《王者荣耀》中美市场差异大

Culture clash: Why Arena of Valor is struggling in America

文化冲突：美国的《王者荣耀》为什么在挣扎

 

It's impossible to argue that Tencent's Honor of Kings isn't the biggest mobile game in the world right now.

不得不说腾讯的《王者荣耀》目前是世界最大手游。

 

In 2017, the mobile MOBA generated $1.9 billion in revenue and boasted 200 million active players in China alone. It became the focus of a new esports initiative called the King Pro League (KPL). Younger players even had their play time restricted by Tencent in July last year after government concerns about its impact.

2017年MOBA游戏创造了19亿美元的收益，单在中国就有2亿活跃玩家，它成为一个新的电子竞技赛事《王者荣耀职业联赛》的重点。去年7月政府担心该游戏的影响，腾讯甚至限制了年轻玩家的游戏时间。

 

 

Yet in the west, its sister title Arena of Valor is disappointingly plodding along. 

然而在西方，它的姊妹篇《王者荣耀》前景却不容乐观。

 

According to Sensor Tower, the game has taken six months to cross the one million install mark on both Google Play and the App Store in the country. 

据Sensor Tower（移动应用数据分析公司）称，该游戏花了6个月时间才拿下美国Google Play和App Store 100万的安装量。

 

Furthermore, it's only generated $3 million to date - less than Honor of Kings does in a single day domestically.

此外，截至目前收入仅为300万美元——低于《王者荣耀》在国内的单日收入。

 

Why then is Arena of Valor struggling in the US? 

那么《王者荣耀》在美国为什么没有打开市场？

 

 

 

Partially, it's a victim to market trends, but mostly it's a game lost in translation. By being stripped of China's unique cultural and market context, Arena of Valor lost much of what made Honor of Kings work, and has suffered in the process.

部分原因是受市场潮流影响，但主要还是该游戏变味了。没有了中国独特的文化和市场氛围，《王者荣耀》丢掉了很多促使其成功的要素，推广受阻。

 

Arena of Valor's comparative lack of success in the US market is not entirely down to an unfortunate release date. Instead, we can only understand its problems by looking at where Honor of Kings succeeded in China instead.

《王者荣耀》在美国市场相对来说不够成功也不能完全归咎于发布时机不对。我们只能通过分析其在中国的成功反观其存在的问题。

 

First, Honor of Kings genre choice fits much more naturally with the Chinese market than with the American market.

首先，《王者荣耀》题材的选择相比美国市场更自然地契合中国市场。

 

While MOBAs are popular in the US, in China they're a gaming phenomenon. Honor of Kings' enormous audience is complemented by Riot's League of Legends, which last reported an active player base of over 111 million players.

虽然MOBA游戏在美国大受欢迎，但在中国只是一种游戏现象，拳头（美国网游开发商）的《英雄联盟》为《王者荣耀》提供了巨大的用户基础，据最近报道《英雄联盟》的活跃玩家基数已突破1.11亿。

 

This market fit has benefitted Honor of Kings significantly. 

这一市场契合度对《王者荣耀》的成功意义重大。

 

By tapping into an already engaged audience with a mobile equivalent of a PC experience, it was well placed to both expand rapidly and follow a similar commercial direction to its PC counterpart.

借助PC端经验获得的积极的移动设备用户使该游戏既可以快速推广，又能遵循与PC端游戏相似的商业方向。

 

Second, Honor of Kings benefits because it is tapped much more closely into China's mobile infrastructure. 

其次，《王者荣耀》的成功在于它更贴近中国移动基础设施。

 

 

 

Although Arena of Valor uses Facebook to connect players, Honor of Kings' connection with Tencent's QQ and WeChat goes much deeper than idle sharing. 

虽然《王者荣耀》可以通过Facebook连接玩家，但中国版可以将腾讯的QQ和微信用户的联系深入到休闲分享中。

 

Instead, Tencent's exceedingly popular chat apps - each boasting hundreds of millions of users - fully power the social aspect of the game by allowing players to see who is online, invite players to games and discuss strategies.

腾讯这两个热门社交聊天应用中每个都拥有上亿用户，玩家可以看到谁在线，邀请玩家加入游戏并讨论策略，这充分发挥了该游戏的社交作用。

 

Both services act, in essence, like a platform to drive engagement and push up its player bases. 

其实这两个应用都成为了推动参与和扩大玩家基础的平台。