On May 14, UQSOFT officially introduced the Storm Age mobile game in Russia. App2Top.ru I asked the regional manager of the company about the project and whether they were afraid of a lawsuit from uCool.
For reference, Storm Age is a three-dimensional analog of Heroes Charge with a “construction” part a la Summoners War.
Margarita Teplyakova answered the questions.
Hi! Tell me, please, first of all about the company?
Margarita Teplyakova
UQSOFT is a company that publishes mobile games.
However, now we have started looking at browser games and projects for social networks.
The company is headquartered in Singapore, but has offices in China, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan and Russia. Now we are also planning to open representative offices in Europe and North America.
Are you entering the global market, it turns out?
That’s right. The fact is that UQSOFT is headed by those people who used to work at Perfect World [a major Chinese MMO developer, author of the MMORPG series of the same name, as well as Neverwinter, – Approx. editorial offices]. And they want their new company to be no less global.
Do you develop games yourself too?
No, we only act as a publisher. Third-party independent studios are responsible for the development.
Who exactly is responsible for the development of Storm Age?
The young Beijing studio Camel Games [authors of the popular Little Empire series, – Approx. editorial offices]. It is small, as far as I know, less than 20 people work there: they sit and make Storm Age, which, by the way, is based on the Unity engine.
A screenshot from the Taiwanese version of the gameWhy did they decide to do it on Unity?
To immediately launch the game on Android and iOS. A little later we want to release it on PC.
Even so. You will be one of the very few companies that produce PC battlers in Europe (to be honest, we can’t name anyone offhand at all) …
Yes, but we have a little problem right now. The fact is that the game is completely three-dimensional (that is, it’s not just about using polygonal models and environments, but about the fact that you can turn the camera in the game as you like). This is one of our competitive advantages. Due to a number of technical problems, we are still in the process of implementing this feature on a PC. Therefore, we postpone the release for personal devices indefinitely.
As I understand it, when developing you, first of all, focused on the audience that has powerful devices. The game is now slowing down at the presentation on HUAWEI devices.
Small lags were due to the fact that the developer version was installed on the devices. It’s a little under-optimized, that’s right. Plus, we have a little problem with the Internet here. So the game goes smoothly on other devices, including Explay, even far from the top ones.
A screenshot from the Taiwanese version of the gameWhen will you launch in Russia?
After May 20th.
And where is the game running so far?
So far, only in a few Asian regions (China, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan).
Why not in Japan?
Japan is a very specific market. We are still deciding whether to launch there at all or not.
Why, after Asia, did you decide to launch not in the world or in Europe, but in Russia?
This is a strategic decision. And we are launching now not only in Russia, but in all CIS countries.
Game characters, the selection of their skills, art to skills… Let’s just say that all this is very similar to those of Heroes Charge, which Blizzard recently sued (in the sense that all visually very much resemble the characters of the Warcraft series of games and, as a result, Dota) [more precisely, Blizzard sued the authors of Soul Clash, which was literally copied by the authors of Heroes Charge with a tracing paper in their hands, – Approx. editorial offices]. Why was it impossible to draw your own, and what are you planning to do so as not to get a lawsuit as well?
Art is the legacy of DotA’s popularity in Asia. We are currently working on how to replace the skins. You see, what is allowed in China is not always legal in other countries, so we are working to make the characters as different as possible from the original images. To be more unique, more interesting.
We have already redrawn many of the characters, many are in the process of finishing.
The characters of the Russian, as it seemed to us, are not only less reminiscent of DotA , but also not so animeshny And, for example, are you not afraid of a lawsuit from uCool in the Asian markets?
Heroes Charge and Storm Age were launched in Asia at about the same time, respectively, it would be a bit strange if uCool came and said: guys, you have the same thing as us.
Are you counting on top grossing in Russia? The same Heroes Charge, whose developers invested well in traffic at first, demonstrates very good indicators in Russia.
Heroes Charge on May 16 occupies the 8th position in the cash gaming top of the iPhone App Store
Good question.
Our marketing team is actively working on this. We have no goal to strangle the player until he pays. In general, we certainly want to get into the top grossing, but we’ll see what happens in the process.
And the last question. A sore topic for many localizations of Chinese projects is a small space for texts (the same Chinese is not as concise as Russian). Does everything fit in?
Look, during localization, we tested the game on a large number of devices. If we saw that something didn’t fit on any of them, we tried to either reduce the font size or reduce the number of characters.
The game has a construction componentAnd the interface was not redrawn?
No, unfortunately, there was no such opportunity.
I see. Thanks for the interview.