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How to succeed LOL in Japan.

Sinmai Papa·1/3/2015, 5:49:23 PM·51 votes·22,924 views
How to succeed LOL in Japan(English) - Google Docs

(Please forgive if posting here is a wrong way to speak my opinion. and sorry for my strange English too. )

Hello , I’m one of Japanese players.

Today I would like to talk about what I found by playing with 20 Japanese players and how to succeed LOL service in Japan. Well , I can’t talk about Japanese players below 25years old.

Firstly I invited 10freinds to this game. And some of those friends also invited their friends like me. Totally we got 20members including me. All of them are around 25-35 years old. Everyone is a office worker execpt 1member. All of us started this game at season4. 9 of 20 members reached Level30. 7 of them finished placement match in ranked. The result is goldx1(me),silverx3,bronzex3. Recently , most of them are playing less than 1hour a day since season4 is finished. I made a document for the detail of those members below. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TY3nKcLwET8Jm9z9vqumuMtfMmnTW_Z6EoVJVqSlEQY&authuser=0

-What kind of Japanese player will like to LOL ? I think any type of Japanese gamers will like LOL since LOL has coop mode.The most of Japanese prefer coop-game to pvp-game. They will like coop mode in LOL. But when they become stronger than intermediate bots , they can’t enjoy AI game anymore. So some of them who really loves coop will leave LOL. And its not easy to move to pvp from coop for Japanese. Because everyone who loves coop will feel high pressure when they try pvp, especially ranked pvp. They might be afraid of losing or being blamed.

-What is weak point for LOL to start business in Japan? LOL doesnt look enjoyable when we see trailer or gameplay since its rule is a bit complecated. It looks really moddest(or sobor?plain?) compared to Recent 3D video game. It can not be solved by summoner’s rift visual refresh since it is caused not only due to 3D visual but also due to game system. And the most players can’t understand the rule even after playing tutorials. The fun of LOL is well understood only if player can play it many times. That tutorial is a kind of boring game , I alywas say it to my friends “Dont play tutorials , its a kind of **** , just go to coop game ASAP”.

-What advertisement/marketing must be done when LOL starts service in Japan (1)advertise as Coop game In Japanese culture , Coop game is preffered to Versus game. This can be easily understood by seeing the fact that MonsterHunter(CoopGame) is very popular in Japan. There is no verus mode in MonsterHunter, Only AI can be enemy. But Japanese really like it. Because Japanese tends to avoid arguing , if they fight against AI , all of players will become winner at the same time(or loser at the same time). So its always win-win or lose-lose. If there is more difficult game than intermediate , duration between starting and leaving LOL will be longer for Japanese. (But Nightmare bot will not allowed). Japanese player will join LOL If they notice that LOL is a coop game which 5players can play at the same time. Japanese are always looking for a good coop-game , and LOL deserve it. Actually players who I invited were also playing LOL till late at night from when they finish their work. But when they became near lv30 , they felt AI was weak and no interest at coop , some of them left LOL. Since Many Japanese tends to dislike versus game , Coop should be advertised more than versus. And After playing coop , versus should be suggested to them. But many of them will not challenge versus-game.

(2)MMORPG players should be incited Most Japanese loves MMORPG , esipecially outlook view like Ragnarok Online is preffered more than 1st persion view like FPS. Thus LOL will easily be acceptted by Japanese players since its view is silmilar to MMORPG. Players with 3D sickness can play LOL. and Women who dont like intense 3D view switch can also play it. A homework is how LOL can attract players who love MMORPG. So their pride must be incited. They are MMORPG lover , and at the same time they are regard themselves as MMORPG expert. LOL should say below to them “LOL has the same control system as MMORPG. You can identify if you are really good at MMORPG or not by playing LOL. if you can reach gold ranked or above at 1st season , you are really good at MMORPG. But if you are at silver , you are just an average. And if you are bronze , you are not skillful , just your character is strong in your favorite MMORPG.”
It doesn’t matter if its true or not. The point is inciting their pride or not. Then some of them will play LOL to protect their pride. And it will also make them be interested in pvp. But this message is really risky since some of them will think its rude. So To reduce this risk , making cartoon is really effective. (It will described later)

(3)LOL can play free , money can’t buy win ratio Many Japanese is tired of seeing billing system of Japanese free-to-pay game. Because the most player strongly think that money can buy win-ratio. So if LOL advertise their sytems as “win ratio depends on your skill , not on your money” , Japanese players will be surprised. If you have a chance , you can say “we dont have any mind to get money” or “LOL is running by volunteer”. The point is how you can suprise them.

