The article is published In September issue of the magazine "Gambling" in the section "Special". Another illustrative series is selected to accommodate on “gaming XP” than used in the journal. The rest of the article is published by us without changes.

How and why Russian companies import online games from China and South Korea? "Gambling" interrogates Mail experts.RU Group, leading Russian online games operator, finds out why the Chinese is a Russian friend, where operators get acquainted with the developers, how much MMOG costs and why Star Wars: The Old Republic can fail in the domestic market.

Online games for three years have become one of the most popular game areas in Russia. If in 2007 and at the beginning of 2008 the predominance of the retail did not raise questions, then after the crisis, which swept through the industry, the situation has radically changed. Games were released for the front line, for which you do not have to go to the store and for which it is often not even necessary to pay. The Russian user successfully met virtual worlds, where he is not a navel of land running through numerous labyrinths, and a participant in a large game is one of many, but important and full. And he liked it.

In 2009 alone, the MMOG market excluding casual and social games almost doubled – and this is at the most difficult time for the industry. The growth in 2010 turned out to be a little more modest: the market increased “only” by a third and amounted to about $ 280 million (and even in 2007 it amounted to relatively small $ 80 million). And if we talk about the audience, then it not only increased, but also began to pay more.

Today, the Russian online market, although it is not in the first division, is a very rich economic platform, where numerous projects actively compete with each other. And now we will tell you how they choose what projects it will be.

Trolleybus that goes to the east

In our article there are three actors – a developer, publisher and operator.

The developer is a studio that makes the game (Asian studios are usually not known with us).

The publisher is the one who issues the game initially and leads the developer, finances it, advises and t.p. The developer can simultaneously be his own publisher (example – Funcom ), and the publisher can have several of his own internal studios (for example, NCSOFT ).

The operator is a company that operates, that is, it leads a game on a certain territory: serves servers, answers players' questions and often localizes the game (for example, Mail.Ru Group , Innova , Nival ). It happens that the operator is called the publisher in such and such a territory-for example, the publisher in the CIS. However, this is wrong. The operator may have his own projects, which he finances, advises and publishes, but when publishing someone else's game, he is the operator.

Anime, and all the more manga, in our country they take root with difficulty. Asian cinema watches few. Confucius will be able to quote one hundred thousand, and even that orientalist. However, the eastern flavor, as in Jade Dynasty, is unexpectedly acceptable for our players.

Now let's talk about projects.

If you look closely at the domestic MMO market, it turns out that Asian games are the most popular with us. There are three explanations at once.

First, age. By age, the Russian player is much closer to Chinese than the American. In numbers, it looks like this: the average age of the player in Russia is 20 years, in China – 25, in the USA – solid 36. And, of course, games that are developed under a twenty -five -year -old Chinese audience are clearer, more understandable and possibly more interesting to Russian players than projects made with the expectation of adult American men.

Secondly, the economic model. In the eastern games, a conditionally-paying business model prevails, known as Free-to-Play (about how it functions, the director of sales and marketing explained to us at one time "Nival online" Maxim Predtechensky In the article "Freebie!" V "Gambling" No. 3/138 for 2009). The bottom line is as follows: you can play absolutely free and as much as you like, but if you want to achieve significant results, then you need to either spend a lot of time on the game, or play masterfully, significantly better than others, or pay a certain, usually a very modest amount. But people sit down – and so hundreds and thousands of rubles spend on a pretty penny.

Until recently, the conditionally paying business model has not enjoyed success in the Western markets. According to the head of the producing department Mail.Ru Group Yuri Maslikova, it was widespread there the opinion that a good product would not be given free.

In addition, people did not realize that Free-to-Play simply gives them a choice of what to spend-time or money. Many did not understand that “free” players could get the same as “paid”, only slower. And since they could not or did not want to pay, they simply avoided such games – in vain.

According to Sergei Orlovsky, one of the main reasons for the phenomenal success of Perfect World in Russia was that girls can be carried in their hands (and give them other signs of attention).

In addition, all marketing in the same UK or America is tied to retail sales. The game is promoted primarily in retail chains, hang banners, posters, sell beautiful boxes. What is especially important: even if the game is, to put it mildly, not too successful, boxing sales partially cover the costs of development and advertising.

