King's Glory produces 3 versions that go out to sea, localized production is difficult to become a global e-sports product

" Arena of Valor "

in Arena of Valor's sea work, Tencent has found different publishers and released different versions of the game for different regions, each version of which has a different UI Hero game interface. From the perspective of the artistic design and cultural elements of the game, these different versions are like several different games.

< strong > Arena of Valor has landed on two platforms and there are 3 overseas versions. < / strong >

there are three overseas versions of Arena of Valor that have been launched so far. The titles of the games are "Legend duel", "for kakao" and "Arena of Valor" respectively. The version of switch that will be launched this time is the European version of "Arena of Valor".

in terms of game content, different versions of products use the same core play, but they are indeed independent of each other in art design and cultural elements, and the similarity is generally low compared with national service. In terms of distribution, each version is issued by local publishers with more resources, and these publishers are inextricably related to Tencent itself.

the earliest overseas version was produced one year after the operation of" Arena of Valor ". In terms of product appearance and information, the three overseas versions are different in terms of release region, release time, publisher and game logo.

overseas versions of UI, heroes, and game interfaces are different. The login method basically uses social networks with more local characteristics, such as Google Play, Facebook or garena accounts.

< strong > Tencent chooses deeper localization and publishers with "closer" relationships < / strong >

in terms of going out to sea, Tencent chooses deeper localization designs and some publishers that develop locally but have an investment partnership with Tencent.

in terms of localization, the overseas version of "Arena of Valor" removes all content and cultural elements and redoes them on the basis of retaining the core style of play, combining them with local popular elements and user habits.

in terms of UI style, the overseas version of UI is flatter, sleek and a little more refined than the national service. In addition, in the home page of the Korean version and the European version, the text hints such as shopping malls and props are abandoned, which looks very concise and hierarchical, which is more suitable for the aesthetic of people in Europe and the United States.

in terms of hero images, overseas versions of heroes are mainly science fiction and magic, and controllable characters include elves, stone trolls, demon mages, etc., and some characters familiar to domestic players, such as Monkey Brother, Diao Chan, Zhao Yun, etc., have also been redesigned. Take the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan version of the Legend duel as an example, almost all the heroes are different from the mainland version. The painting style is based on the European and American style, which is highly accepted by local players, and most of the heroes make up characters, redesigning the image, identity, background and lines for the heroes.

IP cooperation, overseas versions reached a cooperation with DC Comics in May this year to launch new heroes of the DC comic system, such as Batman. By taking advantage of overseas players' love for DC comics, it has achieved the goal of lowering the threshold for games to enter overseas markets.

for different regions, Tencent basically chooses to hand over its products to" its own people "who have some influence in the issuing region. This may be due to Tencent's consideration of maintaining the overseas distribution control of" Arena of Valor ".

for example, in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and Southeast Asian markets, Tencent handed over the "legendary showdown" to Singapore-based distributor Garena, while Taiwan media DIGI TIMES said Garena had a Tencent investment background. In South Korea, Tencent handed over "for kakao" to Netmarble, which owns kakao, South Korea's largest social networking platform, and Tencent is its third-largest shareholder. Proxima Beta, the publisher in charge of the European market, is actually the developer account of Tencent.

< strong > has made achievements in going out to sea, but there are also hidden dangers < / strong >

although "Arena of Valor" is still in the exploratory stage in the western market, it is still in the harvest stage in the Asian market. Among them, the Southeast Asian market and the South Korean market are strong, basically occupying the top of the download list from the launch. The European market is in its infancy. At present, the "Arena of Valor" Facebook account has 460000 followers, and Google Play has recorded downloads of between 100 and 5 million.

on the other hand, although the results of going out to sea are closely related to the depth of localization of the game, at the same time of localization, the overseas operation of" Arena of Valor "also has to face problems such as being unable to operate globally and not being connected between regions. Some industry insiders believe that the overseas version of "Arena of Valor" has different heroes and different skill settings, and the interoperability between different versions may be small, which may lead to regional isolation, and as an e-sports game, when conducting global competitions, such isolation will increase the difficulty of cross-regional exchanges and competitions, which to a certain extent limits the globalization of the e-sports brand of the game.

maybe when we mention Tencent's "Arena of Valor" in the future, we can only say that Tencent has several excellent MOBA mobile games, but it cannot say that it has a successful global e-sports product.

Edit: mary