February 2nd, 2009 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Events & Conferences | 1 Comment »
Namco was also present at Mobile Monday to talk about their mobile games experience. Barry O'Neil talked about the Japanese market where his company is very successful.
One of the major reasons for Namco not to invest in Europe is the kickbacks. Here, the company has to be satisfied with 30% of the revenue. In Japan however, the company receives 90% of the revenue. It's unclear if this is through direct deals, or if there is still an aggregator that has to survive with a very small margin.
In the Japanese market, Namco is mainly operating under the Bandai brand. He showed an example of a mobile racing game that was connected via, what they call, Tekken-net. Through that connected server, multiplayer sessions are hosted and consumers can design complete avatars.
In order to extend their marketing activities, Namco will invest more into connections with social networks. Their latest braintrainer game is their first big example.
To clarify – at MoMo I was trying to show the range of revenue shares across the territories and make the comparison with Japan.
Namco in Europe has direct deals in most territories, so we don’t hit the 30% level. But even working at a 50%+ level, when you take into account the cost of dealing with the fragmentation it makes Europe one of the most difficult markets to operate in.
It is more difficult to innovate in Europe given the issues above and the risks they pose. Despite this we are investing in the market and remain fully committed to the Java business, which, like most of our competitors drives the majority of our sales.