The Complexities of Launching Aion
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Gamasutra has published an interesting five-page interview with Aion: Tower of Eternity producer Brian Knox about the challenges involved with ensuring the Korean MMORPG's success in Western territories.
When it comes to what you would characterize as "Western" gameplay, that's an interesting question to me. What are the kind of things that you suggested or even that the team themselves researched and incorporated that you think are particularly Western or changed the scope from prior Asian-derived games?
BK: I think customization and choice are a lot of it. One of their concerns with the Korean market is that they're very much about trends, so if one person's doing something, everybody tends to do it. Whereas Western players kind of have a little bit more in terms of individuality as far wanting to go and do their own thing and be their own person. So, the customization is actually very much one of the heart of the Western features.
I think the other major one would be just the story. From the very beginning, we sat with them and hammered out the different story details, how things were written here that were incorporated into the game, ideas that were changed and kind of polished and tweaked along the way. But keeping that central focus on the story I think was a little bit more of a Western idea comparatively to previous MMOs released in Asia.