By the way, such a model gives birth to hits-one-day. The man grabbed a client from MMOG from the shelf, who works by subscription, played a couple of weeks – and abandoned. But I bought it! Excitement! Sales for a million! The press races! And at the output of zilch. The West gives a bunch of such examples: Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, APB.. Tropicanza Casino. how many people are playing in them now?

And Free-to-Play simply cannot afford to captivate a person for two weeks-and release. After all, Free-to-Play does not spend money right away, first they are played out. And if the game is bad and does not carry away, it will not bring money.

However, the fact that Free-to-Play is not inferior in terms of profitability, or even surpass the games subscriptions, and even do not assume the cost of retail, it seems that I have already broken the situation. For example, a trial version World of Warcraft From June 29 this year, it operates in new mode. Now you can play not 14 days, as before, but as much as you like (though the maximum level is limited by the twentieth). Big companies – Turbine With The Lord of the Rings Online, Electronic Arts With Need for Speed: World -For several years now, the model has been driving on their brainchilds Free-to-Play, and this already says a lot.

Thirdly, the most important point: according to the mentality, the Russian player is very close. Maybe the case is aged, and maybe in the cultural aspect. But among Russians there are as many online careerists and online killers as among the Chinese.

Here it is necessary to make a small digression and explain who these careers and killers are these.

Small retreat

Richard Alan Bartl, a man whose name is now constructed gameplay in many online games.

One very curious professor teaches at the University of Essex. His name is Richard Alan Bartl (We wrote about him in the article "Many -armed god of online" V "Gambling" No. 3/138). At one time he came up with Mud , The first text online game, and is now engaged in the study of artificial intelligence and computer games. A few years ago, he published a very curious article "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who Suit Muds" ( "Worms, clubs, tambourines, peaks: players of virtual worlds" – You can read it in a Russian translation Here), which is still very popular among the developers of MMOG.

The essence of the article is as follows: there are four groups of players in MMOG – in total – Careers, researchers, sociophiles And Killers. Naturally, pure researchers or pure killers are rare (like pure melancholic or choleraiks), but any person has certain inclinations and interests that allow him to attribute to a particular group. Gameplay is usually sharpened for players of two or three groups.

The main goal careerists – set of glasses and levels. For them, the game boils down to a hunt for wealth and exhibits. They want to be the best, more successfully – in general, the coolest in the village.

Researchers First of all, the game world and the rules of the game are interested in. These are classic role -players. They enjoy the "disclosure of the internal mechanics of the game". In addition, they like to study the virtual world, understand the plot intricacies, find out all sorts of secret abilities, experiment with gameplay, etc.

Weddings – such as, for example, in Battle of the Immortals – a business card of Asian games. Pompous and at the same time touchingly furnished, they not only add a social dimension, but sometimes bring purely game benefits.

Sociophymes Communication is important. The game for them is nothing more than a platform for interacting with other players, a place where, roughly speaking, you can just hang out in a good company, exchange the last news or meet someone.

As for Killers , then they "feel pleasure from their influence on other players. And the more mental suffering, the killer brings a person, the more pleasure he enjoys ". We can say that these are simply losers who secure their complexes on others – in a virtual environment.

So, in Russia, as in China, according to Yuri Maslikova , Among the players, careerists and killers prevail, not researchers, as in the West. Accordingly, all Chinese and Korean projects, originally imprisoned precisely for the eastern audience, are well fallen on the Russian mentality.

Moreover, which is especially interesting, here we have a double coincidence – both by careerists and the killers – and these are two completely different types of gameplay.

Is it true, Yaroslav Astakhov , Marketing Director of the Game direction Mail.Ru Group, believes that only careerists and researchers prevail in the Russian gaming environment. And killers are present in any social formation, but there are only five percent of them, so you should not allocate them in a separate group. As for the sociophiles, they, according to Yaroslav, have now moved to social games.

Therefore, the popular opinion that any expensive Western MMOG will be successful in the Russian market is rather not true. Most European and American online games are still designed for Western mentality. And one of these games, by the way, is a superimposed Star Wars: The Old Republic… which, however, is unlikely to prevent her from becoming one of the most significant games on the online sky.

As a result, our operators, choosing a project for localization, are primarily looking to the east.

Lands of Chaos Online-a good Moba-toy with a bias in an action movie showing the average results in our country. The West unconditionally leads in this niche. Bye.

