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Sponsored: There's big opportunity to expand your game business into Asia-Pacific, but where do you begin? Gamasutra editor-in-chief Kris Graft speaks with Telstra VP Adam Day to find out how game companies can partner with telecommunications companies to grow business.

Game Developer, Staff

June 14, 2021

2 Min Read

Presented by Telstra

When it comes to expanding business and reaching new audiences, game companies need to plan and execute on a global scale.

Telstra is one of the telecommunications companies that is working with game companies in North America and elsewhere to expand into new markets. Aside from working with many organizations in the general tech space, Telstra already connects the six biggest global game companies in Asia, partnering with them for their network infrastructure needs.

Though based in Australia, Telstra operates on a global scale. "We help enable North American companies to access markets and people and revenues in Asia-Pacific, through building out global network infrastructure with them," explained Adam Day, VP of enterprise and technology for telecommunications at Telstra.

To learn more about how network infrastructure can grow your games business, download Telstra's free whitepaper

The company recently conducted a survey asking tech leaders at game organizations about their priorities when it comes to network infrastructure. "The trend we saw in the survey...is actually a deepening partnership between telcos and game developers," said Day. In the survey, 80% of companies who said they spent around 5% of their entire tech budget on network infrastructure last year will spend up to 15% this year.

Those surveyed also said their top two priorities are developing network infrastructure (37%), followed by improving infrastructure speed (20%).

Day said the growth of the global games market--particularly in Asia-Pacific--is a driving factor as to why game company leaders are leaning into partnerships with telcos and increasing network infrastructure investment. Sixty percent of gamers globally are based in Asia, said Day, and half of that amount are in China.

"More than half of those tech leaders we spoke to have said that most of their organic growth in the last year actually came from launching their existing titles in new markets as opposed to launching new titles," with Asia leading that growth, he said.

Day noted that among tech leaders at game companies surveyed, the top three network infrastructure priorities were security (38%), cost (28%), and performance (25%). But among gamers surveyed, their top three complaints about networks were latency (39%), offline servers (24%), and general playability (22%). That misalignment between company priorities and customer expectation is an issue that closer partnerships with telcos can help resolve.

"With the evolving set of customer expectations, particularly in a global gaming market...I think it's becoming increasingly more important to sit down and have those conversations--whether it's [with] a Telstra or any of the other telecom providers that are across the region--earlier rather than later," said Day.

"There's so much opportunity in that Asia-Pacific region, and we're here to help," he said.

To learn more about how network infrastructure can grow your games business, download Telstra's free whitepaper

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