GCA 09: Crossing Borders

Presentation from SCEE senior vice president and producer of over 40 games.

Yasuhide Kobayashi cuts a modest figure in his crinkled pants and sports jacket. He claims he didn't really know what to wear, and feels a bit over-dressed. He fusses about the stage in front of 150 or so delegates attending the afternoon session of D.I.C.E Summit Asia, at GCA 2009. But despite his broken and disjointed speech, translated live for us on headsets we picked up at the door, Kobayashi is clearly a man who knows what he is on about. The Senior Vice President of the Japan Studio of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios (yes, the title is a bit of a mouthful) has come to talk to us about developing games for a worldwide market, where cultures and tastes vary so much between continents and countries. This man, who has had a hand in the decision making process around some of Sony's biggest games, has stories to tell.

The first day of GCA 2009 is given over largely to members of the press and professional delegates, who come to hear the speakers speak and the communications professionals communicate. It's a businesslike affair, very much a place for the bigwigs of companies to get together and chat each other up about upcoming business opportunities and the like. Kobayashi's content is perfect for this group - but does that mean it's perfect for the readers of NZGamer.com?

This summary of Kobayashi's speech is going to flick switches for some of you, but for others it might be a bit of a yawnfest. No matter: the content is relevant, if not necessarily perfect. New Zealand is a country all on its own, both in terms of its geographical isolation and its cultural makeup, so how games are developed with these considerations in mind is certainly of some importance to a Kiwi market. If you're the type that just likes to know what makes your favourite dev bods tick, or if you are concerned about the business and marketing of games with a view to one day stepping into the industry yourself, then what Kobayashi said at "The history of cultured localization: Taking on the eternal challenge of crossing cultural borders," might just be your cup of tea.

For background he told us that Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) consists of 14 studios worldwide - six in the US, ditto in Europe, and two in Japan. There are 350 employees in Tokyo alone, so he's not talking small fry. The studios report to one of four regional HQs, and for big decisions, may report to all four seeking consensus. In the PSOne era, SCE took up a third of the market in Japan, and the costs says Kobayashi, were fairly light. These days, they're only holding on to about a fifth, and the production costs for PS3 games are rather higher, meaning that the company is not finding it easy to make a profit.

This boils down to SCE requiring success in the global market, in order for the company to remain viable.

Kobayashi had some great back pocket stats with him. The Japan Studio of SCE has 66.9% of its investment in the Japanese market (for the smartest among you, you'll realise that means they're doing just over 33% of their business offshore). Compare that with other Japanese production houses - NAMCO do over three quarters within Japan, and Square Enix is nudging at 90%. The implications here are obvious: the Japan Studio is dragging itself across the railroad tracks of the international marketplace, and one of its legs is dragging. Without success overseas, they stand to lose a lot of money.

Let me cut in here with one of my own observations: the Japanese are developing largely for their own country. Let's say a small portion of what's left is developed for North America (Kobayashi has some interesting things to say about this, too) and a still smaller portion for Europe. How is the rest of Asia-Pacific being divided up, including New Zealand? It makes you think right? Do we even account for a sliver of a per cent of the return to Japanese game companies?

Selling overseas isn't as easy as translating a game from Japanese into English, either. One of Kobayashi's slides was of the differing box art from the title ICO, which many of you will remember fondly and maybe even still play. Because North Americans prefer a strong, masculine male character, the box art had to show the characters in different ways. This is also the case for a more recent title, called Rogue Galaxy. The Japanese character art was considered too feminine for a US market, and the European version was too - well, I'm gonna say "nautical" - for the Japanese. So, a compromise was reached, combining the two. These are decisions the directors of the studios put a lot of thought into, and it's essential to get it right. Even the characters for Everybody's Golf (or Hotshots) were re-done, which really says something about the importance of cultural style. Everybody's Golf isn't exactly a high quality simulator, but it somehow matters that the characters are dressed correctly and even have the right facial expressions.

Kobayashi left us with some info about how to get a decent pitch done, when you're talking to higher-ups about your idea. This is information I include here simply for the sake of context; I hope some of you find it interesting.

Big ideas will sell. Small ideas will sell. Pick which yours is, because in-between ideas don't sell at all.

Don't make your concepts too complicated. Executives like things simple - you can always add layers come dev time.

Sell the producer's enthusiasm! Make sure your decision makers know how committed you and your team are to the project.

Does it make a difference where you're from? No. The cultural question really comes into play for character development and the genre of game you wish to produce. Kobayashi tells us research in the US has Americans going after action and sports titles, as a rule, and that the gamers there are what you'd call hardcore. In Europe, there is much more diversity among the gaming population, which Kobayashi puts down to the place being a real international cultural and business hub. With so many people in the melting pot, it's no wonder that concrete demographical information eludes researchers. Folks in Europe are also likely to be "casual games" fans, rather than true fanatics.

While there was no whizz-bang to Kobayashi's speech, no hands-on time, no wacky music or visuals, it remained engaging. I don't know about you guys, but I like to really watch when a Subway Sandwich Artist puts together my sub, and today it felt a little like I was able to see a few of the ingredients and a little of the method for the often scrumptious titles from Sony.