Game Design Elements That Translate Poorly Between Eastern and Western Games
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The document discusses key differences between Asian and Western game design elements and player behaviors. It outlines three approaches to adapting games across cultures: localizing, copying systems, or creating Western/Asian versions. Some differences covered include gameplay focus on fun vs efficiency, character progression methods, use of gacha systems, attitudes towards monetization, and preferences around multiplayer and visual design. The document advises understanding cultural influences rather than blindly copying elements and provides takeaways on adapting games for global audiences.
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Game Design Elements That Translate Poorly Between Eastern and Western Games
- 1. Asian vs Western Games Design Elements that Make No Sense
- 3. Setting Expectations • Technical Game Design Talk (with some cultural refs) • Not a Localization session • I will generalize (for time saving)
- 4. Who Am I • Founded and headed 3 game studios so far • Previously GM / COO & CCO at Mytopia • Worked with Dreamworks, Endemol, Showtime, Lionsgate, 888, bwin.party, Rovio • Teaching in Game Dev programs for 8 years
- 5. Pet Monsters
- 6. Pet Monsters
- 7. Ongoing Rise of Asia
- 8. Ongoing Rise of Asia
- 9. Ongoing Rise of Asia
- 10. 3 Approaches 1. Localizing Games 2. Copying Systems / Design Elements 3. Creating Western ver of an Asian game (or reverse)
- 11. 3 Approaches - Localizing Games
- 12. 3 Approaches – Copy Systems
- 13. 3 Approaches - Creating Western / Asian version
- 14. Game Elements
- 15. Western Players • Play for FUN • Seek Rules Clarity • Focus on Progress • Will accept some grinding but will stop playing if game doesn’t progress fast enough Gameplay Behavior Asian Players • Play to WIN • Expect Rules Complexity • Focus on Efficiency • Will spend hours calculating and optimizing gameplay in the same game region (grinding)
- 16. Gameplay Behavior https://www.reddit.com/r/bravefrontier/comments/2quqq1/mechanics_analysis_damage/
- 17. Gameplay Behavior - Luck Western Players • Everyone is equal • Luck is evenly distributed Asian Players • Luck is personal • Some people will always be more lucky than others • Fine with artificial influence on luck
- 18. Character Progression Western Methodology – Experience Points Perform actions (fight, train, cast spells) Gain Experience (XP) Level Up (Repeat until Max Level)
- 19. Asian Methodology – Fusion Obtain Units Fuse Units to character (XP) Level Up (Repeat until Max Level) Character Progression
- 20. Spirits (Kami) • Japanese’s Shinto, Chinese’s Dao are Animist religions • There are thousands of spirits, many are local • Every element in the world has a spirit – trees, rocks, stars, air, buildings, skills, abstracts, dead people • Spirits can animate living and non-living things. They cannot really ‘die’, so can move one body to another
- 21. Spirits (Kami) • Japanese’s Shinto, Chinese’s Dao are Animist religions • There are thousands of spirits, many are local • Every element in the world has a spirit – trees, rocks, stars, air, buildings, skills, abstracts, dead people • Spirits can animate living and non-living things. They cannot really ‘die’, so can move one body to another
- 22. Character Progression Asian Methodology – Evolution • Second Degree of Progression • Usually req Max Level + Evo Materials • Always provide visual change • Evo stage marked with Stars
- 23. Gacha
- 24. Gacha • Toy Vending Machine giving out a Toy Randomly • Very popular in Japan for getting Anime Characters • Somewhat similar to Cards Packs • Often perceived as a slot machine in the west
- 25. Gacha Slots • Getting a Big Win is the goal • Having small winnings prevent a player from leaving the game • Most rounds end with no gain at all Gacha • Getting rarest unit is the goal • The best unit is able to give the user long-lasting benefit • Even winning a lousy unit is beneficial to the system
- 26. Gacha Done Right • Diversity is critical • Require big amount of units in cycle • Can be same power unit but different look
- 27. Gacha Done Right • Price points Gacha with rising risk/reward • Guaranteed better minimum rewards Types of Gacha explained - http://rittlethrone.com/index.php/2015/09/05/top-gacha-design/
- 28. Gacha Done Right • Price points Gacha with rising risk/reward • Guaranteed better minimum rewards
- 29. Gacha Done Right • Design: Required different type of level balancing • Dynamically increase difficulty based on unit power • Refresh Machines Periodically – highlight new units • Tie Gacha to specific events, raids, holidays, levels • Try Variations of Gacha • Boxed Gacha – specific number of rewards, each use removes one until box empty • Friend Gacha – Send gacha use to a friend
- 30. Should you do Gacha? There are 3 factors that affect progress in a game: • Player Skill: Better control skill = Better outcome • Unit Skill: Better unit = Better outcome • Luck: How Random is the outcome Player Skill Unit Power Luck Player Skill Unit Power Luck Player Skill Unit Power Luck Player Skill Unit Power Luck
