Learn from those that know in this Ask Me Anything - Publishing in Asia panel from Casual Connect Europe. Be imparted with some serious wisdom about the Asian game market including: Taiwan, Japan, China, Korea, and South-East Asia, even the answers to questions you never had a chance to ask. Co-Founder of RedAtoms, Andrew Chang was one of the panelists. To learn more of what Andrew had to say and other publishing professionals, tune in below.
Andrew Chang, Co-Founder of RedAtoms, is VP responsible for business development and international teams. RedAtoms, a social mobile games company, has its headquarters in China, with offices in Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei and San Francisco. Andrew particularly enjoys the opportunities the job provides to meet friends around the world and participate in international conferences and game shows.
Andrew previously worked in both Japan with National Instruments and the US with Oracle and Nortel Networks, managing business units and gaining valuable experience in managing international teams with diverse backgrounds.
Preparation is a key ingredient to succeed in the games industry. This, along with a certain amount of luck, is what Andrew credits with the most satisfying accomplishment of their career: getting a job in Japan ten years ago – admittedly, not an easy task for a foreigner.
Creating Fun for Players
The opportunity to create fun for players while creating a visual society where people could make friends sparked Andrew’s desire to develop a career with the games industry. As they were doing research into the industry for their current company, they discovered the more they researched, the more fun it offered. And now, what Andrew enjoys most about working in this industry is the ability to create this fun for others. Throughout childhood, Andrew dreamt of helping to make the world better; perhaps this is the way to do it.
Increasing Challenges
The challenges in the games industry are increasing as mobile gaming becomes much more competitive. Andrew recommends, “We need to keep learning and improving ourselves to provide the best services to our players.”
But these challenges are only going to continue as new trends emerge in the industry. Andrew expects the next important trends to be virtual reality and augmented reality. RedAtom is continuously following the news and updates to determine the best way to incorporate them into their future plans. And Andrew again emphasizes that constant learning about changing technologies is essential to offer the best service to their customers.
RedAtom has found that Facebook has been their most effective way to meet the challenge of mobile marketing of the company and their games. Their success is obvious with their #1 card battle and music games where millions of players interact with each other daily.
Understanding What the Customer Needs
Creating these games brings both problems and rewards. For Andrew, the greatest of these are the same thing: understanding what the customer needs. To overcome the inevitable creative blocks that occur during game development, they find brainstorming the best solution. And if Andrew could create any game, without constraints of time or resources, it would be ARPG.
Currently Andrew is a PhD student at Peking University, spending most non-work time in researching and writing papers. But reading, swimming and traveling also slip into the schedule.
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