(4)Depends on your sense , not on your play length When we play network-game , the most office-worker players feel so sorry that they can’t win against student players since student can play much time more than them. So LOL is really nice system that doesn’t depends on playing length but their skill/sense/intelligence. So advertising like “Your intelligence will decide win or lose” is also fine. Some Japanese players avoid if a game’s result depends on “skill” since they feel the game is difficult for casual users. But Many people try to play if they hear the result depends on their intelligence.

(5)Low spec computer is fine Not many Japanese players buy a computer for playing PC video game. Mostly Japanese buy PS3/PS4/WiiU/etc if they want to play a video game. If LOL require high spec PC , its really difficult to find a player who has enough spec PC. One of reason that once Ragnarok Online was really popular in Japan was the game can be played by low-spec PC. In Japan , if we watch PC video game , everyone always thinks that high-spec PC is necessary. They will avoid it like “I can’t play with my low spec PC….”. So advertising like “Low spec PC can play LOL!” is effective in Japan. By the way ,Some of us said that 1st impression of new summoner’s rift was really bad. Because champion model and new map didn’t match. And the new map looks toy and childish. And the worst problem is PC spec for LOL became a bit higher than previous map.

(6)Marking Cartoon

If LOL service can start with LOL cartoon, ratio of success in Japan will be higher. I would like to explain the reason here.

Firstly , collaboration with cartoon is really effective. Recently “Attack on Titan” and “Yokai Watch” became really popula thanks to the cartoon. And cartoon is required for the marketing/advertising below

(A)Send chalenging message to players by low-risk Many Japanese preffered coop to versus. Some of them avoid versus game. But even avoiding versus game , they surely have a pride like “I’m expert of playing game” So if we want to make the players who dont like versus-game play LOL , we need incite their pride. But as I said it’s really risky to advertise like “you can identify your skill by playing LOL because…” . Some people will think its rude. But if you send those message by using cartoon characters , we can incite them without risk. The advertising message which is really necccessary and risky should be sent by cartoon.

(B)They will spend 30mins for cartoon For making people have interest for LOL , to make them play LOL is difficult. Its required some hours for instalattion and 30min VDT work required health. But making them watch the cartoon is realy easiler than it. Just lie down in front of TV and watch it. Its easier.

(C)Emphasize low spec requirement and free-to-play If the story is like below , you can send a message of low-spec-requirement and free-to-play. -The leading character in the cartoon is really poor and has no PC -One day he found a low spec PC in garbage area -When he turned on the PC , LOL was installed already. -He just clicked it as curious. -Blah blah blah

(D)Rule explanation by cartoon Understanding the rule of LOL only by 30mins is really difficult. And its also difficult to find fun only by 30mins. At least a few hours is neccessary for them. But if cartoon can explain them , they will learn it by watching LOL

(E)Easy to make the best fight in every story If LOL become cartoon , one of problem is how you can make the best groovy fight in every story. But fortunatelly , LOL has a lot of “outplay” saved in youtube. We can find many of them everywhere. So if somebody try the best fight , just copy it. Then action part of the cartoon will be legendary. This is really big advantage.

By the way , what is NOT important when LOL service starts in Japan is who will be those voice actors. If voice actor’s level is stable , whoever is fine for the most Japanese players. Casual Players never care about voice actors. Only small group will care about it. Success/Fail of LOL does NOT depend on voice actors.

And if LOL become cartoon , there is a good/bad example below. (I watched those cartoon less than 5min , but I know which one is better for LOL)

Good Example Cardfight!! Vanguard!!！http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/cf-vanguard/ One little boy will learn a rule of the cardfight and be stronger. This is good example how you can make people learn the rules.

Bad Example Disk-wars avenragers http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/dw_avengers/ Visual taste is like american cartoon. Japanese dont like it since it looks really old fashioned. And if leading character will fight instead of heros , basic rule and fun will not be explained by the cartoon. Please dont make the cartoon like this.

[Other general suggesion for game mode and system.]

