2. ABOUT ME
Previous life
• Internet early adopter (Mosaic ? BBS anyone ? )
• Microsoftee then Sun Microsystems in Europe
Asia !
• 10 years in Asian gaming
• Counter Strike, World of Warcraft asian launches in mid 2000’s
• At EA, FIFA Online Korea and South East Asia
• Electronic Arts move to overall online centricity
Now
• NBA 2K Online with Tencent China. Forecasting 50m active users
• Baseball Online with Nexon. Targeting ARPU of 50$/month
• Civilization Online. Large scale MMORPG going against World of Warcraft
• Social Mobile push in Japan and Social Web in China
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
3. A DECADE OF GAMING BOOM IN ASIA
The problem with packaged games
• Limited market : Piracy
• Limited reach : high specs, fat clients
• Limited appeal : solo experience, static product designs
Multiplayer PC Games showed the way
• Extended lifecycle : DOTA, Counter Strike enduring craze
• Social gaming : PC Bangs (Internet Gaming Rooms)
• Dilemma for publishers : Huge consumption, no monetization
Online PC Games
• Huge market : Server only = No piracy
• Massive Reach : Low/adjustable specs
• Massive Appeal : Continuous refresh of the game content + online events +
community based design
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
4. THE RISE OF GLOBAL PLAYERS
1998 – 2004 : Innovation from South Korea
• Lineage by NC Soft (Jake Song) : first MMORPG.
• Ragnarok by Gravity : First Casual MMO
• Kart Rider by Nexon: First Free to Play casual game
2003 - 2006 : Online gaming boom throughout Asia
• World of Legend in China hits 1 million Peak Concurrent Users (PCU)
• Korea : Lineage has 1m subscribers. Kart Rider hits 200k PCU
• Ragnarok reach 75,000 PCU in both Philippines and Thailand
2006-2010 : Games for everyone
• Higher end MMOs. World of Warcraft. First 3D game in China, first (and only) western
success in China. 1m PCU
• New genres of MMO.
o MMO-FPS – Sudden Attack kills Counter Strike
o MMO-Sports – FIFA Online hits 200k PCU in Korea
2010 -? : Games everywhere
• Play on Social Networks
• Build social networks around games. Gree and DeNA in Japan
• Clientless and portable. Near ubiquity
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
5. ONLINE GAMING IN ASIA TODAY
Market value : $13Bn (USA + Europe = $9Bn!)
415m of online gamers
200k Internet Gaming Rooms
Birth of giants : NHN worth $10Bn , Tencent worth $40Bn
Asia 2 years in advance of the west. Invented social networks, free to play
business model, community design, data driven development
Asian companies go big, go out
• US and Europe subsidiaries
• Consolidation started, lots of M&A
Oligopolistic Portal business
• Platforms dominate
• Increased reach. Female and casual gamers conversions
• Increased monetization. ARPPU rising
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
7. HOW IT WORKS
Acquisition. Registered Users (RU), Installs, PCU
• Must
o Trigger virality
• Avoid
o Server downtime
o Hacks
Retention. Active Users, ACU
• Must
o Repeatable core gameplay,
o Operation events
o Community loop
• Avoid
o Undesired features
o Linear game designs
Monetization. ARPPU, LTV
• Must
o Metrics analysis. What the whales want
o Cash rich time poor vs time rich cash poor
• Avoid
o Breaking game balance
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
8. TIPS FOR MAKING IT WORK
Acquisition
• Virality – Refer a friend program
• Accessibility –
o Light client = Keep it under 500Mb, refresh often
o Quick rewards
Retention.
• Design stickiness. Show the end game at the beginning
• Community rules. Attract guilds, opinion leaders
• Events. Valentine’s day, CNY
Monetization.
• Everything for the status conscious -> Purple items
• Pay for not losing face -> Erase stats of poor performance
• Bring luck into play -> Win a chance to win big
• Eliminate friction -> Buy at the moment of win or loss.
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
9. PLAYER BEHAVIORS ?
Play out of home
• Simple to control, no sound, Boss button !
• Always on, running in the background
Impulse buy
• Shopping is part of the gameplay experience
• Low denominated items
• Appeal to completist
Repetitive play
• just one more go at it !
• Average online time : 5 hours/day in most serious MMOs
Meet people online
• everyday : clan, guilds, party for a raid
• one time only : matchmake, date
• Date : Marriage feature in most of MMO
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
10. BUT WHY PEOPLE PAY ?
Look good.
• Show off achievement. Epic mounts only accessible to level 70 players
Play better.
• Progress faster. Skip time, remove the grind
Have fun.
• More of that kind of fun. ManU vs Liverpool FIFA matches
Meet girls.
• Gift item to that special one
Make money.
• Buy because you know you can sell at higher price
• Game farming / Secondary market
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
11. IDENTIFYING GREATNESS IN ONLINE GAMES
Do first, perfect later.
• Shorten dev loops, get the core gameplay right
o FIFA Online session match.
• Go public halfway through your development cycle.
o NBA 2K Social first beta after 4 months
• Get the community to tell you what they would like to see
o Street Mode or NBA Mode ?
Immerse yourself in stats, and code accordingly
• Cap the free stuff : FIFA quick match mode
• Address balance issues. Dark Elves race in WoW
Managing the lifecyle.
• Acquisition first, then retention then monetization. Don’t rush
• Usage, usage, usage
Small Agile teams, with access to large pools of resources
• It all starts with one creative and one business guy. Keep the dynamic alive,
even if conflictual
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi
12. ASIA HOT SPOTS
Japan – Gree and DeNA
• 25m each of mobile social gamers
• Extremely high stickiness and ARPPU
• Each of them makes more revenue than Zynga with a tenth of the users
China – Tencent
• Q + “open” platform.
• Going aggressively into mobile social games
Vietnam
• Vinagames and VTC fostering fast growth
Philippines and Indonesia
• Asia has more people on Facebook than in the US
• Indonesia, India and Philippines each more than 25m users
Online gaming in Asia in 2011. Fabien Siouffi