Sportsmanship of Olympics, the spirit of daring to challenge, fight and never give up and the pursuit of glory, are thoroughly embodied within each unit in Gamania. Operation is the unit that stands on the front line and thinks about how to win a battle in the market. They are like elite soldiers of Gamania group, doing market observation, adjustment, strategy proposal and execution etc. In this article, G!VOICE interviewed the manager of BU4-GTW, Marco and asked him to talk about Maple Story, a game that rewrote the history of Gamania and the challenge and obstacles behind the successful self-produced game, Divina. In addition, we will also reveal behind the scene stories about Core Blaze, the game that won the title of Grade A Media in the West. G!VOICE will take you to the world of Operation and explore the legion full of stomach for challenges!
Maple Story: The Game that Rewrote the History of Gamania
A common problem a game may encounter after running for a while is the decline of members. How did a long-run old game turn its way around and become the hottest game in the market? In early 2011, after an overhaul in the original factory, the new version of Maple Story was launched in Taiwan. The number of players did grow substantially however, the revenue decreased. For operation unit, that was a huge blow. The new version of Maple Story overcame the plight and delivered exceptional results in Taiwan market. Not only did it break the record set by Lineage, but it rewrote the record of highest revenue for single month in 15 years!
Market Difference Results in Different Player Demands
From adverse situation to rewriting the history of the Group, there were many challenges and difficulties involved. Facing such predicament, operation team of GTW swiftly looked for information such as player group, mall sales in Maple Story to find out the core problem. Manager of BU4-GTW, Marco said that Taiwanese players prefer tools with functions and experience values, which is different from Korean players. He was worried that the new version of Maple Story couldn’t satisfy the demand of existing players and probably wouldn’t attract new consumers. In addition, the newly-added professions didn’t provide tools at the mall that could meet players’ demands. For these reasons, the game lacked motives for new players to join in and existing players couldn’t find merchandise they were satisfied with. Therefore, in just two week’s time, the operation team planned a series of campaign and attractive merchandise. They incorporated changes that would attract both existing and prospect players and enhanced the overall game satisfaction and anticipation.
Dare to Challenge and Never Give up
After pinpointing the problems and finding the solutions, new challenge was met when the operation team tried to execute the plan! The development proposal requires permission from the original factory, but the initial response was negative and they also specified that no major campaign events could be held in order not to affect the balance of the game. Facing such bad news, did the operation team sit and watch the revenue drop? No, they held their horses and communicated patiently with the original factory about the demand and corresponding strategy for the Taiwan market. They provided data analysis for the factory to understand the reason for such change and listened to their feedbacks and opinions. The process commenced with email correspondences then gradually morphed into telephone conferences, in the end they even flew to Korea to have face-to-face meeting with the factory. All of this was for the factory to understand Taiwan market, and their proposed solution and goal. Eventually, they reached an agreement and created a win-win situation!
Facing these difficulties, if the operation team of GTW didn’t continue to challenge the status quo and sought breakthrough, no one would tell them how to win this battle. If they didn’t communicate patiently or gave up, they would never gain consensus with the factory and create win-win situation! The version change of Maple Story is an example of Gamanians’ Olympic spirit. And the reward as the honor of rewriting Group history!
Self-Produced Game, Divina: Champion of 2Q 2011
In May 2011, Gamania’s self-produced game, Divina broke the 30,000 threshold of concurrent online players, the overall member amount reaching a new height—at 300,000. Divina was breaking the record every second!
Differential Marketing Strategy
This kind of outstanding performance must have met with many difficulties during the development and before the official launch. What we see is the brilliant result they delivered after overcoming these difficulties. Marco mentioned that before the official operation, Divina wasn’t exactly going for the ‘Moe’ genre but a simple, cute MMO game. However, because the market was saturated with this type of cute MMO games, it couldn’t leave a lasting impression in the players’ minds and quickly taking up the market share. Therefore, the operation team carefully analyzed the market demand, and redefined the demand. In addition to conventional thinking, they researched market trend and discovered that the ‘Moe’ culture was growing in Taiwan. For example, comic & anime festival, Fancy Frontier attracted more than 50,000 people, more and more ‘female servant role-play shops’ were opened in Taiwan, the ‘Moe’ element even infiltrated into the packaging of diet etc. They redefined the target groups, and conducted a series of campaigns focusing on these communities. This measure was a huge success for the operation team. They successfully differentiated themselves among other similar type games.
Lack of Resource in Taiwan’s ‘Moe’ Market
After setting up the target groups, Divina was promoted as ‘Moe’ type game. Marco said that the problem they encountered at that phase was that Taiwan’s ‘Moe’-system wasn’t as comprehensive as Japan’s. They didn’t even have voice actors/actresses who could act as spokespeople for Divina. Through the help of GJP, the operation team invited the renowned Japanese voice actress, Tanaka Rie to dub the voice for the character, which created a hot topic in the market. However, when the team was producing TV commercial, they were met with limited resource and was unable to create a very Japanese style anime idol. The operation team decided to adopt 3D model and created a lifelike virtual anime female celebrity in the commercial which successfully attracted many consumers’ attention!
Manager of BU4-GTW, Marco
Making Good Use of Player Test Data
Marco also mentioned that during the development phase, the operation team used the Forge Game Data (FGD) twice and the CCB player test information to clearly see the level point where the players may drop the game and the players’ likes and dislikes. After a series of discussions with the development team, they readjusted the game content and marketing strategy to meet the players’ demands.
Divina has won many awards and accolades, such as Best Online Game Bronze Prize of Game Star 2011, International Outstanding Performance of Taiwan Digital Content Awards, and The Most Popular Domestic Game of Gamer Game Prize. Behind all the glory, a successful self-produced game should strive to overcome the problems, as difficult as it may and be, and find the solutions. If Divina didn’t try to differentiate the approach to the market, the development of the new game market wouldn’t have gone so smoothly. Making good use of player test information, and discuss with development team to find out the problems are the two major factors for Divina’s success. Only the ones who never give up and stick to the end can become winners!
Global Spotlight: Core Blaze
In 2012, Core Blaze, with its international aim, held the exclusive Core Blaze: The VIP Experience in Los Angeles and won the title of ‘Grade A Media’. It was also being recognized as the most anticipated game in E3. Core Blaze is the first online game that uses Unreal Engine3 in Taiwan, therefore the production team committed 200% efforts, seeking to find that ‘sense of action’ through erroneous attempts and breaking through bandwidth limitation. They brought in the ‘instant reaction’ that action game focuses the most to the realm of online world. Seeking to internationalize the game, in addition to extra demands on the game scene and process, the music, sound effect and design were also matched with the highest caliber. In the next phase, Core Blaze team will continue to challenge more complex design and perfect the game content. Embodying the spirit of Olympics, the team runs for the glory and aims to put Core Blaze onto global spotlight.
Sneak Preview of Game Content:
Core Blaze has three core concepts ‘fight’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘exploration’. In addition to real action and punches, and massive boss right in your face, the game also requires collaboration.
World event is where all the players in the server team up through tasks, the players must work together to solve the events happen in the game world. Open Map enables players to be bound with other players and create more possibilities. The ‘exploration’ concept is an important factor for players to get more involved in the game. The development team gives Core Blaze a certain rules and logics but the players can create their own styles based on these rules and logics. The variables in the game will diversify the game process and create unique game experience for every player. The game variables enable players to achieve their goals in their chosen ways and experience different game processes. Core Blaze seeks to enable players to use their logic and habits in ordinary lives to solve the difficulties and challenges in the game.