Take or not to take, that's the question

The process of choosing an online game is a very difficult matter. He passes in several time -consuming stages.

First of all, the operator determines the priorities for himself and plans a portfolio for next year – how many and what games he will publish. Joking the idea of ​​a portfolio may sound like this: “Next year we publish a strategy, a couple of rolls, (one with a slope in PVP), well, also a cool browser, for girls, then we will lure into other toys”.

A similar plan, of course, is drawn up not from the bay-bailed bay, but on the support of the forecasts of analysts of the company that monitor the market trends. And if it turns out that the players are primarily interested in the games about stripper, struggling with small flying bottles of beer, it is possible that the operator will try to sign just such a project.

Having decided on the portfolio, the operator begins to search. Everything is not easy with this too. The fact is that now the operator gets acquainted with the game in advance, it happens-a year or two before its announcement. This is due to the fact that the market is increasingly filled with games and, more importantly, operators. Competition is growing, requests too. Used to run, grabbed the game for several years, and published. Now they are trying to grab that more then and abruptly – and here we must agree in advance, otherwise competitors will lead. This happens at such gaming exhibitions as Chinajoy In China or G-STAR In Korea, where closed meetings of operators with publishers and developers are regularly held. And it happens that they just find a game on the site – they are connected, get acquainted, look closely at each other ..

At this stage, the conversation about money does not even come. The publisher and developer simply show presentations, technological demo, sketches and, of course, talk about what a cool game they will have.

Simple human joys in eastern realization (Jade Dynasty). For example, ride on the Mount … At someone else's expense.

When the game acquires the finished features and goes into the stage of the alpha version, the operator looks at it more carefully. He requests access keys that are usually willing to share with him, as they are interested in any potential partner. The operator transmits access keys to his game experts. For example, Mail.Ru Group has its own units in China and South Korea. Their experts do the primary analysis of the game in the local market. The main task is to check the gaming content and the playfulness of the project: experts determine how interesting it is to play the project, how the intra -game store works, how high quality and diverse graphics, music, level design. If the game is suitable for these general parameters, then a long round of questions begins.

The operator requests what the distribution model, requirements for the iron, the size of the distribution, how many servers you need and what their configuration should be, what is included in Locchitis (a set of localizer tools), what a hundred and tons (say, from bots), do not put whether their instead of her and how do they look at it at all. If the game has long been launched, the operator is interested in how often developers are going to introduce updates and what updates they are ready to provide immediately for the start, and which then add later. The question is also how the in -game store works, which the player will spend money first and what – then – then. If the game came out, of course, try to find out how many active players have and how much one active user pays per month on average.

Then the producers of the operator get to know the game.“They give feedback: how suitable for our market is, which audience can we orient the project on,” says Evgeny Mikhno , Mail operating director.Ru Group.

Producers primarily look at the presence and implementation of gameplay features. They are interested in simple, but at the same time very important things: if the game is built on the Free-to-Play model, then what they plan to take money for; Are there a lot of content at high levels and what quality it is, what are the USP (Unique Selling Points), the main unique features that will allow the project to survive and rise in the market; competitors and audience are analyzed; In the smallest details, the payment model, Locchitis, and server are considered.

Dance games such as Hot Dance Party are in moderate popularity among domestic players and are usually captured, as a rule, primarily a female audience aged about 16-17 to 22 years.

Thus, the producer connects when the operator is already inclined to sign the project. The producer brings all the data together, finally forms a general assessment of the project and-sometimes-builds a business model.

Yes, and in all this there is one fundamental moment-if the AAA-class project, then the operator is no longer choosing the game, and the publisher of the operator. And, curious, first of all, the publisher is not worried about the money that they will pay him for the license, but the reliability and experience of the company. The developer conducts his own investigation: looks how experienced a partner in the publication of the game of a particular genre, where and how he will promote the game, is there no games in his portfolio that would intersect with our project.

The issue of price

The cost of the game consists of the cost of a license and monthly deductions.

The cost of a license is the money that the operator gives at a time for the right to publish a game on his territory. Do not forget that the operator also pays for marketing and localization later. These costs are not included in the cost of the license and become one of many arguments in negotiations: you can, telling how much it is planned to spend on marketing, reduce the cost of the license.

Monthly deductions, or royalties, is a percentage of the operator’s monthly income from the game that he pays to the developer. Royalties, in fact, feed the publisher. The value of the royalti is the subject of the hot battles in negotiations: even 1% of the amount is important.

