Sony Online's Worldwide Quest

With well-established global competition, are SOE's attempts to increase its international footprint too little too late?

by Kris Graft

SOE’s new VP of business development and international operations Dave Christensen would argue that it’s never too late to compete in new markets, as long as you have a unique strategy.

SOE’s primary market is currently North America, targeting Western gamers with MMOs such as PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies, The Matrix Online, EverQuest and the recently released Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Meanwhile, foreign products such as Lineage along with US competitor Blizzard with World of Warcraft are hogging up increasing amounts of MMO market share overseas.

Christensen, who worked as a consultant for SOE six months before coming on board in January, freely admits that SOE will have to play some catch-up in the international market. “With China and Korea, I don’t want to say we missed the boat there, but we’re going to have to work with partners there to really build up our presence in that region,” he says.

But there are still some new, albeit unproven, opportunities overseas in non-traditional MMO markets, Christensen says. “I think what’s key for us [overseas] are the developing markets such as India and South America, where it’s still very early in the lifecycle of people playing MMOs.” He also says other potential target markets include Vietnam and the Philippines.

It’s not as if the MMO market in India, for example, has shown anything more than modest success. However, being ready for the ship to come in this time around is important to SOE’s international strategy.

“Because of the infrastructure that’s being built there as well as Internet gaming cafés that they’re trying to build, there’s a good potential market [in India],” he says. “…There’s still some ability to get in there and not be competing with several hundred MMOs.”

SOE is currently developing partnerships with key entertainment and technology companies overseas.

Outside of North America SOE has launched games in Europe, Taiwan, China and Korea, but Christensen admits currently SOE has “a very small footprint” on foreign soil. Nevertheless, Christensen, formerly of virtual item seller IGE, plans to help SOE continue to expand its presence in traditional MMO markets as well.

A viable plan

It all seems like a viable plan: While MMO competitors are clawing each others’ eyes out in the traditional MMO markets, SOE in theory would sneak into New Dehli, Manila, Brasilia and Hanoi and steal virtually unguarded market share under cover of darkness.

But the success of the strategy will rely on the appeal of SOE’s games, and the company does not have a good track record overseas. “We have not had success bringing our content into Asian markets,” Christensen says candidly. “…But I’m a firm believer that to do business in a certain area you have to think like the people in that area.”

Like many game companies, whether MMO-centric or otherwise, having local partners on the ground in a target region is key to creating a localized game that melds with the market. Christensen says that SOE’s going to take on partners who are in those areas who understand local culture. He adds that SOE will be bringing a blend of both new and existing products to additional regions under this strategy.

Blizzard’s like royalty

It must be getting old for developers of MMOs, constantly being compared to World of Warcraft and its success. However, WoW is the standard, and with SOE’s EverQuest being a former reigning MMO champ, Blizzard and SOE have both walked similar ground to an extent.

With 8 million people playing WoW worldwide, can SOE ever dream of matching the overseas success of Blizzard’s freak of MMO nature?

Christensen says that like anyone else, he questions how Blizzard pulled it off. “I talked to some folks in Korea about World of Warcraft and I asked, ‘How did they do it? How is it that Korean gamers are willing to take on this content that’s created by Western companies?’ They said don’t forget that no one in Korea thinks of Blizzard as a Western company. They think of it as locally-created content because Blizzard’s titles Diablo and Starcraft were so influential.

“[Blizzard] is like royalty in Korea, and so not to take anything away from what they’ve done—because it’s amazing—some of the folks out there are saying it’s sort of an anomaly because no one looks at that as Western-developed content in Korea.”

For Christensen, his focus is simply on strapping on the boots required to establish that bigger worldwide footprint. “We’re just trying to create some partnerships and joint ventures in developing territories where we can pursue our goal of creating locally developed content,” he says.

Provided by Next Generation—Interactive Entertainment Today