“Don’t Koreans like realistic painting style?” If you still have this stereotype, you are missing out on many opportunities to successfully go to Korea. On October 13 of this year, Mobile Legends: Adventure (later referred to as MLA), a second-generation placement strategy game from Mu Hitomi, hit the top of both the App Store and Google Play Store the next day and continued to dominate the charts for five days, a very strong performance.
According to past experience, the most popular games on the best-seller list in Korea are usually the medium and heavy handheld games of “realistic style + MMO” type launched by local manufacturers. It is rare to see a game like [MLA], which is relatively light in terms of gameplay, appearing in the list.
Before this, there are several domestic products have won this award in the Korean market: [High Power Handicraft Group] after the launch, 2 weeks in a row on the top three Google Play download list, once overpowered the local Korean MMO king [Paradise 2M] and [MU], etc.; [Reloaded Battle Princess] also in May this year to get the top three Google Play best-seller list.
From “Wonder Woman” to “Sakura”
According to the “2021 Asia Handicraft Market Analysis Report”, the secondary style of painting is popular in Asia and has a large audience in itself. In the South Korean market, although the “realistic” products are serious, but if there is a quality “secondary” product, it will be a bright surprise among the aesthetic fatigue players. The following handheld games have been optimized for “secondary yuan” by placing materials, and have gained attention and downloads.
MLA], as a sequel to [MLBB], did not directly copy the characters, but carried out in-depth secondary processing of the details of the drawings on the basis of the previous work: the Raphael shown above has a more realistic art style in [MLBB], while in [MLA], the steely eyes have become spiritual and gentle, with a look more in line with the image of a gentle older sister in secondary anime. The character’s figure has also been softened and converted from a firm and firm type to a plump and round type; on closer inspection, Raphael’s feathers are drawn with more care in the shadows and other details.
A similar strategy is adopted by the B station release of the [high-powered handicraft group], whose character design is more “secondary yuan” – the subject matter directly from the handicraft cut. The hand-me-down itself is extremely delicate and expensive, and the players who will buy the hand-me-down are generally very passionate about the character. The [high-powered handbag group] will handbag into the game, directly hit the pain point of this kind of users.
In the above material, the [high-powered handicraft group] showed three different images of the handicraft white mold, “players” in the phone to scan the white mold coloring, handicraft will “come alive”. This experience of giving color and life to the hand-me-downs is more engaging for the viewers, and at the end of the video, the hand-me-downs also participate in the viewers’ lives in the form of helping with homework, which further deepens the users’ desire to possess the hand-me-downs, and the conversion success rate will be greatly increased when the download channel is released.
The ability of novel subjects to focus players’ attention in a short period of time is undeniable, but to maintain stable long-term growth, localization operations is also one of the strategies that manufacturers need to grasp deeply.
The localization of [MLA] is very sincere, and the exclusive hero Hwang Jin Yi is specially customized for Korean players.
Hwang Jin-il was one of the best poets during the Joseon Dynasty, and her works are included in the textbooks of Korean high schools today. Her other identity – geisha – makes her life seem even more legendary, so Hwang Jin Yi has become the subject of many film and television adaptations, including Song Hye Kyo’s TV version and Ha Ji Won’s film version.
The appearance of such a historical figure, who can be called a “goddess” in Korea, in a second-generation mobile game has also brought a lot of discussion to the game. In NAVER’s MLA community, many players have participated in the game’s discussion, and the number of followers in the community has reached 8W+. This shows that it is a good choice to choose the “Korean Wave” of historical figures for localization promotion in Korea.
The Korean entertainment industry is well-developed and the influence of the “Korean Wave” has expanded from Asia to the world, so many Korean manufacturers are choosing stars or local KOLs with a certain fan base. This time, MLA chose Kwon Sang-woo, an actor with a strong reputation in the Korean film industry (representative works: “Sad Love Song” and “Stairway to Heaven”).
In the advertisement for the spokesperson, [MLA] reproduced several famous scenes from his masterpieces: the crying in “Sad Love Song”, and the pulling out of a knife to help in “The Cruel History of Margery Street”. The beautiful images in the game’s commercial are recreated, and the familiar and unfamiliar feeling gives the short film a very high viewership, and many players expressed their expectations for the game in the comments: “Is it starring me? I’m looking forward to it.”
With the warm-up of the spokesperson commercial, [MLA] gained great attention, and taking advantage of this opportunity, Mu Hitomi also boosted its channel placement after the game’s public beta. According to the data we captured for MLA in Korea, it was within a week of the game’s public beta (October 13) that the amount of material placed climbed to its peak; it was also during this period that MLA topped the best-seller charts on Korean app stores.
The localization of [MLA] was very successful just by the results of the spokesperson’s pre-launch and the steady placement during the public beta.
At the end
From the above cases, what is needed to go abroad to Korea is more insight into the local market. The best way to go to Korea is to choose a secondary gen theme with fewer rivals than to hit a crowded track, but to maintain stable growth in the long term, you need to have more control over the localization operation and the most suitable marketing strategy for your product.
