I've seen all kinds of comment that in order for an MMO to be "successful" or to somehow be "competetive", that it must rock in China. People seem inclined to discount the importance of NA and Euro players to the financial success of a modern MMO. They are wrong, and here's why.

Chinese MMO players do not, generally, pay monthly subscriptions. They pay by the hour. A Chinese player that plays an average of 21 hours per week (the maximum allowed by Chinese law if you are under the age of 18, IE 3 hours per day) of the World of Warcraft, for instance, will expend $5.47 in one month.

So it takes roughly three Chinese players, playing WoW 21 hours per week, to equal 1 North American or Euro subscriber in terms of EXPENDITURE (not revenue yet). Further complicating matters is the fact that China's hourly point system is rife with abuse, the true extent of which may not be known even by the companies that produce Chinese MMO time cards.

Actual revenue is dilluted by the multiple layers of middle-men that come between the players expenditure and the developer/publisher's revenue. First there is the local store from which the time card is purchased. So there is one layer of profit sucked out of the system. Then there is the Chinese "partner" that produces the time cards and manages subscriptions. Second layer. And any number of additional layers provided by various intermediary distributors.

At the end of the day there may be well less than 50% left to pass on. So, really, if you compare regions playing equal time, it can REALLY take 7 or more Chinese players to produce the revenue of 1 NA/Euro players. And that is assuming no decrease in Chinese playtime EVER, or that the player is not playing on a gamed/stolen time card and not paying a cent.

What it all boils down to:

Player by player comparisons of NA/Euro and Chinese game populations is comparing apples to oranges. With equal play time and assuming all players are paying what they owe, it takes on average 3.5 millon Chinese players to generate the revenue of 500,000 NA/Euro players (final dev/publisher revenue).

And this is assuming 50% profits at the end of the pipe, which is probably IMPOSSIBLE. So it is probably a bigger Chinese-NA/Euro disparity, maybe even as much as 500k to 4-5 million.

Just some thoughts.

I like your argument but I think that the jump to the game company only getting 50% of the card cost is too much. Look at travel cards that are sold in shops for public transport. The shop gets a VERY small amount of the revenue (measured in low single digit %). The cost of prodicing the card with be a few cents.

The vast majority of that revenue will go to the game producer, upwards of 80%, probably more like 90%.

In the case of travel cards, etc I agree. I think that in this case it couldn't possibly be 80-90% because it is the local Chinese partner that handles infrastructure (servers, GM's, etc). I could be wrong, I don't know how much it costs to keep servers running in China

Sorry, but I feel unenlightened by anything in this post.  It sounds like you took people's comments out of context and just spouted a bunch of your own theories with a few numbers thrown in that were pulled from nowhere or from someone's nether regions.

Even the way the question you're attempting to answer is phrased begs too many questions to be informative or educational.  What exactly is a western MMO?  How is its western nature relevant to arguments about success?  How do you define success?  If you flesh out the question you want to answer a little better, you might find something to go on.  Once you get that, there are a lot of internet sources where you can get more accurate numbers to support whatever theory you're trying to prove.  There's no need to make any up.

You're also ignoring two important regions. South Korea and Japan. They are not like China, they are 2 of the top 14 best economies in the world.

I don't disagree, I think MMO companies do just fine in the West, and I like Western MMOs far more than Eastern. I'm just saying, that if you can get a game popular in South Korea, it'll get popular in China. Korea gives you a good amount of money and Chinese inflate your game numbers.  

for WoW in China, it probably works the same way Korean MMOs work in the US. The publisher pays a yearly lisence fee to Blizzard, and that's it. All the rest is handled by the producer.

Isn't that how it's done? So Blizzard themselves will be getting only that fixed yearly wage from china.

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

You're also ignoring two important regions. South Korea and Japan. They are not like China, they are 2 of the top 14 best economies in the world.

I don't disagree, I think MMO companies do just fine in the West, and I like Western MMOs far more than Eastern. I'm just saying, that if you can get a game popular in South Korea, it'll get popular in China. Korea gives you a good amount of money and Chinese inflate your game numbers.  

Yeah, South Korean and Japanese markets are different. There is a huge amount of money to be made in both markets. Their per capita incomes are also somewhat comparable to that of the US and most Euro countries.

