Gaming Matters – part of the annual All That Matters conference – took off in Singapore yesterday with Kevin Lin, co-founder of the ever-growing streaming platform, Twitch, having a chat with CH Kim, the producer of one of the biggest battle royale games today: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, better known as PUBG.
Being in game development for about 17 years now, the South Korean took a big leap of faith by leaving the MMO scene. Now Kim is the CEO and Executive Producer of the company that created a game that took the gaming industry by storm. Here are some things that we learned from the keynote:
- Keep going, even after failing over and over again. After 16 years in the Korean games industry with multiple failed game releases, Kim took a step back and rather than focus on what was trending in Korea and continuing to attempt his local scene, he eyed the international market and focused on publishing worldwide rather than Korea-first.
- Games don’t need to be 100% complete to be successful. PUBG was first launched on Steam’s Early Access and garnered a following very quickly. With the help of the game’s community, PUBG grew to the massive game it is today, with over 5 million players on the battleground. Even to this day, new content is added and things are done to change up the experience for players all over the world.
- Don’t be afraid to use unconventional means to garner attention. When it came to marketing the game, Kim said that the company didn’t have the budget for traditional marketing methods. He instead, against the judgement of others, took to social media and worked with small to medium content creators to create hype for PUBG.
- Battle royale is a long way from becoming esports-able. When compared to games of other genres, battle royale games have a hundred players competing at once for a singular spot, rather than two or ten players which is easier to manage. However, there was a glimmer of hope in Berlin at the PUBG Global Invitational, which had 20 players fighting to become the winner, winner, chicken dinner (and getting US$2 million).
- Think outside the box. Kim saw the game as an online service rather than a standalone product to be sold and profited. As the internet advanced, gaming has changed and has become a service that continues to evolve. This perspective in games had started in Asia before the rest of the world
- Gaming trends are changing. With platforms like Twitch and YouTube becoming more and more popular, people have more of a tendency to watch content creators play a game their interested in first before purchasing the game for themselves. A recent trend has shown that more and more content creators want to create their own stories when playing games, using sandbox-style games rather than an RPG with a linear storyline.
- Parting advice from Kim: remember that games are a form of entertainment. In order to create a successful game, you need to make it fun. You have to make something that is fun for you, but also think about how many other people would find it fun too if you want to make it profitable. Don’t forget to have a great team behind you to help you create the game that you want to make.
Stay tuned right here for more coverage from Singapore’s All That Matters, which runs until 12th September 2018. For more details head to their official website.
To get to Singapore for the conference from Australia, we travelled courtesy of Scoot, and stayed at the Oasia Hotel Novena.
