[Guest Post] Online Games in Indonesia and Their Monetization

Editor : Today's topic is gaming, an industry that knows no age and continues to exist in various forms from consoles to social mobile gaming. The most important question for gaming startups, how is it monetized? Here Didiet from OneBit Media will try to share insights about the gaming business model in Indonesia.

There is something interesting about the recent social media phenomenon in Indonesia. Some platforms are starting to declare themselves as gaming platforms (game) on line. Friendster, as written in dailysocial blog a social media platform that has been on the rise and is very popular in Indonesia,launch herself as online gaming platforms. Apart from Friendster,mig33 which has tens of millions of users in Southeast Asia began planning to sell virtual goods in the Asian market and move office to Singapore. Even Nokia held Game Developers War what I saw was quite successful in capturing and publishing the seeds of potential local Indonesian game developers.

The step into the game industry, I was quite logical considering that a website or platform now can't just rely on the number of hits alone. Other parameters such as hang time also determines how attractive a website or platform is in the eyes of the user, and games are the most effective way to keep users from using the website/platform. One of the keys to Facebook's success is the existence of games made by Zynga on the platform that successfully attract new users to become Facebookers and also provide added value to Facebook. existing users by providing media engagement through online games.

Basically, online games are not new in Indonesia. Game publishers like Lyto who managed to take billions of rupiah in revenue from Ragnarok Online, Rising Force Online, and many more. There are more Megaxus who was successful with Audition Online which was branded in Indonesia under the name ComeDance, and the most recent that the author knows is Point Blank published by Gemscool. Maybe their names are less popular in the Indonesian startup world, considering that most Indonesian startups are web-based, but their monetization model is one of the most successful in Indonesia. Issues such as the absence of an online payment system and the low adoption of credit cards have not prevented them from monetizing their users, apart from having a community of thousands of members.

The way they monetize players is using the most familiar method in Indonesian society, namely sales virtual goods. They also issue vouchers in several nominal amounts, both physical vouchers and through gateways such as GudangVoucher (GV), IndoMOG and similar services. The voucher can be exchanged for cash or coins to be later exchanged for cash virtual goods in their game. This virtual goods method is more attractive to the Indonesian people than subscribing (subscription). With salesvirtual goods they can promise their game free for lifetime but requires certain items to make it easier to conquer the game, or just to beautify the avatar like what happened in Audition/ Ayodance. Yes, a wide variety of beautiful accessories and blink-blink will increase the prestige of the character holder.

And to note, the company is a publisher where they are only allowed to market their games in certain areas. Usually only for the Indonesian market. Yes local market which has been echoed in various developer events and business events. Why? Because they are publishers, not developers. Almost all of the games they publish are games from Korea such as Gravity, Korean CCR and NCSoft. Publisher must hold regional license to be able to sell/publish the game. Their options are limited. For example, have regional license Indonesia. So, the publisher must close access to Singapore and Malaysia, for example, and only serve the local Indonesian market. And they are profitable. You can imagine the opportunities available for local Indonesian developers to monetize their games in their own market. The mentality of “ah local market, the products are so-so, after all this local market” does not apply in this industry. In fact, local players are used to high-quality imported games, both original and pirated. They have no mercy for low quality games. Even though we are working on the local market, the products we have to build are products that must have ready quality go global.

With the emergence of this game platform, complete with monetization methods, both vouchers and credit cuts. I hope that local game developers can serve their own market. Without relying on the existence of a payment gateway that is practical and easy in Indonesia, which until now has lacked traction in my opinion, local developers can still make products that host themselves and support themselves.

Muhammad Sumyandityo Noor, better known as Didiet. CTO of Onebitmedia Web & Mobile Agency and Producer at GuavaGames. He has been in the animation and game industry since 2006, is a Lead Developer in one of the Korean online game licensors in Indonesia from 2007-2010. Now living in Yogyakarta. Follow him on twitter @lynxluna

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