Niko recently initiated coverage of mobile phone games in
China, with the advent of smart phones and the eager anticipation for Apple's
iPhone to wow the masses. It seems that things are not going according to plan
for Apple in China, though as industry analysts know everything takes longer in
China than an American company expects it to. We were amazed when we saw the
beautiful iPhone knockoffs sell like hot cakes in Shenzhen and other market
areas, and they are much cheaper. Maybe Apple just wants to be sure they are
playing in the field where the knockoffs are, in order to stave off some of
them. But most likely they just took the best carrier deal they could get, and
it might have been the wrong one.
|
Zynga's move into Asia does not come as a surprise and was
done, in our opinion, strategically by setting up a listening post to better
understand Chinese gamers by way of its new Beijing studio acquisition. The
social networking service (SNS) games in China have boosted usage of online
games, but have so far not contributed much to Chinese online game revenue.
Zynga's experience serving Facebook customers will be quite dissimilar to any
potential experience serving Chinese customers through the multiple leading SNS
providers in that country. Some recent rumors suggested that online gamers in
China are tired of the simple nature of "social" games, but Niko believes that
social games, if executed with a business model appropriate for China's market,
will help grow the Chinese gamer base by more than 100 million gamers over the
next few years. We hope that the American-born Zynga will be able to capture
some of the share, but even if their strategy is simply to have a studio for
international games, it is a smart move by Zynga.
|
Niko will be watching South Korea's welcome of StarCraft 2 to
see if the changes to be implemented by Blizzard (if any) might also be used in
the version for China that would be submitted to the GAPP for approval. China
often prides itself on its differences from Korea, and when Korea's Supreme
Court said in 2009 that real money trading from the virtual economy is legal
Chinese online game operator executives told Niko "we don't really care about what
happens there, but we respect their decision for their own country." When it
comes to safe content for gamers though, perhaps the two country's regulatory
bodies will have more in common on the issue of StarCraft 2.
|
