I Got Succes: 12 år med IGG

Udgiver og udvikler IGG Inc. er lige blevet 12 år, og har nu startet en ny europæisk afdeling, hvor de sigter efter nye markeder, ved at implementere en mere lokal tilgang. Vi mødtes med Enric Cabestany og Jonathan Jones i London for at høre om deres ankomst I Europa om deres strategi gående fremad.

IGG (I Got Games) har primært fokuseret på det mobile marked hidtil, men de har også udgivet spil til PC. Hidtil er det blevet til mere end 20 titler, og de håber på, at det tal kun kan vokse sig meget større i fremtiden.
20 interne studier
"We have some very, very exciting projects up and coming" udtaler Jones i interviewet du også kan se for neden. "Some things you may expect from us, some things you may not, it's an exciting time at IGG right now. I can't tell you much I'm afraid."

Deres udvikler-område er et stærkt fokus for dem, da de har "around 20 studios constantly working on new things, a lot are under wraps now, but we have a few things coming hopefully maybe by the end of the year (...) they're constantly working on new things, they have some great ideas and we're excited for the future. We have some [studios] in China, Belarus, Canada, Austin (Texas), South-East Asia, and maybe something else is going to come really, really soon as well (laughs)".

Castle Clash, Lords Mobile og eSports

Selv om deres fokus tidigt var på MMORPG og sociale apps, så er det deres F2P multiplayer strategi-spil på mobile der har givet dem størst succes. De har nu omkring 20 millioner månedligt aktive brugere, og af dem, kommer de fleste fra Castle Clash og Lords Mobile.

"Lords Mobile is a real-time strategy game. It's got elements of SLG (Simulated Life Game) as well, we've got hundreds of millions of players around the world; we're top in the revenue charts on Google and iOS" beskriver Jones. "It's a game that brings people around the world together, there's a big element of community. People love to play with each other, they love meeting new friends, they love building their guilds up and attacking other players. There's many different activities for them to do, there's PvP, PvE... it's a game that will keep everyone busy; people coordinate their lives around it, they live Lords Mobile, they breathe Lords Mobile". Da vi spurgte ind til eSports-aspektet, var de da også optimistiske for fremtiden. Dette især fordi de lige har afholdt en turnering i Hong Kong, der tiltragte mange seere. "It's something we're definitely looking into. We have plans, we're looking into ways to make it happen, with feasibility and that kind of thing, so again we'll keep you guys posted [...] The competition we did in Hong Kong just shows you that we have a product where it can work".

Lokalisering og global succes

Af de 480 millioner registrerede spillere verden over, er det vigtigt at huske, at de primært modtager deres indtjening fra det asiatiske marked (49%), mens resten kommer fra Amerika (26%) og Europa (21%), hvilket firmaet vil forsøge at ændre i fremtiden med deres nye fokus på Europa.

"Europe's been a big market for us ever since we first started. We have teams working with the local languages - we have English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, all working to sort of localise their market, to make it accessible for their players. We're doing activities and marketing stuff based on local interest, just to make it more appealing to local people, more attractive. [...] We're looking to build [on] it, to expand it, to make it accessible for everyone".

Cabestany mener også, at nøglen til deres succes ligger i Free-to-Play modellen: "The first thing is to engage the users. It's not just bringing users in; as soon as you bring users through all the apps and so on you need to retain them. As soon as you get them: play [with] them, engage them, socialise them, and they start spending some money in the game. Then is when we see if a game is interesting and financially good. The second thing is, of course, we want most of the users [to] socialise between them and we want them to viralise the game. As soon as they can make it with their colleagues and mates, it's the best for us".

Med et fornyet fokus på Europa, planer for esports-området til at udvikle sig yderligere og firmaet mål efter at blive en af de største udgivere i verdenen. De vil fortsætte med at udvikle til mobilen, men måske vil nye platforme præsentere sig i fremtiden. Uanset hvad, bliver det spændende at følge IGG's udvikling i fremtiden.