If you want to target Korean mobile game market, the general trend is RPG!

2015/06/22

Amy Heeyeon Kim
PR Manager, Adways Korea

Korean mobile market, the world best IT power nation, is trend-sensitive and fast-changing!

Due to unique preferences of Korean mobile game users, many world-wide game makers have failed to make a big success in Korean market. However, Korea is a number 3 market in the world, so major companies never give up their try in Korea.

The barriers of Korean market are mostly due to cultural differences. Korean’s Hurry Hurry Culture has made domestic market to be fast changing, which makes global game companies hard to adapt such characteristics.

For helping global game companies that are preparing for targeting fast-changing Korean market, Adways Korea promise to keep publicly open important tips for Korean market.

Countless genres of games are being published in each every day in the world mobile market.
In Korean market, RPG genre games are dominating currently.

Accordingly, many Korean mobile game companies are publishing RPG games in domestic market. Korean game companies will continue to follow such general trends in Korea.

(Source: Adways Korea)

Last year also, most of games published in Korea were PRGs. Moreover, during the first half of the year, the number of PRG games published has been increased by 13%, and such trends will continue.

Now, let’s take a look at actual reactions from real mobile game market.

If you look at the high ranked games in Korean Google play, approximately half of the games are RPG. For example, Raven, Blade and Hero, which have been a big success in Korean mobile market, are all RPG game.

(Source: AppAnnie Jun 2015)

Now, compared with other genres of games, why do Korean game developing companies have preferences on RPG over other games?

(Source: Adways Korea)

Let’s compare the LTV(Life Time Value)and UAC (User Acquisition Cost) of Casual genres of games and RPG published in Korean mobile market. Both of games were recorded more than 2.5 million downloads during 90 days.

According to the analysis result by PartyTrack, which is our own user acquisition analytics tool for mobile game, we can see high fevers on RPG by Korean game users. RPG game has been recording about four times higher LTV figure than casual game.

The development company cannot help more concentrating on development of the game as much as LTV that can be produced by one RPG user for 90 days is higher than casual game. Since users are more interested in RPG, game developing companies tend to focus on RPG game development. Therefore, we expect that the popularity of RPG will be continued along with a higher volume of RPG release.

(Source: Adways Korea, 2014.03-2015.04, Free DL Rank)

It is very noticeable that RPG is particularly popular in Korean mobile market compared to other countries. More than 1 or 2 casual games are easily found amongst the top ranked games in countries such as Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia, while the vast majority of top rankers are RPGs in Korea. It is natural for the developers to go for RPG considering its higher LTV and solid business model.

For game developing companies and publishers that consider entering Korean market, it will be important to set up appropriate strategies based on Korean’s unique mobile game situations.

Furthermore, the popularity of RPG generated the rise of longer marketing period. It is essential to equip with the effective marketing strategies as well as the quality contents to attract “hard-to-please” Korean users.

A great number of advertising media exist in Korea. For the game companies targeting Korean market, it is recommended to build robust strategies through analysis on advertising effectiveness of those media.

Next, we will introduce Korean marketing trends and strategies after game release in Korea.

Challenges for Western Developers promoting their apps in Asia

2015/05/14

Damon Sakai
Executive UA Consultant, Adways Interactive

Western app developers looking to promote their apps in Asia are faced with several unique challenges. The language barrier, differences in user acquisition techniques, unfamiliar ad networks and agencies.
Here are some key points to look out for when planning to market your app in Asia.

Localization
A big question that developers face when looking to promote their apps in Asia is whether they have to localize their apps before starting their UA efforts. To achieve best performance developers should localize the store description, screenshots and creative. In-app localization may not be needed for a simple, casual game that’s easy to understand. For word-heavy apps, however, it would be recommended to do in-app localization.

Another thing to be aware of is that creative tastes in Asia are different than in the West. A game developer may want to learn the aesthetic of the country that they are looking to promote in and to revise their creative accordingly. Simply taking Western-style ads and localizing the text may not be enough. Localizing the overall creative will help increase the campaign’s performance.

Here is an example of Banner Ad.

(Before)

(After)

Tracking
Many of the top tracking services - Kochava, Adjust, MAT, Ad-X - have limited coverage in the Asian market. While the Japanese market is integrated with the major Western tracking services, most other Asian markets are not. These markets are dominated by Asian-based tracking services, such as Adways’ PartyTrack.

Western developers looking to do UA outside of Japan would be advised to double check the penetration that their tracking service has in the market they are looking to promote in. It’s possible that their tracking service may only be integrated with a handful of publishing partners, thus greatly limiting their ability to drive a successful UA campaign. If this is the case, one solution would be integrate with the largest tracking service in the given market, so that your tracking needs are met.

Using Non-Asian Networks for UA in Asia
Many Western ad networks and mobile marketing agencies claim to have inventory in Asia. The majority of these agencies, however, are buying their mobile traffic from agencies in the Asian market that they are targeting.

