Case Study of Working with Foreign Live Operations Company | Rip Yoon
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Delivered at Casual Connect Asia 2017. Launching games in foreign markets is always attractive but there are many things to consider. Not only the language issues, but also understanding culture and moderating local users’ needs may require time and efforts even if your branch office is set. Hiring a local operations company is an alternative way to reduce such risks. Then, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using a local company? Let’s find out.
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Case Study of Working with Foreign Live Operations Company | Rip Yoon
- 2. 01.Intro 02.Uniqueness of Korean Users 03. Suggestion 04. Summary
- 4. Intro: About Speaker 4 Intro My name is Rip Yoon Head of Biz Dev at Qroad Inc. 20 years in Korean gaming industry – Worked at LG, Webzen, CJ E&M, OnNet… LiveOps experience: Generated $800M in 2016
- 6. Importance of Localization for Korean Market? Top games are 100% in Korean – Language (In-game text, Contents…) – Operations (QA, CS, GM, Community…) Lineage2 Revolution Modu Marble for Kakao Seven Knights for Kakao Pimang Poker Dynasty Warriors Unleashed Clash Royal Pro Baseball H2 Final Blade 3 Kingdoms Blade FIFA Online 3 by EA Mu Origin Day of Break for Kakao King’s Raid Hangame Poker Destiny Child for Kakao Netmarble Netmarble Netmarble Neowiz Nexon Supercell NC Soft NC Soft 4:33 Nexon Webzen Kakao Vespa NHN Ent. Next Floor 6 (Korean top gross, App Annie, 8 Apr. 2017) Uniqueness of Korean market (Clash Royal, Supercell) (Lords Mobile, IGG)
- 7. Target User Group Maybe Different Each region has its own issue Research local users & environment Localize CS by age 7 Singapore Korea US (Source: App Annie) Uniqueness of Korean market Typical CS After phone call inquiry
- 8. Korean Users are Sensitive 8 How location of ops team affects the user acquisition Local relationship is more important than system (Source : App Annie) Uniqueness of Korean market Ops team in Korea After Ops team moves to other country
- 9. Korean Users Play Games All Day Number of tickets Sample * Highest peak at 5PM(24.9)and at 0AM-5AM, 32 tickets received Compared to other countries, amount of tickets is bigger 9 Day Sift 1 Shift 2 Shift 3 Total 10PM - 5AM 6AM - 1PM 2PM - 9PM Sun 68.0 122.8 141.2 332.0 Mon 71.1 46.3 197.9 315.2 Tues 75.6 65.8 189.9 331.3 Wed 66.4 59.7 174.3 300.3 Thu 59.4 48.9 170.8 279.1 Fri 68.7 46.9 184.0 299.5 Sat 81.3 150.8 167.5 399.5 % Avg. 21.7% 24.0% 54.3% 100% (Internal source, Qroad) Uniqueness of Korean market
- 10. Korean Users Expect Quick Feedbacks First response time (“FRT”) sample What if the response is late? 1) Make negative activities at game communities or user groups 2) Leave the game, then to move to similar games 10 0 20 40 60 80 100 FRT >1H >12H >24H % % % % % % 18.4% 44.3% 84.9% (Internal source, Qroad) Uniqueness of Korean market
- 12. Do the Basic. Be Local Translation is very basic Localize the contents Making partnership with Korean company may be helpful 12 Play Intention 4 5 6 7 8 Competitiveness & MarketabilityMonetization Graphics & Sounds UI & Convenience 6.7 6.8 7.3 5.5 5.8 Suggestion
- 13. Setup Korean Friendly Community 13 (Screen captured from Naver Café) Suggestion
- 14. Community Sample Title Logo Top Menu Café Info/ Login Search Chat Online users Patch Note Upcoming Ver. Basic Guide Tips Suggestions Q & A ---------------- Screenshots Fan Arts Match Making Free Board --------------- PR My Guild FB Like Event Lottery Event Daily Checks Vids Downloads Trouble shooting Announcement Q & AFree Board 14 Standard format of Naver Cafe Suggestion
- 15. Use the Community as All-in-one Ops Center Organic bonding between Live Service, CS and QA in community 15 Announcement Patch Note Upcoming Update Guide for Newbie In-game Event Community Chat Freeboard Screenshot Fan Arts Matchmaking User Support Q&A / FAQ Game Guide Tip & Knowhow Suggestion Events Hosting PR my guild FB Like Event Lottery Daily Check In Suggestion Naver Cafe
- 16. 1. Korean market is 100% localized 2. Users are used to getting real-time feedback 3. Setup proper community & operations
- 17. Appendix. Comparison between two countries Major publishers dominate the market, but foreign games still have opportunities 17 Korea, 4/8, App Annie 20 n/a 6 89 92 26 28 n/a 44 5 6 n/a 16 31 n/a At Korean charts Singapore, 4/8, App Annie Suggestion
Editor's Notes
- Hello, Welcome to the session. I am very pleased that I can meet you, and share the practical data about Korean market and Korean users behavior, which are not easily shown on other researches or report. So, this is about the uniqueness of Korean users. How do you make money? Understand the users. I hope that you get some idea from my case study, and apply it when you consider to launch your games in Korea.