-100% No communication mode One of my friends said “ LOL is fun , but sometimes I dont wanna play LOl since other players speaking ill of everyone everytime. I wanna play LOL PVP after finishing my work as refreshment , but those player make me tired. They are claiming even in ARAM!!” So sometimes I wonder if there is a game mode without any communication such as chat in game , chat after game , dance , taunt. Nobody can’t say anything even after winning/losing. Then my friend might play a game after finishing work.

-20min/30min mode Lengh of this game is always not sure. Sometimes we can’t play a game since it will finish within 30mins or not. So If we only have 30mins to play a game , we want to play a game which finish within 30min. So 30min mode/20min mode is one of idea for solving this problem. For example , game length is already decided before the game. And at 30min , game will forcibly finish. After the finish , both team’s money will be checked. If team’s money is larger than opponent , that team will win. Or maybe destroy object number will decide a game. (etc). For office worker and married person with kids and those kind of people , they are looking for a game which they can play with short duration. And its also very nice practice system for everyone. Because usually win/lose is decided within 20min. So The most important time of this game is first 20mins.

-Game matching tag In Japan , if they are big group , they tend to like play only with their friends. But custom game has a IP/XP restriction. So LoL is not good at playing only with friends. If custom game overload the server , how about adding “tag” in normal game? Then people will match with the same tag. Then current normal system will include such a custom game. -Repaly System I heard that Replay system overload the server very much. Then how about keeping the replay log only 5minutes after a game finish. Player can download the log only within 5minutes. And sell the log for 100IP (or 20RP). Because everyone wants to save the replay log even by paying money when they did really well in a game. Replay log is one of chance to make money for Riot.

-Mystery Rune(IP Only) In Japan , Some people loves a system like mistery box. Some of them are doing not for items but for opening box. So opening box itself became a motivation for mystery box. Some people will play a game for earning IP to open mystery rune.

[What I feel about LCS] -As a show business , LCS is a bit boring (for casual player like me) since champion combination is alwasy similar. I just want to see many champions which are not popular. So how about changing ban/pick systems? Good example is Pokemon matching system. They always show 6pokemons and choose only 3pokemons secrecly. Lets combine LOL and Pokemon systems. Firstly ban 6champions , secondary pick 3Champions for each players , then ban 10champions , finally choose 10champs secretly. (3ban x2 -> 10pick x3 -> 5ban x2) Or just make a rule which not allow a team to pick the same champion at the same week.

Thank you for your reading ! By the way , what I am regret is I completely forgot to use "refer a freind" when I invited those friends. So I lost a chance to buy draven ward! Its really cool ! XD

48 Comments

RiotL4T3NCY1/3/2015, 10:52:40 PM22 votes

Heya dude, cheers for taking the time to collect your thoughts into such a huge post. ^_^ Some of the points you've made here are potentially even region agnostic and could apply to anywhere.

Yeah, I still lol at that Draven ward too. :D

redniwediS1/3/2015, 6:01:22 PM10 votes

Well this is an interesting read. There's really only one thing I feel I need to bring up, and it's about the start of your post.

and sorry for my strange English too

If you're skilled enough with a language to add this to your post you're probably skilled enough for it to be unnecessary. I honestly cannot think of a time where someone apologized for their English skills and actually had bad English, and this is still true after reading your post. Your writing is more than adequate.

Cindikle1/3/2015, 9:01:09 PM5 votes

Interesting read. I always thought Japan liked PvP more as I hear fighting games are big there. But I guess as it's the only PvP I really hear much about it should of been more obvious to me. Honestly sounds like Japan will see a lot more "jungle or feed" than "mid or feed" with that in mind. Feels kind of weird to think about it.

A PvE mode that people have been wanting for a while is a survival one that Japan may enjoy for a challenge when they are bored of bots. Maybe giving it a tower defense system. A system like Sanctum would be cool to see.

League Anime would also be something other regions would enjoy. I know there are some heavy anime haters on these boards, but it will come with some good up sides.

  • It would solidify the lore. Even if they tried changing things ahead. People would probably ignore the change and go with the Anime. If some people did change it would split the community. Something Riot wouldn't want. Something to make lore more permanent would be a huge win for the lore fans and anime fans alike.
  • If it's good, people will see it on other sites to find league. Sword Art Online, while overhyped, is good and well known. If a game came out made after it that didn't suck, it would hardly need to advertise much to be successful.

