Korean Online Games Aim at Russia The Most

For last a decade, Korean online games have successfully expanded their market globally. They just rushed exporting their games into the global market without fear because they had nothing to lose.

What if failing in China? No worry, just go to Japan or Taiwan next. There were tons of overseas markets they just needed to go stick their flags onto. Then one out of ten would make them success anyways. 

With this mind, Lineage, Legend of Mir 2, Ragnarok, and Gun Bound had succeeded greatly in Taiwan, China, Japan, and Spanish South America respectively.

However today’s global market is not as easy as it used to be. Precisely prepared strategy, marketing, and localization are required in order to make it works now.

So Thisisgame.com has surveyed 25 people in global business bureau of Korean game companies about the future global online game market and working with foreign companies in July and August. Let’s see what came out. (All graphs below are calculated out of 10.)

No.1 Potential Market, Russia

Russia is picked as the most prospective market in the next 5 years. Russian online game market has been grown about 10 times in last 4 years. I think it is thanks to the fast installment of network infra in metropolises with support from government after the ‘e Russia Project’ in 2002.

Europe and South America are ranked 2^nd together. Europe is recognized as a charming market with high ARPU(Average Revenue per User) and grand size despite of the high barrier of various languages and nations. South America is deemed with a high expectation upon its great potential although its growing is not as fast as expected.

The world’s biggest market, China, seems to be grown slow, and Japan and Arab markets are anticipated to continue growing slightly as they used to be.

Average potential growth of each market

Europe, SA, NA, SEA, ME, Russia, China, and Japan (from left to right)

Communication and Experience

Indeed the communication is always a problem. 22 out of 25 companies said not only language difficulty but also the way they approach the topic is the most difficult homework for Korean companies when talking with the foreign partners. 18 companies answered the localization also brings a trouble.

Moreover, 76% said they still want more information about foreign companies although many expos, game occasions, periodicals and publications are being supported by government.

Difficulties experienced when exporting

Lack of information about foreign company, less awareness of own company and game title, localization, and communication between partners (from left to right)

What about what Korean companies like? They consider foreign companies’ experience and local market share the most according to my survey. They just want their games success in other market, nothing else.

Considerations when choosing partners

Local market share, publishing experience, local player preference, down payment, and revenue sharing (from left to right)