For South Korea, a small population doesn’t prevent it from being one of the largest mobile gaming markets in the world. The industry has heated up recently, with mobile gaming companies taking over traditional media and allocating massive budgets to help new games break out. At Casual Connect USA, Shala Seo, a mobile game sourcing manager with Smilegate, and other market experts discussed the latest trends and provided knowledge needed to be successful in the South Korean market. Tune in below for some great insights.
Shala Seo is a mobile game sourcing manager at Smilegate, one of the largest game companies in Korea. She explores partnership opportunities in the global games market, seeking high quality games to publish both inside and outside Asia. Before joining Smilegate she spent three years at a startup game studio where she learned important aspects of the games industry, including company building, funding, game development and publishing. She decided to look for a new opportunity where she could use her startup experience to support other game studios and she found it at Smilegate. Her prior experience has been particularly valuable in understanding the potential needs and struggles of the many mobile game startups trying to succeed these days.
A Dynamic and Booming Industry
When Shala was looking for a job after she finished college, she discovered the games industry in Korea was booming and many companies were also performing quite well in the global market. She decided being a part of this exciting movement was what she wanted. She felt the industry would offer the challenges and fun experiences she had been looking for in a career so she interviewed with a game company. Fortunately, this impression proved to be accurate. She relates, “It has been a great experience to work with very diverse and talented people, and it’s always exciting to learn new ideas and lifestyles as I work in this dynamic industry.”
Learning From Each Other
What she enjoys most about her present position is meeting talented and ambitious game developers who are preparing to create the newest trends in mobile gaming. She values participating in their beta tests before they are released in the market and the opportunity it gives her to see how the current trends will change over the course of time.
Shala reveals that in the beginning she found it difficult to say “no” to developers who were asking for a partnership. Developers are quite naturally proud of what they have created and she was afraid that refusing a partnership could hurt their feelings and their pride. But she also recognizes that not every game can succeed. So when she has to reject a game she is careful to give a good explanation and feedback that will help the developers see where improvements are needed and understand how to better deal with publishers in general.
Increasing Chances to Succeed
Working with a publisher brings important benefits to developers. Shala points out that, just as developers do a lot of research to create the next generation games, publishers devote their time and resources to increase the chances of the game succeeding in the market using various marketing channels and data analysis tools. She emphasizes, “Working with a publisher helps a developer to fully focus on the quality and efficiency of their game development while the publisher provides them with the market and user data analysis to support their development.”
Finding the right publisher is a critical concern for developers; the publisher must truly understand the product in order to provide the most effective support. Shala explains, “I know it’s easier said than done. Finding a good publishing partner is not easy. But for a game to succeed in the market, a developer should work with a publisher who can support a developer to cover its weakness and make its strength shine based on their experience and knowledge.”
Shala believes the future of the games industry will bring more and more collaborative works between games and other industries – she points out that there are already games based on movies, cartoons and TV shows. She believes there are many more possibilities for combining other forms of entertainment with games and she is looking toward other industries to find new trends and movements.
Shala spends her free time – of course – playing many games. She also makes time to work out or go for an outdoor run. Since she spends so much time staring at her computer monitor and her smartphone, she tries to spend time outdoors whenever she can.
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