- 31. Auto Play (Auto Battle, Auto Path)
- 32. Pay 2 Win • Asia: Buying units in the game / paying to win a level is publicly acceptable • West: Players are hostile to the concept - “cheating” • Paying players in the west need to be able to pretend they earned everything without paying • Asians expect excellent Customer Service if they pay, Westerns expect it even if they are not
- 33. Events • Time-limited Quests • Happen on a clear schedule • Have clear reward type • For Evo Materials • For Rare Units • Main source of new content daily • Critical for monetization
- 34. Multiplayer Western Players • Culture encourage competition, individualism => Multiplayer is PvP • Social Structure more loose, flexible, “everyone is equal” => Social in games includes chat, realtime play, meaningful contact Asian Players • Culture encourage unity, cooperation => Multiplayer is more PvE, Co-op • Japan social structure is very strict, hierarch => Social in games mostly flat and not intimidating
- 35. Multiplayer
- 36. Visuals - Too much detail - Too Anime - Too Bright - Too simple - Too realistic - Too dark
- 37. UI What stands out for a western player: • Cluttered UI and HUD • Many Numbers • Art with too many details • Still images, only simple anim • Flashing bright colors • Signals overload
- 38. UI – Quick Examples
- 39. UI – Quick Examples
- 40. UI: Linguistic Differences Characters Comfort • Logographic-based languages can convey a lot of meaning in few characters Lacking Emphasis • Japanese doesn’t have italics or capital letters, get around by adding decorations, colors
- 41. UI: Cultural Differences Risk Avoidance • Asian cultures does not encourage risk taking or standing out from the crowd. Once a precedent has been set everybody follows it Consumer Behaviour • People require a high degree of assurance by means of lengthy descriptions before making a purchasing decision
- 42. UI: Technical Differences Mobile Legacy • Japan had web, games on phones years before the west. Screens were small and information was crammed which influence today’s visual look Fonts • Lack of fonts for non-latin languages (Chinese, Japanese). Each font requires thousands of characters to be individually designed = expensive, time consuming, bigger to download
- 43. Take-aways • There is a big cultural and gameplay difference. • Asian influence in mobile games is high, rising rapidly • It changes the players (even western players) – whether we want it or not • We need to adapt through understanding, not through copying blindly • There are many things that can be adapted to fit each culture, if taken as a system and not as single elements
- 44. Thanks @civaxo
- 45. 3 Approaches - Localizing Games
- 46. Visuals
- 47. Storyline & Narrative • Asian players likes complexity and many details in game mechanics, but more linear, simple plot • Western players – the complete opposite • Both prefer stories tied to their own history, mythology, cities, scenery. Martial Arts instead of guns etc.
- 48. Gacha • Probability-based Unit Drop • Somewhat similar to Gambling games in the west. • Player motivated by expectation to win best reward. • Even when losing money, the expectation prevents players from giving up
Editor's Notes
- Asian games and western games used to be 2 different worlds, with very few exceptions crossing over. For western players some of the mechanics used in Asian games make absolutely no sense, not to mention the screens themselves looks so overloaded it’s basically a visual assault! But in the past year or so some game mechanics – like gacha – did manage to cross over and proven exceptionally successful in the west. Given revenue per player in Asia is higher than in the US – what more can we learn from each other? This talk is going to be a crash introductory course to Asian game design. We’ll also cover what can/can’t be adapted - and how.
- Game Design Talk – not business/marketing. technical. Not a localisation lecture - I'm not going to cover technical or political issues with specific countries and limitations (Rating systems limitations with Violence & Sex, Censorship in China, etc) Generalisation - 20 minutes are not enough for fine differences. I'm going to generalise. For example Asian games is a western term, since Japanese/Chinese/Korean cultures are not identical – just like Western Games is a generalizing term.
- Founded and managed 3 game companies. I headed a studio called Mytopia, taking it through the transition from early mobile to facebook (well myspace first), to social gambling which got us acquired by 888 during 2010. I continued as the COO / Chief Creative for 2 more years, during which we grew into 3 internal studios Worked on multiple genres from Car racing, to social casino, sims meets Farmville with drugs (a game for Weeds TV show), to esports and Action RPGs. Been teaching and mentoring in different game development and design programs for past 8 years.
