Gala-Net VP John Young on readying Asian MMOs for the North American market

There are a lot of successful MMORPGs in the North American gaming market these days, and quite a few of them have their roots in Asian MMORPGs. One of these is Gala-Net‘s Fly For Fun (also known as Flyff). The company is also planning to bring a Korean multiplayer car combat game called Upshift StrikeRacer to the U.S.

What’s the key behind this Asian MMO invasion? According to John Young, Gala-Net‘s new corporate vice president of corporations and former Massive Incorporated exec, success lies in careful cultural changes. In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Young said,

If you were to literally translate the game’s dialogue without creatively thinking about it, it might not turn out so well. You have to ‘culturalize’ it as well. With Upshift we renamed it [the original game is called Accro Xtreme in Korea], added a new graphical look, new characters, and new music and sounds.

Young also noted that these changes aren’t always easy to implement since the technology for Korean games is getting increasingly complex. “The Korean market offers a lot of technical innovation, that is their strength,” said Young. “We are adding ours.”

Via Gamasutra

There are a lot of successful MMORPGs in the North American gaming market these days, and quite a few of them have their roots in Asian MMORPGs. One of these is Gala-Net‘s Fly For Fun (also known as Flyff). The company is also planning to bring a Korean multiplayer car combat game called Upshift StrikeRacer to the U.S.

What’s the key behind this Asian MMO invasion? According to John Young, Gala-Net‘s new corporate vice president of corporations and former Massive Incorporated exec, success lies in careful cultural changes. In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Young said,

If you were to literally translate the game’s dialogue without creatively thinking about it, it might not turn out so well. You have to ‘culturalize’ it as well. With Upshift we renamed it [the original game is called Accro Xtreme in Korea], added a new graphical look, new characters, and new music and sounds.

Young also noted that these changes aren’t always easy to implement since the technology for Korean games is getting increasingly complex. “The Korean market offers a lot of technical innovation, that is their strength,” said Young. “We are adding ours.”

Via Gamasutra