We’re going to have a lot of beverages and snacks so please bring fellow bloggers, twitter’ers, entrepreneurs, creatives and “friends”.  It should be fun, we hope you can join us.

BloggerInsight 2.0 Launch Party

Time: Sunday March 7th 15:00-18:00
Place: 88 spaces (BloggerInsight’s office)
Yueda International Plaza Building B Suite 9G 1118 Changshou Road (near Wuning), Shanghai

RSVP here.

And don’t forget to check out the new site: BloggerInsight.com, we look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback!

时间： 3月7日，星期日，下午3点-6点
地点： 88Spaces （BloggerInsight 办公地点）
上海市长寿路1118号（近武宁路）悦达国际大厦B幢9G

BloggerInsight 新年新版本网站上线，特在办公地点举办一次休闲聚会，以感激BloggerInsight的用户，客户以及关注BloggerInsight的各界朋友一年来的支持，也为和大家有更好的交流，重要的是大家玩得开心！

我们将提供酒水饮料，以及小吃，欢迎携带朋友参加！

Had  quality Japanese food for the New Year Lunch.

The BloggerInsight team is ready to deliver better services to clients and bloggers.

Happy New Year to you all! See you all in the year of  the Tiger!

2010 BloggerInsight 团队年饭，在家离公司不远的日式餐厅里。吃饱饭了我们准备好了来年为客户和博客用户提供更好的服务，请期待！

祝福所有的朋友，新年吉祥，虎年再见！

In June 2008, VentureBeat wrote: “The good thing is that PopCap’s games are well known in China. The bad news is that most retail versions are pirated.”
1.5 years later those words still ring true, but PopCap remains upbeat. PopCap is a patient pioneer: “PopCap prioritizes taking the time to get it right – whether that’s building a new game or approaching a new market. We’re investing in China as a market for the long term, we’re not looking for short term gains,” said Giordano Contestabile, Senior Director of Business Development for the Asia/Pacific, in a recent interview with China Social Games. On Twitter: @giordanobc

Cute and China-safe graphics

PopCap has two advantages in China: 1) its games are already wildly popular; and 2) its games are family friendly, suitable for the China market. PopCap’s big disadvantage is that its primary monetization model, “try and buy” downloads, is a loser in pirate-infested China. The real challenge in China is developing a new business model, not new games.

Zuma: treasured by Chinese pirates

Popular with Chinese Pirates

“When I meet someone in China and introduce my work, I often hear, ‘Ohh, my grandma, mom, and I all play your games.’ Possibly 100 million people play Zuma in China, but we’ve sold virtually none of the copies,” said Mr. Contestabile.
PopCap’s “Plants vs. Zombies” (Chinese: 植物大战僵尸), a charming cross of Tower Defense and Happy Farm, is another smash hit in China. The recently released title costs 20 USD and is not officially sold in China, but the pirated copy is available for free from a number of major Chinese download sites. The translated Chinese text is so professionally integrated into the game that I first believed it to be a genuine Chinese edition by PopCap (it’s not).

Chinese pirates take pride in the high quality of their work

“Plants vs. Zombies” even inspired a real-life re-enactment by university students in Harbin, China. On RenRen, one of China’s top social networks, the game has the 14th largest fan group with 620,000+ users. It features the original song, “There’s a Zombie on Your Lawn.” PopCap has an extremely devoted following of pirates in China!

Plants vs. Zombies: A charming cross of Tower Defense and Happy Farm

PopCap has resigned itself to piracy and moved on: “It’s clear that whining about piracy is not going to be the way for us to build a business in Asia,” said James Gwertzman, Head of Asia/Pacific. Instead, PopCap’s challenge is to convert the popularity of our games into profit.