- The reason I’m giving this talk is that for the past 2 years I’ve been the producer and lead designer of Pet Monsters, a new Rovio title developed by Sidekick. The project started as Rovio’s exploration into Action RPGs and as you can see it’s a midcore title that has nothing to do with Angry Birds. The game is currently still in soft launch and downloadable in the UK, Canada, Israel, Finland and a few other countries. Feel free to give it a try. These 2 years were a journey in exploring Asian and Western games, which I’m going to give you a taste of in this talk.
- I can’t disclose too much info on the game at the moment except something Rovio already made public in CC Amsterdam and that is that the game enjoys a 55% to 60% D1 Retention in the countries it’s currently live in – which are all western audience. I won’t discuss the game in the talk but if you have specific questions grab me afterwards.
- We’re not going to get into stats too much but there is a point I need to make going forward. This year China, for the first time, managed to pull in more revenue than the top grossing country in the world – US. But this shows only part of the picture.
- This is a chart of top countries by downloads. please take a mental picture of how many downloads China, Japan and South Korea has relative to the US (China is really number one, almost all downloads on android are done on 3rd party appstore and there are no official numbers) Please note how many downloads Japan has relative to the US.
- This is a chart of top countries by downloads. please take a mental picture of how many downloads China, Japan and South Korea has relative to the US (China is really number one, almost all downloads on android are done on 3rd party appstore and there are no official numbers) Please note how many downloads Japan has relative to the US.
- Not going to touch on Localization
- Localisation (left Slingshot Brave localized to English Right CoC localized to Japanese)
- Taking Specific systems
- Create original but same-genre or same-type games by Western developers. Pics from left: Marvel Puzzle quest (took gameplay mechanics from P&D, but different energy management system, using Marvel characters which are western etc). Battle Camp by PennyPop, US company doing a similar game to P&D + MMO. Right is P&D using CoC characters (Gung Ho and Supercell were both owned/majority owned by Softbank)
- Warning: *Generalizing* Western players play for fun, seek clear and simple game rules, and focus on progress Asian players play to win, seek complex rules then need to learn and master, focus on finding the most efficient and optimized way to play
- I want to give a little example to rules complexity and how players are obsessed with efficiency. This is the full formula for calculating damage in Brave Frontier as calculated by players on reddit.
- Again, generalizing. Westerners hold inherent pov that at the basic level all people are equal and that luck is neutral. You got lucky this time, I’ll get lucky next time. Asians are fine with luck being a personal trait and that some people will always be more lucky than others. No resentment. Also, they are fine with luck being influenced.
- Don’t confuse with player progression
- While fusion of spirits is a concept that needs no explaining in Asia – no even in a story, it’s a huge headache for game designers in the west. Western players can get along with the fusion of objects, but fusion of creatures in connected in our culture to sacrifice – killing of an innocent living being – this does NOT work well with western players. Why does it work with Asians?
- The old religions in Asia – Chinese and Japanese – are Animist. This is actually very common world wide. Animism is the belief everything around you has some sort of consciousness. [text] The games doesn’t provide an explanation since Kami is a common idea culturally and require no explanation to Asian players (that spirits can never really die). Btw this is the elementals relationship in Taoism, popular in Chinese medicine as well, which is exactly where this elemental breakdown in Asian games comes from. This is an example from P&D.
- The old religions in Asia – Chinese and Japanese – are Animist. This is actually very common world wide. Animism is the belief everything around you has some sort of consciousness. [text] The games doesn’t provide an explanation since Kami is a common idea culturally and require no explanation to Asian players (that spirits can never really die). Btw this is the elementals relationship in Taoism, popular in Chinese medicine as well, which is exactly where this elemental breakdown in Asian games comes from. This is an example from P&D.
- Crossy Road Clash Royale Hearthstone Overwatch
- Supercell Feb 2014
- Supercell Feb 2014
- Diversity is critical. Gacha doesn’t work with 50 units. RPG games start with hundreds of units and continue to add. Some games have 400, 500, 800 different units. Now this affect amount of art that goes into the game and why a lot of Asian games only have one image per unit and animations are image manipulation. We discovered this doesn’t work well in the west. Players appreciate more live animations. This directly affect how many units you can put in the game, but for a good western game it’s required. Otherwise it looks cheap to players.
- (makes it similar to gambling – higher risk (=price) means better reward Even “crappy” wins are beneficial (as fusion or evolution materials)
- (makes it similar to gambling – higher risk (=price) means better reward Even “crappy” wins are beneficial (as fusion or evolution materials)
- Gacha requires different methodology levels balancing. A starting player can spend $100 and have very strong units, very early in the game. He still needs to feel strong but it can’t be too easy for a long time or it’s not fun. Boxed Gacha – Motivates player to keep playing. Has better chance to get best unit with every spin.
- For Asian game is escape from reality and last thing they want is use their brain. Can also play during work. Doesn’t work in the west.