Last thing I want to talk about is Voice Communication. Riot plz. Toxic players will be toxic. The problem is the player, not the tool. If a player spends 50% of a game muted by their whole team, multiple games, there should be a flag for Riot to look into this player. If a player can't handle Voice Comm they shouldn't be in Ranked. Then again i think Ranked should be more restricted than this it is with harsher punishments to trolls. Ranked should be about the competition. Not the KDA or your MMR. It should be about looking for a challenging game. Which is what it's built for.

CupcakeTrap1/4/2015, 12:06:55 AM5 votes

Only if you can say よろしくお願いします to your jungler when you leash blue for them at the start.

(Yoroshiku onegaishimasu is an all-purpose "I look forward to working with you" expression, literally "please treat me kindly", used humorously often in Japan.)

Raptamei1/3/2015, 6:47:57 PM5 votes

It appears that the Japanese gaming market is somewhat... specific. There are few games coming out of Japan that aren't obviously "Japanese games", as in either Final Fantasy derivatives or weird stuff like Katamari Damacy. I imagine the cultural barrier works the other way round as well. For instance, co-op is something nobody in the West cares about.

In the end, Japan may be the weirdest country in the world, but it's still just one country, one that is much more console oriented than PC oriented, and therefore Riot may not prioritise it.

Based on your suggestions, I think you may actually be looking for Dota 2 instead of League. It has a better pick/ban system and much more intelligent bots that are actually difficult for non-expert players. The only thing is that, at least a year or so ago, you couldn't type Japanese into the chat.

Lord Dusteon1/3/2015, 6:03:00 PM4 votes

Was a interesting and great read, I hope some Rioters see this.

FloweyTheFlower1/3/2015, 6:20:49 PM3 votes

nice post and also don't be sorry about your English if you can speak or type in multi languages that's really impressive

The Chooch1/4/2015, 5:40:32 AM3 votes

Well the Japanese have one thing right. LCS meta is stale and makes it boring.

Thryale1/4/2015, 7:34:25 AM3 votes

let me start out with saying I greatly appreciate both the effort and earnestness that went into this. it's great to see players truly want to see league succeed in other countries.

also, I fully understand that different cultures have different values as far as what they enjoy and what marketing techniques are necessary to get mass appeal.

that being said, and don't take this the wrong way, but it is somewhat presumptuous to come and tell a game whose core system and strength is pvp that pvp won't succeed, and that its weakest aspect (coop vs ai) should be the main aspect. that's like telling a Japanese idol group like the akb that for them to really succeed in America is to sing country or heavy metal. (I'm exaggerating)

that aside, I'm not completely against what you said. I do agree that, as for what little I know, the Japanese gaming culture is definitely more coop oriented than it is here in America.

also, it has been a known issue for years that leagues new player experience is extremely poor. In fact, when I first joined league, I had only the one tutorial with Ashe, then I just jumped straight into a 3v3 match with Annie. (never ulted once due to being afraid of not being able to do so again) however, I don't think I'd trade those early first few games for anything, as I loved figuring things out for myself.

RiotGilg1/6/2015, 10:28:24 AM3 votes

Thank you very much for this post, this kind of feedback is very valuable.

We're looking for more feedback and discussion from players in Japan. One of the rioters here in Japan has already sent you a friend request, and we'll send more information by mail soon.

If you have time for it, we'd love to hear more from you.

Angry Monster1/4/2015, 12:16:25 AM3 votes

league as co op is not how the game is designed to be played. The fact most japense are PVE instead of PVP is stumbling block.

TheKingDodo1/4/2015, 5:08:09 AM3 votes

inb4 10 ping japanese server... meanwhile in east NA...

Ternt1/4/2015, 6:08:41 AM2 votes

NICE! I had actually stopped playing Ragnarok Online not too long ago myself. Such a good game in its prime.

HOryShiet1/3/2015, 6:17:42 PM2 votes

Good for you. I read this for the intelligence. I will not be disappointed!

Migrañaboy1/4/2015, 12:31:29 AM2 votes

Really simple, make vidya, animú and mango of waifus and Japan is sold.

CommandShockwave1/3/2015, 9:16:12 PM2 votes

Your English may be somewhat broken, but it's still perfectly understandable, a lot more so than most. Well done, and very interesting read.

ImHerVoice1/3/2015, 7:16:22 PM2 votes

My girlfriend who's japanese has the same mindset as you guys. She's more of a Co-Op gamer herself so she prefers bots.

atm we play blade and soul and tera together. I try to get her into pvp for LoL but the community is full toxicity. Sometimes the toxicity even enters bot games. Its really disgusting. But hey thats what riot supports, casuals.