The cost of the license ranges from several tens of thousands of dollars to several million. The fact that and when they pay, Evgeny Mikhno told us very well: “Licensed reward, as a rule, is paid in the process of preparing the project to launch. For example, part when signing, part when starting a closed beta version and the last part-when starting open beta versions or at a commercial launch. There are options when regular payment is prescribed – for example, annual. Royalties make up a certain percentage dedicated to the developer monthly. In successful projects, royalties can significantly exceed the size of licensed rewards ".

In the heads of some players settled that “mail.Ru and others localize only Asian games ". As a result, the American “lord of rings online”, then the French “DOFUS” … and many other games unexpectedly write down.

The fact that licensed reward is paid in parts, has its own logic. The publisher must give the operator a lot of resources for launching the game – say, Locchitis and updates files. However, he is not always in a hurry with them. That is why many localized games hang in a state of open beta test for a long time: the operator does not declare a commercial release and does not transfer the final payment to the publisher until it provides the promised tools. And if the localization of the game in some territory is not a priority for the publisher, then he is in no hurry. And pull the rubber for months.

Little nothings of life

By the way, about contracts.

The signing process can go to disgrace for a long time – months. Throughout this period, lawyers and top managers of companies correspond with each other by mail, are connected by Skype and the phone, coordinating the terms of the future agreement.

Moreover, difficulties, not counting the same cost, is an entire ocean.

For example, the release date. Often the developer decides when and in what territory he will launch the project. The task of the operator is to bargain the best time, that is, to be the first. Or, given the fact that the eastern game will first appear in the public domain in the east, then at least the second. But here the domestic operator often faces the fact that Russia is not perceived as the market of the first echelon. After the release in Korea and China, they first try to launch the game in English. And only then, maybe in Russian.

But this situation allows Russian operators to minimize all risks. After all, as Evgeny Mikhno notes, there is always the probability that the team will not complete the project, will make a level of level B instead of the AAA project or delay the deadlines. Even at the stage of beta testing, it is not always clear how polished the product. But it is precisely the grinding, according to the product-taught product manager Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Erling Ellingsen , is the key to success.

Moreover, even if the game has already successfully entered one of the territories – there is no guarantee that Locchitis includes all the resources necessary for localization: the text, the system, a system for working with it and graphics with a text that needs to be changed.“There were options when the developers suggested that we rule the text right in the source code of the game,” says Evgeny Mikhno. It also happens that there are tools for localization, but extremely uncomfortable. For example, it is inconvenient if Locchitis does not allow unloading the text from the game to the Excel file.

As a result: the most stable option is when the game is successful and launched in at least two territories.

“The Lord of the Rings Online” is one of the really successful Western projects that can compete on equal terms with oriental roles due to the depth and study of content. It is also appropriate to recall Rift, which was created, among other things, immigrants from the Owner Development team.

Tekhnukha

After signing, localizers enter the case. The terms of localization are strongly dependent on the quality of the locity, on the volume of the text that needs to be translated, and from which language this text is translated from. It happens that the operator intentionally refuses to translate from English and is taken for a more complex translation from the original (Asian) language in order to maintain the flavor of the game.

There are many of their nuances when translating. For example, they adapt the names of the characters for Russian hearing, and some Igingji becomes Roland. The names of objects are not always adapted-sometimes because of laziness, sometimes because they want to preserve the flavor.

A well -known problem – without loss of meaning to reduce the phrase, which in the Asian language consists of three hieroglyphs, and in Russian – of thirty letters, because they all cannot be squeezed into a small window or placed on the button. During localization, the interface of the game is paid to separate attention.

Before the release of the game, when the localization is almost completed and testing is already successfully advanced, the operator begins to promote the project. Marketing comes into business. Naturally, for online games, the most important advertising channel is the Internet. At the same time, Yaroslav Astakhov notes that Mail is now.RU Group is trying to individually approach the issue of advertising in each region of the country and go beyond only Internet advertising.

* * *

When the project is finally polished, the game starts in the raging ocean of the Internet. Marketers are heated by the audience, banners appear throughout the network … In fact, for the operator at that moment, everything is just beginning, but this is a completely different story.

Game illustrations for the article are taken from games published by Mail.Ru Group.