- Pay for a chance to win - Another concept that doesn’t work well with players in the west. In Asia it’s completely legitimate to simply pay for a rare unit, for a VIP level, for affecting battle results. The players simply say “I bought it” to other players and the response is usually “cool!” So games have units that you can only get for paying. Players in the west are very hostile to the concept. A player that will tell another player “I bought this unit” will be considered a cheater, and the players are likely to turn against the developer for even permitting it, saying the game isn’t fair. Not only that, Players will check the hard currency prices of things in the game and compare it to the costs of hard currency packages in the game. If the costs are too high ($200) they will label the developer as Greedy and may quit. They will pay but will not want anyone to know. Image: ZT Online – Chinese MMORPG
- Bottom graph from Transformers Legends. The dips are the weekdays where no events are running.
- Warning: *Generalizing* Western players want to engage with other players, fight them to prove superiority - promoting culture of individualism, winner-loser etc. Asian players are more socially closed and will prefer PvE or “flat” social interaction where they don’t have pressure to actually interact with other. Also, in the “classless” promoted western culture everyone is equal so there is no pressure to adjust social behaviour to whoever you interact with. Asian Cultures are more strict, rigid and communication is based on what the social relation between the people so it’s more stressful. Notice most popular game in japan (MS) doesn’t even have a PvP option. Only Coop and joined raids. And Coop is not done over the internet with strangers – it’s done with friends!
- Warning: *Generalizing* Western players want to engage with other players, fight them to prove superiority - promoting culture of individualism, winner-loser etc. Asian players are more socially closed and will prefer PvE or “flat” social interaction where they don’t have pressure to actually interact with other. Also, in the “classless” promoted western culture everyone is equal so there is no pressure to adjust social behaviour to whoever you interact with. Asian Cultures are more strict, rigid and communication is based on what the social relation between the people so it’s more stressful. Notice most popular game in japan (MS) doesn’t even have a PvP option. Only Coop and joined raids. And Coop is not done over the internet with strangers – it’s done with friends!
- Good example from Tomo Motoyoshi Americans: Too much detail Too Anime Too Bright Asians: Too simple Too realistic Too dark
- Old screens of Monster Strike
- New Screens of Monster Strike in the English version
- Linguistic Differences Character Comfort – While these characters can look cluttered and confusing to the western, they actually allow Japanese speakers to become comfortable with processing a lot of information in short period of time / space (the same goes for Chinese). Lacking Emphasis – Japanese doesn’t have italics or capital letters which limits the opportunities for adding visual punch that you get with latin alphabets. This makes it more difficult to create the hierarchical contrasts required to organise information with type alone although many designers get around this by adding decoration or using graphic text.
- Risk Avoidance – In general Japanese culture does not encourage risk taking or standing out from the crowd. Once a precedent has been set for things looking or behaving a certain way then everybody follows it, regardless of whether there is a better solution. Even Japanese subcultures conform to their own fashions and rules. Consumer Behaviour – People require a high degree of assurance, by means of lengthy descriptions and technical specifications, before making a purchasing decision – they are not going to be easily swayed by a catchy headline or a pretty image. The adage of “less is more” doesn’t really apply here.
- Mobile Legacy – Japan was using their version of the mobile web on advanced flip phones long before the iPhone came along and in even larger numbers than had personal computers. Back then the screens were tiny and the way sites had to be designed to cram content into this small space has continued to influence the way things are now. Web Fonts – There is a lack of web fonts for non-latin languages in general (as most of us Israelis know) and for Asian languages in particular (Chinese, Japanese…). This is because each font requires thousands of characters to be individually designed which is prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and would take longer to download. For these reasons designers tend to use graphics rather than plain text to display non-standard typefaces.
- Personal observation – while localization work very well when localizing within different countries in the west – and the examples to that are many, Localizing a game between so different cultures and gameplay habits hardly ever work well. A strong game in the west will have an uphill battle in the east and face a lot of changes in order to succeed.
- *Generalizing!* Asian player usually prefer simple, linear plots that drive the story. This doesn’t mean simple stories – it can be rich in details, history etc, but the basic plot is still rather simple. This works well with the complex game mechanics they prefer to focus on. Western players, on the other hand, usually prefer simpler (even if hard to master) mechanics, and more complex plots. All players everywhere prefer stories that they can relate to. Americans prefer game happening in the US where just stating a neighborhood already gives you an idea whats going on. Same with Japanese players (prefer games happening in Japan) and Chinese who prefer to see the great wall and the market over downtown LA. Needs to be very careful here – just like US and Germany have different history you better not mix, so does Asian countries. Lots of sensitives there, get your historical and cultural references right. For example, a Samurai Panda is something *extremely insulting* for Chinese players, as Blizzard learned the hard way.