I was speaking specifically to the Chinese market, though. All too often people see Chinese sub numbers and directly compare them to those of other regions, even South Korea, and think that each sub is equal. Which of course they are not.

Originally posted by bmdevine

Sorry, but I feel unenlightened by anything in this post.  It sounds like you took people's comments out of context and just spouted a bunch of your own theories with a few numbers thrown in that were pulled from nowhere or from someone's nether regions.

Even the way the question you're attempting to answer is phrased begs too many questions to be informative or educational.  What exactly is a western MMO?  How is its western nature relevant to arguments about success?  How do you define success?  If you flesh out the question you want to answer a little better, you might find something to go on.  Once you get that, there are a lot of internet sources where you can get more accurate numbers to support whatever theory you're trying to prove.  There's no need to make any up.

 

My own theories. lol ok. Go look up Chinese MMO subscription models. Look up the hourly yuan rate standard. Convert.

What is a western MMO? An MMO developed and/or published with the North American and European markets in mind. Western MMOs often expand into Asian territories. How is its western nature revelant to arguments about success? There was no speculation on the relevance of the western nature of any MMO. Learn to read. The observation was about the revenue disparity between NA/Euro and Chinese subs/players. How do I define success? Were you reading another post? Success is not an issue.

And by the way, the subject line is not a "Question" that is asked, it is a "Statement" that is explored.

I feel unenlightened by anything in your post as well. So I guess we are even.

Originally posted by Adam1902

for WoW in China, it probably works the same way Korean MMOs work in the US. The publisher pays a yearly lisence fee to Blizzard, and that's it. All the rest is handled by the producer.

Isn't that how it's done? So Blizzard themselves will be getting only that fixed yearly wage from china.

Yeah, that's my understanding. I am not sure how much $$$ is actually involved, but the fact that The9, China's blizzard partner came close to bankruptcy this year (or did, not sure) despite being the sole proprieter of WoW in China seems very strange. Either they were paying a lot of their profits to Blizzard, or the amount of money they were actually making off millions of Chinese subs (time cards) was much lower than even my estimate. Who know... only them. lol

 A successful MMO is a profitable MMO.

I could run an MMO that only sells in California, but makes a profit, and be successful.

Therefore this entire thread is sort of silly and random.  If a game is fun, and has enough of a playerbase that you're not spending tons of time looking for people to play with, it's fun - who cares about "success"?

The only value added from a game being amazing successful is (A) sequels/expansion and (B) free patch content as a result of the developers swimming in money.  This can be huge, but I've played scores of games (mostly non-MMOs) where the base game was just flat-out fun and I continued playing it quite a while without requiring patches.

I just find it odd that players become so worried about whether their MMO is successful, when it really just boils down to

• Tonight when you log in, are there going to be enough players online to run that dungeon with you?  Yes?  Okay, then everything's fine.

When I put it that way, it makes me want to question WOW's true success - because I can't count the times I've waited forever in LFG chat trying to find group members for a dungeon :P

Originally posted by Adam1902

for WoW in China, it probably works the same way Korean MMOs work in the US. The publisher pays a yearly lisence fee to Blizzard, and that's it. All the rest is handled by the producer.

Isn't that how it's done? So Blizzard themselves will be getting only that fixed yearly wage from china.

It's percentual, actually, like 80% of the profit goes to the game makers and 20% to the publishers, then again, the publishers are 4 men in a basement.

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Adam1902

for WoW in China, it probably works the same way Korean MMOs work in the US. The publisher pays a yearly lisence fee to Blizzard, and that's it. All the rest is handled by the producer.

Isn't that how it's done? So Blizzard themselves will be getting only that fixed yearly wage from china.

 

It's percentual, actually, like 80% of the profit goes to the game makers and 20% to the publishers, then again, the publishers are 4 men in a basement.

The current standard percentage for game publishers right now is at about 30%.

As far as China not being important, who's going to powerlevel people and sell them gold if the Chinese aren't playing?

Without the Chinese, the "casual" player would have to earn their own shit in the game, and that would never do!!

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Adam1902

for WoW in China, it probably works the same way Korean MMOs work in the US. The publisher pays a yearly lisence fee to Blizzard, and that's it. All the rest is handled by the producer.

Isn't that how it's done? So Blizzard themselves will be getting only that fixed yearly wage from china.

