Far too long has blizzard not attempted to make Japanese servers and or language options when providing full support to Korean and Chinese servers. I understand that a variety of languages aren’t supported, but when you have other Blizzard games fully supported in Japanese language, but WoW it’s incredibly depressing.
FF14 isn’t even a good enough reason to not go into the market because ever since 2020 PC gaming has been on a rise in Japan and people are starting to become unsatisfied with the FF14 gameplay and looking for alternative options. Also, who would play a game that isn’t even marketed to them or have a language option for you if you’re a non-english speaker?
At this point it’s just disrespectful.
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Alternatively, it’s too small a market for a profit-driven company to expend the resources and get a reasonable return on investment.
Aside from charity efforts, I wouldn’t engage in a losing project either. /shurg
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Japan has 123 million people. South Korea has 51 million. Australia has just 27 million.
Japanese people play WoW?!
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Has nothing to do with FF14, Japan has a history of mostly ignoring Western games. Nintendo has that entire country locked down.
Microsoft has openly tried to break into the market for years and never could.
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Blizzard would have to coordinate with the local JDM pay services they use here.
Its complicated and they are, imo, trash… I live here.
CCP games tried this with eve and it didn’t sell like hotcakes. and also messed up accounts for me. I had to write their CS to go dudes…I am an American here and a 6+ year customer. Please un-break me lol.
Issue: ccp games actually had useful and usually good cs. they don’t say go read fansites lol. It still it took time to resolve. Blizzard CS? scary is a word that comes to mind.
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Then how did Genshin make bank in Japan?
Mobile favored game to start. and google play, apple work out better ways to play world currency games.
Apple is apple, google (play) is google (play). they are at core worldwide. Its why they take money off the top for store hosting on the platforms.
It’s devs have apple store handle all the small matters. its devs aren’t going so what is the yen, aussie dollar, and korean wan rate today.
If I am on an apple japan account (i have that for some needs and US)…its that rate. An aussie sees their regions apple prices. same for that dude in south korea. And US people get their store and prices
Google play does that too.
I didnt know the client lacks a japanese language option.
Steam exist in Japan.
I doubt currency conversion and localization is a problem for a company of Blizzard’s size.
I have always found it weird that Blizzard hasn’t made a move in that market.
Has nothing to do with currency. Heck I’m charged in Swedish freaking Krona… Not Euros like everywhere else in Europe. Local currency.
It has everything to do with the market not being large. This is a PC game. Japan is primarily a mobile and console market.
I’d agree. It’s not a problem. Beyond blizzard wanting to put out cost and effort to do it.
See I’d like it. I could play yen rate games. I get paid us dollars, I’d pay my wife since i’d use her japanese card I am on, and I could get the sub at say 12 a month not on sales even.
Yen rate games have saved me lots of money the past year or so lol.
And India has one billion people.
The total population doesn’t mean that everyone plays wow. As said in the thread, Japan is console-based / mobile-based, and when they hit a MMO it is some sh1tty south korean mmo or ffxiv.
or do you think that Mrs Suzuki, 103 years old, Shinto monk plays mythic content?
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Valorant, Overwatch, D4, and Hearthstone are pretty popular here. (American living in Japan.) and I can confidently say the gamers I meet up with up at Akihabara are playing more western style games. Especially since 2020…(we all know what happened there.)
I’m just saying - why would I try and play a game that has no language support for me???
Kinda like only Korean games that I cannot understand wtf is happening because there’s no English packs.
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But you just said that you are American and WoW doesn’t have a language support for you 
It’s still 5x the population of Australia. So even if only a 1/5th of them play …
Hearthstone is mobile, The rest can be played on console.
They’d just end up outsourcing the game to another company to run like they do in Asia to begin with.
The return on investment just isn’t there.
You can be American and have a different first language?
Yikes.
Also, advocating for my Japanese friends and family that want to play but won’t because they don’t understand English.
Yet the Chinese can make it work.
Chinese wow isn’t run by Blizzard.