The history of video games and their ties to Asia is well documented, and the continued evolution of mobile games still shows strong ties to this part of the world even 40 years later.
Hit mobile game PUBG mobile comes from Lightspeed & Quantum, a Vietnamese game developer, while the Chinese mobile version is published by China’s Tencent Games, which also owns Activision’s Call of Duty: Mobile. Popular mobile games Genshin impact and Honkai Impact 3rd are from the Chinese developer miHoYo, while one of the most popular mobile games ever developed, free firewas created by Vietnamese game company 111dots Studio and published by Singapore-based Garena.
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And one of the reasons Asian game developers everywhere have their finger on the pulse of mobile gamers is that they have a global first when it comes to making games for global audiences, something Western game developers can learn from. says Google Play’s vice president Tian Lim in an exclusive interview with Geek Culture.
“What I’ve seen is that in several regions where mobile computing has been at the forefront, developers tend to build for the world first and earlier. They understand the amount of diversity in the types of devices out there and I would say the general theme is that APAC developers tend to think more mobile and global at first and we had to take some of those lessons and teach that to western developers, he explained.
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That said, developing games with a diverse audience in mind is also just one part of a successful equation involving mobile gaming. The other is with the hardware and making sure that the combination of software and hardware, regardless of the brand it belongs to, all work seamlessly.
That may all sound easy on paper, but behind the scenes there is a lot of hard work. Having empathy for the end user and how they can use an app or game on a large number of Android devices is probably one of the hardest things that Lim and his team at Google Play have to constantly maintain as it is critical to any app. to achieve global appeal. The increasing prevalence of mobile devices, where individuals can own two or even multiple phones and tablets, means that the number of apps that can meet everyone’s needs probably exists somewhere, but is waiting to be discovered by users in the digital store. However, with over 3 million apps available on the Google Play Store as of July 2022, standing out can be a real challenge.
Also, let’s not forget that there are Android device manufacturers who, while using Google’s leading mobile operating system, don’t necessarily rely on Google’s App Store to improve the user experience. The rise of alternative app stores is led by Samsung, which offers a companion app store alongside Google, and Huawei and Amazon, which have developed their own independent and standalone stores. Throw into the mix “app stores” that can’t be found through official channels to consider, and you can see the challenges Google faces in building the trust and credibility of the Play Store.
“I think people underestimate how hard it is to control the 3 billion Android devices on the planet, but there are just so many different types of devices, and it’s extremely difficult for developers to reach all those 3 billion devices. India have radically different configurations, chipsets and screen sizes than devices here in Singapore or America, so it’s extremely difficult to find ways to give developers access to those kinds of devices in an efficient and effective way,” said Lim, who, before he joined Google in 2017 from Hulu, also had stints at all three major gaming companies – Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
When you walk through the corridors of Google Singapore, most buildings are still quiet, as it seems that not many Google employees have returned to the office. However, for Lim, who is based in Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, it’s a once-in-a-year journey. As vice president, almost every app you would download for your brand new Android phone goes through the Play Store, and Google has paid out $120 billion in developer revenue to date. Most recently, Google adjusted the commission for all in-app purchases from 2022 to 15% from the previous 30% as a service fee.
Looking at the healthy revenue generated by the Play Store, Lim and his team do not play favorites and recognize that it is in the best interest of users for all app developers to succeed on the platform, although he recognizes that developers must learn to think big if they want their apps to outperform others, especially when they conquer the global market. But the Google Play team is committed to making sure the experience is as seamless as possible.
“One of the big innovations for my team was the Android app bundle, a way to change the way we delivered apps to all these different devices. So the APK delivered to your Pixel 6 Pro here would be radically different from the actual bits I’d deliver to an entry-level or lower-end device in India. That’s a big problem because the delivery consumes less storage space and mobile data, so that’s just a really difficult infrastructure to build around the world. I think apps and games have become so advanced, and the amount of business tools needed to help them fine-tune apps and games is so difficult.”
While we usually cover a wide range of top-end smart devices on this site, low-midrange smartphones are often overlooked, with the exception of Google’s Pixel 6a. Of course, if the Google team only has access to top phones, any app experience would be fantastic, but that’s certainly not the case with Lim’s team.
The biggest takeaway that Lim has for game developers looking to aim for the greatest success for their title is actually to serve the world, rather than race others for, say, minor triple-A quality. in-game to offer. While mobile gaming is viewed in some circles by the more established gamer base, its size continues to outpace both the console and PC markets.
After holding positions at Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation, Lim rather stoically explained that those users pale in number compared to mobile users around the world.
“I’m coming out of triple-A games with this slightly biased. And trust me, I’ve spent hundreds of hours on my PlayStation 5 with Elden Ring. Back to 3 billion devices, where are they? They are located in radically different geographic areas than we are used to. We are talking about India, Vietnam and Indonesia.
I think the games that are really successful in that wide swath in geography and geography are the ones built for the first time in the world, like Garena’s free fire. They thought about their potential users in India, Latin America, and so on. As a result, they had to build for both very low-end and high-end devices, and got no credit for building such a great title,” he adds.
And the biggest change when it comes to the mobile gaming space has to be how business models have changed over time when it comes to monetization. Despite the backlash it has received from traditional PC players, Diablo Immortal has successfully done well for Activision Blizzard’s bottom line. On the one hand, it could annoy the traditional players who grew up with? diablobut financially it was the right decision for the company to do.
“Let’s face it, there’s no better entrance fee than free. I think it took a while for the right free-to-play business models to emerge and be accepted. So you’ve seen a wide variety of different types of monetization approaches. And you can kind of start to see that we’re starting to converge to a place that feels like ‘okay, this isn’t so bad, like, I’m really getting my money’s worth’. And I think that’s fundamentally what’s happened over the past five years.”
Today, free-to-play games still lean heavily toward cosmetics, just like in the past, but change is on the horizon. Brand partnerships are the latest trend sweeping the mobile gaming landscape, with recent opportunities popping up in the form of: Transformers X Mobile Legends and free fire‘s Attack on Titan event. The other possible avenue would be a subscription model similar to Netflix and Xbox Game Pass, of which Google has a similar offering. Called Google Game Pass, it’s only available in select markets (Singapore isn’t on the list), but provides a good platform for user access to apps and games that might be overlooked.
“We’re getting to a point where Play Pass is really starting to bring some of the best games and apps together into a really interesting package and developers who have participated in Play Pass are generally seeing better revenue,” Lim said.
Now that the ingredients are in the bag, what else defines a successful developer from the rest of the pack? Lim believes the answer lies in solving problems in a localized context.
“What’s inspiring about apps is the different kinds of problems they solve, and they tend to be more local. The things that are more powerful for me are the kind of local startups that really serve a local audience. You are really solving local problems that affect yourself or your family,” said Lim.
Gerald is currently balancing between his love of video games and board games. There is nothing that interests him more than trying out the newest and fanciest gadgets in town. He dreams of publishing a board game someday in the future!
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