Green Games for China

Even the zombies are China-safe

PopCap’s has one additional advantage: its casual games are all “green.” Game content is subject to strict regulations in China, and PopCap, as a foreign developer, must be extra cautious.
PopCap’s games are puzzle or casual games with cute cartoon graphics. Where most Tower Defense games have machine guns mowing down monsters (see: the iPhone hit FieldRunners), “Plants vs. Zombies” has flowers lobbing green balls at adorable zombies that stagger, leap, and even dance Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

A Patient Pioneer

Slightly revenue positive in Asia-Pacific, but virtually none of the revenues come from China

PopCap has extraordinary patience with China. Mr. Gwertzman, head of Asia-Pacific, spent 2 years doing “homework” and it was almost 3 years before he made his first China hire. Virtually no revenues are coming from China, even though Shanghai is the Asia-Pacific headquarters, with 60 staff.
But PopCap Asia-Pacific is careful not to drain the coffers of global headquarters in Seattle: it’s slightly revenue positive (see slide 27, PopCap’s first year in China), thanks to earnings in the rest of the region, particularly Japan and Australia. Games are distributed on a variety of platforms, including PC, Mac, mobile, console, iPod and even in-flight entertainment and TV sets. PopCap is the first Western casual games company to open a full-fledged operation in the Asia-Pacific region.

Testing the Waters

PopCap wants to be anywhere and everywhere that people play in China, but is biding its time to get there. It will eventually pursue a range of distribution options in China: social networks, mobile, internet café promotion, and its own online gaming platform.
But both partnerships and regulations are tricky to navigate in China (see: World of Warcraft’s nightmare). “PopCap is all about taking the time to make sure we do things right,” said Mr. Contestabile. “This is as much a regulatory environment as a product concern.”

Zuma Chinese download site: 9.9 RMB (about 1.50 USD)

PopCap has launched two cautious experiments. The first was a “try and buy” download site. An official Chinese partner obtained the necessary government licenses and launched a site with trials of the Chinese versions available for free and the complete games available for 9.9 RMB (about 1.50 USD). Unsurprisingly, this model has not succeeded, as the pirated download price in China is “0.00.”

Bejeweled Blitz is on the SNS RenRen.com

The second experiment was the launch of “Bejeweled Blitz” on RenRen. The game is the most popular foreign-developed SNS game in China (to my knowledge), with 350,000 installs and 60,000 daily active users. But that’s more a reflection of the lack of penetration by foreign developers to-date than a reflection of PopCap’s success.
But “Bejeweled Blitz” is a cautious experiment that has no monetization component. It’s still about testing distribution partners and building a relationship with the RenRen social network.
The real test is selling virtual goods, the most successful monetization model for casual games in China. That will require a PopCap to shift from a product company to a service provider.
Developing a business model for China is challenging. Mr. Contestabile stated:

“We need to find the right product, right partner, and right approach. The Chinese social gaming space is still very young, and not yet generating significant revenue. One of the issues is the lack of adoption of open platforms by the social networks themselves, which is impeding the creation of a social ecosystem and stunting growth. In my opinion this will change, in the medium if not in the short term.”

PopCap will wait until the time is right.

高质量回答的共性

1. 专业性的回答应该把问题转化为需求。应该能够将自己个人的需求与大家的需求区分开来，从而提出有效的建议。
2. 对于相关问题要有深入，详尽的分析。例如，对于竞争对手的分析，最好提供详尽的信息，从不同的角度，不同的方面给予详尽的解释，我们希望能够看到从正反两面给予的评论。
3. 回答应该以事实为依据。对于我们问题所给出的答案，必须是真实的。答案所涉及的名称，数据，摘录的观点等方面都必须是确切真实的，不真实的答案将会大 大降低答案的质量。
4. 希望大家多用事实和例子支持自己的观点，有说服力的观点往往是以大量的事实与解释为基础的。比如说，有人认为Google的搜索引擎比百度好，但是又不说明理由，这样的观点我们往往不能采用。
5. 提出的解决方案必须考虑其可行性。我们欢迎有创意的观点，包含自己独特见解的方案。但是方案的描述要尽量具体详细。最好能够考虑到细节，这样可以帮助 我们更好的理解。提高您的方案被实施的机会。

提交回答之前，应对回答仔细检查，减少错误

1. 通读全篇，确保语句通顺，条例清晰。
2. 仔细阅读，避免前后重复，前后矛盾。
3. 认真检查，减少错字别字，避免影响理解。
4. 增强准确性，例如，人名，公司名称要准确表达。