Japanese LiveOpsDesigning Effective Live events

Fawzi MesmarCreative Director

ABOUT MEA passionate game designer with over 12 years of experience in the industry, During his career Fawzi has shipped over 20 games (PC, Xbox360, XBLA, GBA, Facebook, iOS and Android), many of them went to become big successes worldwide in many game development companies such as enish, Gameloft, Atlus and Aranim to name a few. Recent releases include: Mira Mira (kim Kardashian Hollywood Japanese Release), Ice Age Adventures, My little pony Friendship is magic, Littlest Petshop, Wonder Zoo and Persona 3 Social all multimillion player hits. One of the projects he was involved with – Minion Rush – is on the top 10 most downloaded iOS games of all time, while my little pony is among the top grossing games in NZ history.

Currently the Creative Director at enish inc in Tokyo, Japan.

Fawzi Mesmar

What’s a live event?Identifying characteristics and best practises for running live events on Free to play games

Events definition:

A special time limited gameplay driven campaigns that usually applies the games mechanics with new sets of goals, sometimes adds brand new mechanics for the players to receive exceptional rewards.

Event Announcements:

Events have a name and general theme.

Bigger events have a date that’s announced ahead of time!

Event Durations:

While most events run the duration of two weeks, some companies operate on monthly or even daily basis!

Event durations are clearly marked with dates and hours shared across all users.

Presentation:

Events have prominent displays in the game world.

Usually they take the form of special banners that transfer the user to the event dungeon or environment.

Personal goals:

Events always provide players with an objective that they can complete on their own using the game’s mechanics.

Global goals:

Most bigger events however have global server wide goals that everyone’s collective achievements contribute into getting that goal fulfilled.

Event Cycle

Events cycle the player through getting rare items, making them stronger into events that allow them to use those items in a meaningful way

Get

GrowUse

Community engagement Japanese Live-Ops set global standards in customer service and community engagement

Tie ins

Most companies in Japan find huge success in collaborating with other companies in Tie in events that use popular IPs in their game.

Notice board:

The method of communication between the live operations team and the audience. Usually applies web view technology that allows the team to alter the content server side without resubmitting the app.

SNS

In addition to the notice board the live operations team send important information to their core audience through their SNS channels such as Twitter, YouTube and Instagram

Gift Box

it’s the primary method of receiving “item” rewards, be it from the CS team, other players or by achieving game specific goads such as completing events …etc

Rewards:

Rewards are acquired through events only

Rare items sometimes just pop up randomly

Event points (EP)

Different currency that allows players to cooperate, compete, get rankings and use to purchase items

Players come first

Excellence in customer service, 24 hour shifts, immediate response, compensation that is fair and personal

The Live Operations teamSimilar roles, smaller differences

Structure of the team

While very similar to it’s western counterparts, the Japanese live operations team is content driven with focus on user behaviour and transactions

Product Director

Game Designers

Narrative “Text” Designers

Server/Client Coders Artists

Live operations manager

Event Schedule

Not all games advertise their event schedule in advance, but all live operation teams will have similar time plans on which they work

East vs West

Content distribution: Shop VS Gacha & Events!

Events are platforms on which new content is delivered

Games as a Service

Japanese customers have come to expect exceptional service from game companies and it has become an integral part of it’s live services.

THANK YOUfawzi.mesmar@enish.comhttps://fawzimesmar.wordpress.com/+81 70 1414 8587