Koei Tecmo found global success by focusing on its Japanese identity
I meet Koei Tecmo CEO Hisashi Koinuma on a day that's something of a quiet milestone for his company. Years of growth -…
www.gamesindustry.biz
Koei Tecmo's latest business interview with CEO Hisashi Koinuma is a suspicious news piece that feels like a half-hearted retort to the horrible press they have received globally for their hair color scandal. On one middle finger you have the CEO saying "our own Japanese culture is how we found global success" and on the other middle finger he is saying Japanese "love paying some money for gacha" when infact we have it documented that they don't. He says Western players don't want to spend any money, as if the hair color scandal (which they dress as the mobile market for this interview) is somehow our faults for not understanding!
"Perhaps it's because Japan is an island nation and China is on the continent, but when it comes to games, they really want to compete and win against each other -- if you look at their game systems, a lot of them are designed so that you can spend money and get stronger in the game, and they really seem to enjoy that.
On the other hand, Japanese players prefer lottery or 'gacha' style systems, where you pay some money and don't know exactly what you'll get in return. Chinese players want to spend money directly to get stronger and win competitions. Western players are different again -- they prefer games where you can play and enjoy the game itself without paying much money. So, if we're going to launch in different markets, we definitely need to tune how the monetisation works in order to match the expectations of different cultures."
People are paying for DLC, Pay-to-Win & lottery wherever it is possible to do so, but I don't see any record of people "loving it." I've got a lot more to say on this, but I need some more time to think. It's a business article sure, but literally no credit given to Team NINJA at all despite them being the real reason behind any of KT's real recent success.
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