Arcane Ezreal1/7/2015, 10:36:01 AM1 votes

i live in NA but near exclusively play with people in japan, some random thoughts

  • LoL just doesnt seem to fit the types of games that popular there; hand-held/on mobile, light-user friendly, pay2win.
  • On voice actors, although i agree theyre not that necessary, i dont think it would hurt to use popular ones. There are people that are, uh, very into certain ones, and i dont know how large the number is, but some people will try the game because of it.
  • You can say anime instead of cartoon and we'll understand what it means lol
  • The fairly large name-and-shame culture (idk what to call it, 晒し) , i dont know if it matters, but i can already imagine huge threads of people naming feeders they had in their games
  • Splash arts. Certain old ones, im pretty sure a lot of people wont like.

翻訳とか手伝えるよ～

Pvt Yong Tai1/3/2015, 8:45:09 PM1 votes

There are some excellent idea in here. I especially like the 1st party game log idea. However, 5 minutes seems way too short of a time. If someone disconnects and can't connect in that 5 minutes there will be tears. I suggest making the holding time longer. This is easily accomplished by not setting it to a time, but simply holding a specific number of recent games (CSGO holds the past 6 games afaik, but even the past 2 or 3 games is good enough).

The Epicer ONe1/3/2015, 10:03:28 PM1 votes

add a tldr btu skiming it seemed cool

UnstpblBronzodia1/4/2015, 12:57:40 AM1 votes

If LOL service can start with LOL cartoon, ratio of success in Japan will be higher.

Sorta like what Pokemon did in America. Cartoon first to build awareness and popularity before the game arrived.

League anime! Riot pls!

(Though with the lore's current state, I can't see any LoL storyline making any kind of sense.)

D0nC1/4/2015, 2:57:58 AM1 votes

Wow, I didn't know the state of gaming in Japan was this bad, you guys used to be hardcore.

OceanBIues1/4/2015, 7:46:02 AM1 votes

Really hope that they can get a server up and running over here soon, I've been getting a lot of very strange packet loss recently that makes the game borderline unplayable. It's weird really, my ping is the same 150ms that it always is here in Tokyo, which isn't ideal at all, however just recently since last patch my character model disappears and all sorts of whacky stuff happens and I reappear dead or my keystrokes don't register, and players reappear in new locations.. it's craziness. I've only been playing smurf games because of this, and it's hard to even win those right now. My FPS and ping are both the same, and my ISP is the same after analysis on that as well. Really not sure what's going on recently here with League.. :(

NorthernDruid1/4/2015, 2:33:53 PM1 votes

Let me bring the Dominion game mode to your attention

It's different than the classic summoner's rift, it's much shorter (~20 min) and the bots do a lot better than the summoner's rift ones.

RisingDecent1/5/2015, 9:38:08 AM1 votes

hi! im also playing from japan. I would like to play with you guys:)))

WingsofGulgazor1/5/2015, 10:15:27 AM1 votes

ya I like the idea of no communication mode. I litterally think that every account should have no chat logs until lvl 20 or something because if your truly new to the game you won't have much to say for tactics or anything and hardly anyone uses the chat for anything beneficial until you get to higher tier play. If anything they could have something after the game where players could give notes on thing you can do better or something. or if anything have no communication mode an option that you could turn on or off. Because to be honest league is sometimes so toxic at times it just turns players away from the game so that even though no communication might possibly be bad the toxicity and the fact that people leave over it is a bigger problem I feel and this is a solution.

Woook3r1/6/2015, 5:55:50 PM1 votes

-20min/30min mode Lengh of this game is always not sure. Sometimes we can’t play a game since it will finish within 30mins or not. So If we only have 30mins to play a game , we want to play a game which finish within 30min. So 30min mode/20min mode is one of idea for solving this problem. For example , game length is already decided before the game. And at 30min , game will forcibly finish. After the finish , both team’s money will be checked. If team’s money is larger than opponent , that team will win. Or maybe destroy object number will decide a game. (etc). For office worker and married person with kids and those kind of people , they are looking for a game which they can play with short duration. And its also very nice practice system for everyone. Because usually win/lose is decided within 20min. So The most important time of this game is first 20mins.

This is a particularly good point in my opinion.

TeemoHunter13371/3/2015, 5:58:24 PM1 votes

wtf