How Pokemon GO success Would Impact the Industry and What are the Barriers to Release in China?
Andrew Chang, VP, RedAtoms
Andrew Chang, VP, RedAtoms
Following the release of Pokémon GO after July 6th, the total number of download has reached over 100M according to App Annie. The daily revenue from two platforms (iOS, Google Play) has reached 10M USD a day. The stock price of the IP holder, Nintendo, increases a lot. The day of releasing July 6thwas closing at 14,380 yen (around 130USD) and reached the peak over 5 years record high to 31,770 (around 290USD) yen on July 19th. Because of the success, Nintendo would focus more on the mobile gaming. The VR/AR topic becomes even hotter, more developers and capital join in this industry. So how it will go in the China market? Are the IP+AR+LBS the next trend? Let’s discuss more.
- Pokémon GO in China So far, Pokémon GO has not released in China yet. But:
- In weibo (twitter of China), Pokémon GO topic has reached more than 280M reads in the first month after releasing outside of China .There are different kinds of communities discussing how to play the game and strategy before releasing.
- There are different rumors saying that Tencent, Alibaba or others are trying to get the publishing right.
- According to QuestMobile, there are How Pokémon GO success Would Impact the Industry and What are the Barriers to Release in China?
- The copycat (clone) of Pokémon GO, City Spirit Go, is (was) performing well in China in July and August. It was ranked in China iOS Download Ranks No 1 for a while and Grossing Ranks between 40- 50 but was ranked in the top 20(30) level sometimes even through the quality is not as good as Pokémon GO. For instance, it doesn’t have AR feature within the game but focus more in catching.
- There are some companies announced to release the similar game play with different characters recently and City Spirit Go was one of the hot topics within China Joy (the biggest game show in China in August)
- In order to release Pokémon GO this kind of game in China, there are some points needed to be aware:
• Due to the limited of usage of Google, there is no way to use Google map normally in China. So the developers got to use the local one such as Baidu map, Tencent map, Amapor so on.
• Again, people in China don’t have the Google account normally. So the login system got to be changed.
• About a month ago (In July), Chinese government announced the new regulations of screening all the apps in China Apple App Store. All the apps need to be pre-approved by the government. There are some new rules such as can’t use other languages than Chinese as the game title. So Pokémon GO, GO got to be taken off. Because of the new rules, the releasing time would be longer than the original plan
• The LBS functions would bring the security issues of certain area such as the military base.
Pokémon GO gives the mobile gaming a new fresh style and it has usage the power of viral marketing well with the strong IP, special game play and features, the game becomes extremely successful. In the near future, there will be more and more VR/AR gaming releasing because of the Pokémon GO success.
Headquartered in China along with its presence in Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul and San Francisco, RedAtoms, has produced top ranking card battle, strategy and music games.
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