 

It's percentual, actually, like 80% of the profit goes to the game makers and 20% to the publishers, then again, the publishers are 4 men in a basement.

 

The current standard percentage for game publishers right now is at about 30%.

As far as China not being important, who's going to powerlevel people and sell them gold if the Chinese aren't playing?

Without the Chinese, the "casual" player would have to earn their own shit in the game, and that would never do!!

The chinese WoW servers being down, does not mean they cannot still do what they do. Which is logging into our accounts on the US/EU servers and power leveling us. And making accounts on them for farming gold.

The state of WoW-China has nothing to do with that, I'm afraid. :P

Originally posted by Katrar

Originally posted by luciusETRUR

You're also ignoring two important regions. South Korea and Japan. They are not like China, they are 2 of the top 14 best economies in the world.

I don't disagree, I think MMO companies do just fine in the West, and I like Western MMOs far more than Eastern. I'm just saying, that if you can get a game popular in South Korea, it'll get popular in China. Korea gives you a good amount of money and Chinese inflate your game numbers.  

 

Yeah, South Korean and Japanese markets are different. There is a huge amount of money to be made in both markets. Their per capita incomes are also somewhat comparable to that of the US and most Euro countries.

I was speaking specifically to the Chinese market, though. All too often people see Chinese sub numbers and directly compare them to those of other regions, even South Korea, and think that each sub is equal. Which of course they are not.

Yeah, I understand that sub numbers are inflated within the Chinese market. It's for pretty nice marketing schemes, I suppose. Anyone who knows how to research MMOs can ignore Asian subs, unless it's a game coming from Asia. In that case, try and find good reports on Korean or Japanese markets.
 

To me, though, I dislike eastern MMOs, so it is not something I explore too often..

Let's boil it down to something else:  Any profit that is gained from ASIA will aid the company and allow/encourage it to continually improve the game, thus improving it for Western players as well, which encourages more subsriptions, making it, indeed, critical to the MMO's Financial Bonanza Sucess.

(Was that even slightly coherent?)

Originally posted by madeux

Let's boil it down to something else:  Any profit that is gained from ASIA will aid the company and allow/encourage it to continually improve the game, thus improving it for Western players as well, which encourages more subsriptions, making it, indeed, critical to the MMO's Financial Bonanza Sucess.

 

(Was that even slightly coherent?)

That is.. if profit is gained, of course.
 

Well my wifes chinese and we live in Texas and I've been to parts of Asia and what I noticed as one of the biggest differences between our countries is that the player base in Korea, Japan, and China is equally male and female.  In China I have walked into internet cafes full of just females playing WOW, Ragnarok and other MMo's. 

These guys have like 40-50 computers with wow accounts and the kidos just pay as they go-like some of you said, and literally there was like a whole street of these cafes-and who knows how many there are in these 3 countries.   And, you have the USA where yes some women play games but I'm here to tell you not like in Asia, I've probabl spent around 10 years in parts of Asia and I see a lot of female gamers.  Oh and I can't get my wifes cousins and friends in Jakarta to shut up about Final Fantasy geez, they just love games overthere too much (the females).   Which I guess is a good thing for me because my wife doesn't give me any lip about my gaming shes about as bad as me.

I'm also starting to see a trend with NC soft now, release a game in Asia to test the market, fix any bugs and then releae it in the USA polished, not a bad plan.

Originally posted by Adam1902

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Ephimero

Originally posted by Adam1902

for WoW in China, it probably works the same way Korean MMOs work in the US. The publisher pays a yearly lisence fee to Blizzard, and that's it. All the rest is handled by the producer.

Isn't that how it's done? So Blizzard themselves will be getting only that fixed yearly wage from china.

 

It's percentual, actually, like 80% of the profit goes to the game makers and 20% to the publishers, then again, the publishers are 4 men in a basement.

 

The current standard percentage for game publishers right now is at about 30%.

As far as China not being important, who's going to powerlevel people and sell them gold if the Chinese aren't playing?

Without the Chinese, the "casual" player would have to earn their own shit in the game, and that would never do!!

 

The chinese WoW servers being down, does not mean they cannot still do what they do. Which is logging into our accounts on the US/EU servers and power leveling us. And making accounts on them for farming gold.

The state of WoW-China has nothing to do with that, I'm afraid. :P

I was referring to the western mmo in general, not just WoW.