We would advise developers to go direct and to work with the multiple mobile marketing companies in Asia. The quality will be better and the variety of inventory will be higher. They have on-the-ground knowledge of the market and the unique way to promote your app within their country. In addition, the average cost of the campaign may be low due working direct and not through a third party.

Western-style Social Media
Mobile marketing using social networks is different than it is in the West. In addition to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, Asia has larget platforms such as LINE, WeChat, Kakao and more. Each of these platforms offers their own unique opportunities, with some unique differences in how apps are marketed.

With, Twitter, for example, mobile marketing is done in more of a narrative form. Users are looking for more of a story about the app - not a direct call-to-action like in Western advertising. Twitter advertising is used in more of a story-based form to help potential users better connect with the characters in the game. In addition, emojis are used to promote apps, with the emojis built right into the narrative promoting the app.

3-Month Staged Plan
A successful method of marketing apps in Asia is to have a 3 stage plan.
● Non-incent - use a combination of CPI and CPC marketing to gain organics, learn the market and optimize the campaign
● Incent - Run campaigns to drive up the rankings and drive organic lift
● Social Network - use social media to sustain organic lift while targeting specific users

As you can see developers face many challenges when looking to promote their apps in Asia. With smart planning, however, these challenges can be overcome and can lead to successful campaign.

Adways is a leading mobile marketing solution provider headquartered in Tokyo. Adways is primarily known for Asia’s largest mobile CPI adnetwork “AppDriver” and third-party mobile tracking tool “PartyTrack” used by major app developers worldwide. Since 2004 when it opened the first overseas office in China, Adways has been aggressively expanding its mobile app distribution network throughout the Asian markets. Now with more than 1,000 employees in 11 countries (Asia and US), Adways supports app developers worldwide to maximize user acquisition and monetization and constantly thrives to provide new value to the market. press@adways.net

Chinese big game Dota Lagend’s ARPPU is US$60!

2015/05/13

Mai Miyazaki
Global PR, Adways

Today, we’d like to focus on a popular Chinese mobile game 「刀塔传奇」 (English name; Dota Legend, hereinafter called Dota) that topped the charts in China throughout 2014. We found this interesting article from Chinese game website GameLook that wrote about Dota’s 2015Q1 revenue and here we summarized the points.

Before getting into Dota’s sales, here is the Top 10 Android apps in March 2015 provided by TalkingData.

(source: TalkingData March2015)

Since Dota was released in 2014Q1, it has always been in high position in Chinese app charts. This is the move in the iOS and Android charts for the past six months.

(source: iOS: AppAnnie, Android: TalkingData)

See how they're doing well in Android ranking throughout years?
Now you may wonder- “how much revenue Dota is really making?” Here is an answer.

(Source: GameLook)

This is a sales report of 中清龙图 (English name: Longtu, hereinafter called Longtu), one of Dota’s publishers who marks 65% of the total sales. Longtu reported its sales for 2014 was RMB 1,288M (US$206M) and already reached RMB 445M (US$70M) for 2015 Q1. Surprising part that we highlight here is 200% growth of their international sales. Since August 2014, Dota has showed up in international markets including HongKong, Macau, Taiwan and SEA countries. The table below summarizes app and publisher names in international markets. We can see that Dota is well choosing right partners in those markets.

iOS

Android

(Source: AppAnnie)

iOS and Android market share of Dota is 40% and 60% respectively- Android 3rd market store makes more than half of the total sales.

Besides sales report, here is some another remarkable information about Dota.
● After launched in February 2014, it had an average increase of 3 million users every month (oh my).
● As of March 2015, total number of users: 53 million, MOU: 5.8 million, number of paid users: 0.74 million and ARPPU: RMB 377.89 (US$60).
● User age distribution: 30’s: 51% / 20’s: 40%

Dota announced it will have an update this month with new characters!. It is expected that their dominance in app charts will go on for a while.

Adways is a leading mobile marketing solution provider headquartered in Tokyo. Adways is primarily known for Asia’s largest mobile CPI adnetwork “AppDriver” and third-party mobile tracking tool “PartyTrack” used by major app developers worldwide. Since 2004 when it opened the first overseas office in China, Adways has been aggressively expanding its mobile app distribution network throughout the Asian markets. Now with more than 1,000 employees in 11 countries (Asia and US), Adways supports app developers worldwide to maximize user acquisition and monetization and constantly thrives to provide new value to the market. press@adways.net

TalkingData is the largest 3rd party mobile data service provider that have been widely recognized and adopted by the whole mobile ecosystem in China. More than 80,000 apps that access over 1.2 billion unique mobile devices in China rely on this mobile analytics platform to track and analyze mobile users’ behaviors. The data collected from these products and also exchanged from the mobile distribution ecosystem enables TalkingData to build the largest behavioral data panel of the mobile population in China. Based on this, they are able to provide the most accurate estimations for the installation, activity and usage of any app in China, especially in the complex Android marketplace.