Studio Spotlight

Animoca: Making Games on a Global Scale

November 21, 2013 — by Clelia Rivera

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Studio Spotlight

Animoca: Making Games on a Global Scale

November 21, 2013 — by Clelia Rivera

When mobile games exploded onto the market, many studios tried to cash in on this booming area. Animoca was built with the desire to develop and publish in this successful market. Founded in 2011 and incubated by Outblaze Ventures, they are a cross-platform app publisher and developer for  smartphones and tablets. They have created over 300 apps with more than 170 million game downloads and reaches many different genres and demographics.

Where It All Began

David Kim
David Kim, CEO, Animoca

Animoca was founded in January 2011 with a goal of making games for under-appreciated audience segments. Due to their past experiences with Outblaze Ventures and their companies, Animoca knew early what they needed to focus on. “For example, we knew that we needed a systematic, analytics-driven approach to allow us to understand user behavior,” says David Kim, CEO. “So we started tracking and measuring as much as we could from day one.” They started by creating games targeted towards women and girls. Their first game, Pretty Pet Salon, went on to be an international hit, and a top mobile time management game.




After their initial success, they went on to create many other games, such as Thor: Lord of Storms and Star Girl. They continue to pursue publishing great games, but they don’t let success go to their heads. “We have grown from a start-up into an established force in mobile games, but I wouldn’t say we have changed that much.”




Going Global

The company’s success is not limited to just the US, but has expanded into a larger scale. This was made possible due to how they approach their global work. Kim says, “We have a sophisticated process that we are always refining in order to help us translate apps, develop content for specific cultures, handle customer support in different regions, and do all the other things necessary to build a global audience.”

One of the details to pay attention to in a global market is regionalization. Kim believes that many developers work under the misconception that changing the language is all that is needed for a game to work in another country. “You also need to localize the app for different cultures, build in local payment options, develop a promotional calendar based on local events, find local distribution partners, hire local QA resources, offer customer service in local languages, develop content for the local culture, and more,” says Kim. He also advises people interested in other regions to take the time to understand the area they want to break into.




Ultraman is just one of the games in Animoca's portfolio
Ultraman Galaxy is just one of the games in Animoca’s portfolio

Building good relationships is also important to succeeding globally. Animoca learned “that it’s extremely important to have a very strong partnership in the regions you are targeting in order to help with distribution and monetization,” according to Kim. The company has had a lot of practice building relationships, both with distributors and developers. As a publisher and developer, Animoca learned a useful tip to keep in mind when starting a partnership with developers. “You can’t treat all developers the same, and there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to publishing games,” says Kim. They work to create a unique, custom partnership with everyone they work with to meet everyone’s goals.

Publishing Today

With the change in distribution and the rise of self-publishing, the role of a publisher has undergone a change as well (a panel at Casual Connect discussed this change). Kim explains that it has become “less about driving new users and more about providing expertise.” “While the main role of a publisher is still to help drive users to a game, there is also a large component of expertise sharing on topics such as user engagement, game design, development, etc,” says Kim.

However, Kim says the usefulness of a publisher can vary from game to game. He believes there is not an exact way to decide if or when a publisher is useful. “For some games, a publisher may provide valuable assistance pre-launch, when the games is still in development, while other times, a publisher might make sense for an existing game that has launched, but was unable to achieve or sustain growth,” Kim says. It is important for a developer to consider their needs and decide what works for them.

Animoca is working to launch a lot of new games in many different genres. Follow their Facebook or Twitter to stay updated on their latest projects.




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