Asia 2015Video Coverage

Minoru Yanai Explains Why You Can’t Lump All of Asia Together | Casual Connect Video

July 22, 2015 — by Steve Kent

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Asia 2015Video Coverage

Minoru Yanai Explains Why You Can’t Lump All of Asia Together | Casual Connect Video

July 22, 2015 — by Steve Kent

'Think global and produce like locals.'–Minoru Yanai talks game localizationClick To Tweet

In his Casual Connect Asia lecture, Minoru Yanai said the idea of an “Asian market” for apps and mobile games is a myth. “Asia is all different countries,” he says. “In Taiwan, China and Japan, for example, only a few games are the same in the Top 10.” For his breakdown of strategies specific to Japan, see the video below.




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Minoru Yanai’s favorite part of his job is seeing when he’s made a difference. As global strategist for Adinnovation, he says he wants to cultivate a good business environment among publishers and developers, and seeing those relationships materialize is very satisfying.

Watching the Growth of Mobile

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Minoru Yanai

Minoru has worked in the entertainment industry since the ’90s, working in music, animation and comics. Then in the early 2000s, mobile made it big in Japan with NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode mobile internet service. He kept a close eye on these developments, and entered the mobile entertainment industry in 2002. Since then he’s worked for Zappallas, Rakuten, Menue and NQ Mobile. He’d known the CEO of Adinnovation for a few years, and they occasionally talked about the industry before he finally joined the company in 2014. Now he creates and executes international strategies for the firm.

The Japanese mobile entertainment market is unique, Minoru points out. Smartphone penetration is still relatively low in Japan, as for the most part carriers only offer high-end devices. More and more users are getting smartphones, however, with penetration up from 27 percent in 2012 to 54 percent in 2014, or around 70 million users. And while 70 million users may not seem like a large market, publishing in Japan can be very profitable, Minoru says. Even before the advent of smartphones, the Japanese mobile market was more than $5 billion USD — in large part due to i-mode, which acclimatized feature phone users to mobile payments for content. This has translated to higher percentages of monetized app users, Minoru suspects, as nearly 24 percent of app users spend at least 3 USD monthly, while a little over 4 percent pay more than 100USD per month. “I think Japanese users are spending more (in apps) than in other countries,” Minoru says.







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Adinnovation helps developers publish and market their apps in Japan, crafting strategies to help them adapt their products. Popular apps in Japan tend to favor “cute” and 2D art styles, which is often different from what might be popular in other countries, he says. The most popular styles of game design can vary, as well, as pay-to-win games do well in Japan. So while Adinnovation offers localization services, the company can help developers take advantage of the unique market with design changes.




Predictions

Minoru expects the East and Southeast Asia markets to continue growing, eventually dominating in both production and consumption. Recently, he says the quality of Games developed in China has surprised him: “I didn’t expect so many great Chinese games to come out of their market in the last year. These days, many Japanese developers are learning from Chinese developers.”

He tries to keep a close eye on trends through blogs and magazines as well as through his contacts among producers and engineers. From that information, he tries to pick which trends the company should follow and which would be better not to focus on. A little farther into the future, perhaps within the next three years, Minoru expects to see VR devices join smartphones as the major platforms in the game industry.

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Steve Kent

Steve Kent

Steve Kent is a staff writer for Gamesauce and content manager for Casual Connect. Steve loves superheros and spending time with his kiddo.

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