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Episode 11 of this highly successful series brings James Sun back to China, Shanghai. In this episode, he meets up with entrepreneur Lan Hai Wen, who heads a video-gaming company called Ultizen Games. Ultizen is in charge of producing and marketing games for adults and children, but the Company recently was awarded a contract (thanks to the CEO’s networks and contacts) to produce and develop a children’s game, for the Chinese mass market. As can be imagined, the potential is huge as China has a very large child population, and if the game takes off it could elevate Ultizen to a whole new level.
However, as with all businesses, it is prudent to check out the competition first. The video gaming industry is large and fragmented and there are many companies which are muscling in to grab a piece of the lucrative pie. Ultizen is purportedly one of the larger gaming companies in Shanghai, but it is difficult to grab the leadership position as people’s tastes keep changing and the industry has to continually churn out new games and software to keep consumers interested. There is also not much product and brand differentiation as people usually just buy the game without bothering much about the company behind it (as well as the legions of developers who helped produce it). I can safely say this because I used to be a gamer too, and seriously I cared more about the content and graphics than the actual gaming company (OK, maybe except Blizzard which produced Diablo II)!
James checks out the Ultizen office where the programmers, software engineers and developers are busy at work. Most of them reported experiencing quite a bit of stress as this was Ultizen’s first major project and everyone as under pressure to deliver an excellent product on time. Some of the staff also complained of not having enough guidance to work on a child’s game and some had no clue as to where or how to begin. Ultizen made the software engineers watch hours and hours of Chinese cartoons to better understand what children look for in a computer game, but James finds it strange that no children were consulted or interviews done with kids during the game development phase. Hai Wen mentions that this would not be feasible as the game was targeted at children, and so had to be worked on by adults. James looks rather sceptical when he hears this. Read more...
[caption id="attachment_2931" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Photo by Kyle May"][/caption]
Episode 11 of this highly successful series brings James Sun back to China, Shanghai. In this episode, he meets up with entrepreneur Lan Hai Wen, who heads a video-gaming company called Ultizen Games. Ultizen is in charge of producing and marketing games for adults and children, but the Company recently was awarded a contract (thanks to the CEO’s networks and contacts) to produce and develop a children’s game, for the Chinese mass market. As can be imagined, the potential is huge as China has a very large child population, and if the game takes off it could elevate Ultizen to a whole new level.
However, as with all businesses, it is prudent to check out the competition first. The video gaming industry is large and fragmented and there are many companies which are muscling in to grab a piece of the lucrative pie. Ultizen is purportedly one of the larger gaming companies in Shanghai, but it is difficult to grab the leadership position as people’s tastes keep changing and the industry has to continually churn out new games and software to keep consumers interested. There is also not much product and brand differentiation as people usually just buy the game without bothering much about the company behind it (as well as the legions of developers who helped produce it). I can safely say this because I used to be a gamer too, and seriously I cared more about the content and graphics than the actual gaming company (OK, maybe except Blizzard which produced Diablo II)!
James checks out the Ultizen office where the programmers, software engineers and developers are busy at work. Most of them reported experiencing quite a bit of stress as this was Ultizen’s first major project and everyone as under pressure to deliver an excellent product on time. Some of the staff also complained of not having enough guidance to work on a child’s game and some had no clue as to where or how to begin. Ultizen made the software engineers watch hours and hours of Chinese cartoons to better understand what children look for in a computer game, but James finds it strange that no children were consulted or interviews done with kids during the game development phase. Hai Wen mentions that this would not be feasible as the game was targeted at children, and so had to be worked on by adults. James looks rather sceptical when he hears this. Read more...
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Episode 11 of this highly successful series brings James Sun back to China, Shanghai. In this episode, he meets up with entrepreneur Lan Hai Wen, who heads a video-gaming company called Ultizen Games. Ultizen is in charge of producing and marketing games for adults and children, but the Company recently was awarded a contract (thanks to the CEO’s networks and contacts) to produce and develop a children’s game, for the Chinese mass market. As can be imagined, the potential is huge as China has a very large child population, and if the game takes off it could elevate Ultizen to a whole new level.
However, as with all businesses, it is prudent to check out the competition first. The video gaming industry is large and fragmented and there are many companies which are muscling in to grab a piece of the lucrative pie. Ultizen is purportedly one of the larger gaming companies in Shanghai, but it is difficult to grab the leadership position as people’s tastes keep changing and the industry has to continually churn out new games and software to keep consumers interested. There is also not much product and brand differentiation as people usually just buy the game without bothering much about the company behind it (as well as the legions of developers who helped produce it). I can safely say this because I used to be a gamer too, and seriously I cared more about the content and graphics than the actual gaming company (OK, maybe except Blizzard which produced Diablo II)!
James checks out the Ultizen office where the programmers, software engineers and developers are busy at work. Most of them reported experiencing quite a bit of stress as this was Ultizen’s first major project and everyone as under pressure to deliver an excellent product on time. Some of the staff also complained of not having enough guidance to work on a child’s game and some had no clue as to where or how to begin. Ultizen made the software engineers watch hours and hours of Chinese cartoons to better understand what children look for in a computer game, but James finds it strange that no children were consulted or interviews done with kids during the game development phase. Hai Wen mentions that this would not be feasible as the game was targeted at children, and so had to be worked on by adults. James looks rather sceptical when he hears this. Read more...
