and dating
Moving « abroad »
Food

Religions

Faith
94% in the US

Europe Legal framework
Civil law system (except in the UK)
European Union regulations
Data Protection
Extremely regulated
Shared trust between EU states
Consumer Protection laws
Shared Across EU states (not 100% though)
Tougher than the US regulations

Europe Game ratings
PEGI (32 countries)
Voluntary system – legally enforced in a few countries
BBFC in the UK for game rated 16+ or more
Mainly for retail
Nothing on Alcohol, Tobacco or Blood
Very quick approval process for 12+ games

Europe Game ratings

Europe Game ratings
USK (Germany)
Legally enforced
Retail Only
A lot of urban legends but…
No Swatiska and be careful on WW2 with references
Quick approval process (except in the summer)
Some examples on the cultural difference:

Leipzig Game Convention

Some ratings examples

Europe and Languages
40+ different languages in Europe:
Important languages : English (British), French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norvegian, Russian, Finnish, Polish, Greek, Russian.
Many minor languages: Basque, Breton, Welsh, Gaelic, Corsican, Catalan, Slavic and Baltic languages…
And even Latin
3 different alphabets (with variations):
Roman
Greek
Cyrillic

The AZERTY (french) Keyboard

Europe and Languages
British VS American:
Different spelling
Different vocabularies
Different sensibilities:
Spaztic – Mario Party 8 was removed from shelves
Short Shag – Fusion Fall (kid game) haircut description

Europe and English

Means of payment (1)
SMS
high rate
popular with kids and teens
Higher mobile phone penetration than the US
(107 vs 77 per 100 inhabitants in 2006)
Credit/Debit Cards
Popular with adults (different rates of equipment between countries, generally less than US)
Local version very common (Carte Bleue)
ELV
very common in Germany
Bank transfer (high rate of charge back)

Pre-paid cards
Paysafe – 210k outlets in 16 countries, 2.7k web shops, 15M transactions in 2008
Wallie – focused on young gamers 9-18, 300k outlets, 1500+ games, 7 countries
Premium landline call
Popular with kids and for small amounts
Direct ISP billing
VAT in Europe
Based on the country of operation
Average is 20%
Listed prices are inclusive

Means of payment (3) Source – ACNielsen Oct 2005

Means of payment (5) US : 59% (US census bureau) Cash and cheques used a lot in several countries

European Market
Popular Online Games

European Market
PC market
In 2008 laptops = 70% of European PC market Netbooks = 10% of the total European PC market 70% of netbooks sales were in Europe in 2008 Netbooks EU market expected to grow from 8M units in 2008 to 50M units in 2012

European Market
Size of the Internet market
Broadband lines per 100 inhabitants. 2008

European Market
Size of the Market
Source: idate September 2008

European Market
Size of the Market
WOW Servers

European Market – MMO
Size of the Market (estimates)
LOTRO – 50/50 split US/EU
Age of Conan – 35/65 split US/EU
Runescape – 66/33 split US/EU
Guildwars – 45/55 split US/EU
EU Estimates

European Market
Free to Play Market
Driven by browser-based
Some succesful client-based Free to Play
EU Estimates

European Market
F2P vs P2P
(from 400+ games currently operated in Europe or under development)

European Market
F2P vs P2P

European Devs
Online Games Studios
173 studios
300+ projects
Compared to US :
Less VC-backed
Less video games background
Successful bootstrapped web studios/hobby projects

European Devs
Prominent Studios

European Operators
Local actors
Codemasters – Lotro, DDO, Jumpgate, Archlord
GOA.com – DAoC, WAR, Goa.com
Frogster – Runes of Magic, Bounty Bay Online
Gameforge – Metin 2, Ogame
Bigpoint – Seafight, Dark Orbit
Gamigo – Level R, Last Chaos, Shot Online
Burda IC – Florensia, Ragnarok, Alaplaya
Games Masters – Cabal Online, Perfect World
Local subsiduaries
Blizzard – WOW
NCWest– GW, Lineage 2, City of Heroes
Club Penguin – Club Penguin
Gala Net – Flyff, Rappelz
Aeria Games – Last Chaos, Shaiya, Megaten
Nexon – MapleStory, Combat Arms
SquareEnix - FFXI

European gameplay style
Service expectations
Language
Call center
Communication/Community

Different play style

Business in Europe

Business in Europe
First consideration
Splitting the services
Shards?
IP Blocking?
Legal consideration?
Community Management?
Marketing opportunities?

Licensing in Europe
Key points to consider
Service splitting - required
Business model
Royalty mechanism
IP management
Localisation strategy
Bug reporting
Customer Support policies
User feedback processes
Global communication/marketing

Licensing in Europe
Existing actors
Codemasters
GOA.com
Frogster
K2
Gala Net
Gamigo
Gameforge
Bigpoint
Funcom

Self publishing in Europe
Expect to spend time on:
Legal
Community management
Localisation
Customer Support
Billing solutions
Server operations
Marketing
Distribution (for boxes)
Recruitment

Self publishing in Europe
Where to set up European operations
France
UK
The Netherlands
Germany
Switzerland
Ireland
Other?
From a US office?

QA
Special thanks to
Diane
Paysafe & Wallie
Kai Bodensiek
Idate (Laurent Michaud)
Global Collect (Rogier de Boer)

Thank you!
You can find the presentation from:
GDC09 website
www.icopartners.com/blog

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GDC09 - Europe Online game challenges

by ICO Partners on Jul 21, 2009

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