I found this fascinating article on mobenta. Being a fan of multiplayer games(mobile) and a big believer in their potential – like everyone else I thought Japan was the place to be for mobile multiplayer games. Not so it seems. (and I am happy to know that my yearly pilgrimage to Korea is well founded!)
Matthew Bellows says on Mobenta/WGR
Then he (the SEGA rep in Japan) conceded that only a couple thousand people had registered for the
service. The primary reason? Packet fees. Mobile data transmission in Japan
is ludicrously expensive. Sending one megabyte over the Vodafone
Japan network costs approximately $22.18, (although discounts will
be offered for higher-volume customers). As Mr. Ikeda from Hudson
Soft put it, “We would like to have a networked version of
Bomberman, but data transmission fees are a big problem. Players
discover their $400 phone bill at the end of the month and call us
for a refund. So many people were angry that we stopped making
network games.” Satomi Imai at Dwango expressed the hope that flat-
rate data plans would come to Japan with widespread 3G, and those
plans would enable customers to spend more time connected. But
Square Enix, while announcing Final Fantasy for DoCoMo FOMA phones,
made it clear that these were single player games. Square isn’t
building price drops into their development plan.
Contrast Japan with South Korea. Per megabyte fees for data
transmission are approximately $2.69 on LG Telecom and $4.49 with
KTF. Even more interestingly, Com2Us reported this week that
operators share as much as 60% of the data revenue associated with
multiplayer mobile games with the game developer. As you would
expect, mobile multiplayer games, from traditional card games to
massively multiplayer RPGs, are booming in Korea.
We in Europe have yet to cross this bridge – but it provides insightful lessons. Everyone loses if rates are not oriented to making people pay. People will recieve a $400 only once!
Once again, it shows why Korea is the one to watch
Image source: wgamer