- First of all I like to briefly introduce myself. My name is Rip Yoon, I have been working for Korean gaming industry for over 20 years. I worked at LG, Webzen, CJ E&M, and several other publishers & startups. In current, my job is head of biz dev at Korean company called Qroad, which is very specialized for live operations, QA, and customer support. Qroad is not famous, because the company is pure b2b company. But Qroad has many live operations experience. Those are the partners. Which means that when Supercell launches their game, then Qroad does live operations. So Qroad generated 800M in last year, From our experience, I think I can deliver actual Korean users behavior
- Uniqueness of Korean market
- Before we go though users, let’s take a look at Korean market. This shot was captured some day in April. Don’t mind how they are doing. All the titles except few are written in Korean. Ah, this is better. Even though few games have English titles, those are 100% localized in Korean. They just adopted English titles only. Games are all in Korean. Game on left side is famous game from western, Korean localized. Game at right side, that’s Chinese, all localized. If you are going to launch game in Korea, you must localize the game. No English. Also you have to localize operations as well. Why Koreans don’t play English game? Because we don’t speak English. If you don’t localize the game, then never expect Korean users play your game.
- Which means that a game can be popular among 20eth of female in your territory, while it becomes popular among teen agers male in Korea. Here is the example. This is a gross revenue of famous game. Blue line is Singapore market, yellow line is US market. Red line is Korean market. Performance of this game was not so good in Korea at initial launch. The real problem was, the gap was getting wider, compared to the other countries. Developer could not find the reason why. Then we found it. Not like the other countries, it was quite popular among elementary school kids in Korea. They usually used parents account, so developer couldn’t find it. So right after we found it, what we did was to expand the phone call inquiry service. Because they prefer using telephone call. Then, it dramatically recovered the revenue.
- Let’s see the other example. This was a foreign game serviced in Korea. At the initial, game was good. The game ran really well. But 2 months later, the foreign company decided move their operation team to their own country. They thought they understood Korean market, they learned enough, and they perfectly copied the system of our live operations. Yeah, actually they copied it perfect. They hired Koreans, But right after they moved operation team to their country, problem happened. Download seems very unstable, however they spent more marketing budget. The reason why download was unstable was because, the viral marketing among users was stopped. User felt something different, so they stopped bring friends to the game.
- Yes they really play games all day long. Actually it’s not so unique. Because everybody in worldl, plays games all day long. The issue is that they send us inquiries all day long, and we have to give feedback as soon as possible. Even after midnight, we receive around 32 tickets, which is 10% of whole inquiries. And the amount of tickets is pretty big, compared to other countries. This game has 300 to 400 tickets per day. And it is around 3 times bigger than the other countries.
- We give feedbacks to 18% of inquiries within 1 hour, and 44% of inquiries in 12 hours. Our standard time to give feedback in 1 day. Remained 15.1% is something that we are not able to answer, something we need discussion with developer. Anyway, users feel that it’s too slow. They are not happy to receive feedback in 12 hours. They are always hurry. And we are not satisfied, too. And we feel always cautious. Because,
- So, we have looked briefly about Korean users. In my opinion, Koreans are not so picky or difficult to understand, compared to the other countries. Only few things you care, then they will be fine. Here, I would like to give you some suggestions.
- Translation is very basic thing. You must do it. And, not only in-game text or contents, when we say localizing foreign game, then it covers like this. Five big elements. Monetization, play intention… When those things are all localized, then we call it localization is done. But I am not going to explain these now. Because it takes too much time. Maybe it will take another session. The reality is, you cannot do them all. Because it will cost too much time and money, and you want to keep your one global build in common. Then, making partnership with local Korean company will be helpful. If you find publishing partner, then everything is fine. But it’s not so easy to find publishing partner in mobile market. Then find local marketing agency, and local operating companies. They will cover your weakness.
- Next thing you are gonna do is to make community. Korean style community, with Korean style operations. This is from Webzen, this is from 4:33, this is from Netmarble, Nexon, Gamevil, and even Adidas, which is non-gaming company. Take a look, they look alike. Aren’t they? This community style is called ‘Café’, provided Naver. All the local games are using ‘Café’ as community. However it does not look beautiful, why do they do? Because of Naver. Naver is Google in Korea. So every Korean has Naver account. They can easily access Café by the account integration. They can easily login to community and claim.
- Let’s take a look at the Naver Café. This is a standard format, so you may modify them. It has Patch note, basic guide, tips, Q&A, all the things about customer support. And café also has match making, free board, fan arts…that’s the place of community functions. And also has event functions, too, which are event hosting. It has everything. Never let users sign up your website and use your forum. You are making users annoying. And I am sure you will be failed.
- Here is the short summary of Naver Café system. It’s not actually community but t’s more like All-in-one operations center. And that’s how common Korean companies do it. Not Facebook, Not, thread type forum, but Naver Café. I strongly recommend you to use Naver Café. Because every company use it, Every user feels familiar with the system.
- Summary of the session,
- 그렇다고 꼭 한국 게임만 성공하는 것은 아님. 겁먹지 마 잘보면 외국 게임들도 있어. 중간에. 위에만 없을 뿐. 그러니 잘 준비하고 시도하면 갈 수 있어. 한국 메이저퍼블리셔보다 약할 순 있지만 충분히 성공할 수 있는 시장임. 차트를 봐도 그러함. 한 50위만 해도 돈 이만큼은 벌 수 있어 동남아보다 4-5배 큰 시장이야 Market size is big - In top 30~50, $1M-1.5M sales revenue per month - in top 100, $100K~200K is possible