If you’re curious how I feel about the fact that perhaps the most long-term legacy I have on this site is the addition of the term “temport” to people’s lexicons, the answer is: weird. I feel weird about it. But it is a useful term, I’m glad I thought of it, and I don’t even find myself saying, “I wish I had come up with another term” because it’s pretty much spot-on. But I think there’s an interesting question to go alone with it: Why are temports like that in the first place?
The reason it’s a question worth asking is because if you think about it for five seconds, it seems like a bizarre market concept. Oh, sure, it makes sense insofar as there is an observable thing taking place you can understand. But from a development standpoint it doesn’t make as much sense to shove an online game out the door for a year or so of revenue when you could instead try to milk it for longer. So why are temports the way that they are? Why do they feel low-rent and weird? Well… that’s our column today.
1. The games are developed in different environments
The majority of temports tend to come from a very specific region of the globe, which has led some people to opine that there’s something about folks in that region that means they just like worse games. But that’s not the case at all; it’s more accurate to say that there’s a scene for the development of games that fit nicely into the temport model. Put it another way, there’s a much higher emphasis on releasing a game that runs for a few years and then shuts down to be replaced by something new, a thing that is considered kind of anathema for online games here. It’s far from a universal rule, but there is a different set of expectations for online games than the one we use here.
2. They’ve usually been running in their home countries for a while
Temports do not usually get ported after multi-year runs, but consider that Blue Protocol had enough time to launch and have a deal announced and a delay before it launched in the West long enough that the plans blew up altogether. That’s when we’re talking about a game that looked like it was going to be successful and it was clearly meant as a quick turnaround on a deal. Temports usually get brought over when the localization team has a year or so of content already built up, and as a result…
3. The lag time means minimal development
I mean, this just makes logical sense. If you’re working on even just a three-month delay, you’re not going to spend those three months testing and balancing something that’s already live and working in its home country. You’re going to be localizing that and getting it out the door as efficiently as possible. And efficiency is important. Why?
4. They have a miniscule budget
The core of the temport business model is not that things are not developed at all for international audiences… but it’s close to that. Heck, if you think about it, this is the whole appeal in the first place. You are not going to compete with Final Fantasy XIV on overall quality, for example. You are not going to compete on volume. But you can very efficiently localize something that has been developed elsewhere with minimal budget and hopefully the small team won’t matter because hey, you don’t have to come up with new things!
5. Most contact is with community managers…
Now, it might not sound that unusual to mostly be talking with community managers because, like… that’s what a community manger’s job is in the first place. If you are posting on the official forums, the community managers are there to manage that community. But the difference is that usually, there are developers who can post things and address player feedback. Sure, posting on the FFXIV forums will not get you a response from Naoki Yoshida, but the man is still available for letters and interviews to explain his reasoning. Not so much for temports. Which leads to the next problem.
6. …and the community managers aren’t there to communicate back
While there are many examples of this breaking down, the idea of community management is that it’s a two-way street. The managers post to assuage player worries and manage the community, and they then bring player worries to the developers, who can prepare longer responses. But that’s not how things are going for these temports. Remember, you’re dealing with content that was developed and launched ages ago in other places with different standards. So the managers have to put a brave face on everything, and if there are serious problems, they just have to pretend there aren’t.
7. The launch surge is everything
You might be thinking that all of these problems are going to eventually torpedo basically any game, and you’d be right. So the launch surge is everything. Players are going to flock into the game when it’s new because people check out new things, even if they think they’re never going to stick around. Getting people into the game and looking pretty and being superficially interesting? That’s all it takes. And while a lot of these games have some pretty egregious things for sale, they’re often the outliers, because…
8. Being cheap is an advantage
So this new free-to-play game you are pretty certain is a temport looks pretty and you’re having enough fun to keep playing and there’s an outfit you like for five dollars. So what the heck? It’s five dollars, and if you run it through Steam that’s probably a one-click transaction for you. And since the game has a minimal budget and overhead, that means that it’s not really a big deal for the developers to sell enough five dollar outfits to justify that initial outlay.
9. They never boast high populations
An easy thing to overlook is that temports never exactly have a robust playerbase. They probably or hopefully have enough players to make the leveling rush during the first month or two feel reasonably populated and keep the endgame running for a bit longer, but we don’t see these games surging into being part of the big names for good reason. They never become big names. And while a lot of the things here are all about working around those restrictions, it’s important to keep in mind that the companies running these games are operating on tight margins. You’re bringing over a temport to make some money, but you aren’t exactly making enough to justify funding ongoing development or extensive changes from the source version.
10. It’s easy to sunset and bring something else over
When you run out of new content or the population drops below viability, you could start trying to push for more development control… or you could just shut it down and bring over another game. The latter is cheaper and already worked. Why wouldn’t you just do that again? It works. You might argue that it’s not great to treat games as disposable, and that’s a sentiment I definitely agree with, but it sure does work here.
Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”