PW, PWI, PWEU, PWx

Pensil - Harshlands
Pensil - Harshlands Posts: 39 Arc User
edited May 2011 in General Discussion
First of all, I know that this subject was discussed over and over and over, but I feel that it needs additional explanation, supported with official documents and statements.

I'll try to explain some things, that I find confusing for some players. I'm sorry if this starts flaming or trolling or something like that,my intention is to try to find official reports about how PWE/PWB want's to make business in North America and Europe.

First of all few abbreviations that i may use in this post:
PWE - Perfect World Entertainment
PWEU - Perfect World Europe
PWB - Perfect World Beijing/Beijing Perfect World
PWI - Perfect World International

Beijing Perfect World Co., Ltd. is the company that owns everything about game called "Perfect World", no matter if it's called Perfect World International or Brasil or Russial or whatever. They are also developers of that game, which means, any new content and bug fixes are made by them
More info can be found here: http://www.pwrd.com/html/en/about_compro.html

PWE - Perfect World Entertainment Inc., is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Perfect World Co. Ltd., and PWE renamed the game in "Perfect World International". And that company is established to publish game in North America.
More info can be found here: http://www.pwrd.com/html/en/cus_subsidiary.html and here http://www.pwe-inc.com/games

PWEU - Perfect World Europe B.V., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Perfect World Co., Ltd., and they are used only to make games in French and German language.
More info can be found here: http://www.pwrd.com/html/en/cus_sub_europe.html

But here is where things becomes interesting. PWEU is not established so that players from Europe could have Euro servers, but it's purpose is to enable players from Europe to play PWI in German and French. And by that I mean GUI and all quest text translated into French and German.
PW has officialy confirmed that in their press release when they established Perfect World Europe, and I quote:
With a new office in the Netherlands, Perfect World wants to get closer to its European players, "a top priority" according to Dr. Alan Chen, CEO of Perfect World Entertainment Inc. and PW Europe. "They have given us amazing support and are extremely passionate about our service and games. We wanted to reward their involvement and unlike many publishers we have chosen to offer them the possibility to continue playing on the existing servers with the characters they have built up, but in their own languages."
Source: http://www.perfectworld.com/blog/?p=176701

What they say is: we will not make new servers, but only translate game so that other players can have text in game in their own language. They never said that they will bring new server just for players from Europe.
This is where conversation like "This is NA game, NA servers, NA company...", stops. It is true that company is from North America, and that servers are in North America, but it's not true that those servers are not for players from Europe and that company itself didn't count on every single player from Europe to play on servers in North America. They even added ability to pay in Euros. PWE's job is to translate game into english language and to give support in english language.
That's why it's called International, not because there are 2 or 3 countries in North America, but because most of the players don't know chinese but english, so it's easy to give support in that language.

Naturally, players from europe are forced to ask, why some events are only suitable for North American players and players from America keep asking why there is no bug fixes and gameplay changes?

Answer, for both questions, is not the fact that PWE is established in US, nor that the majority of the players comes from North America (there is no official relase to say how many players come from which country), answer is in way that game is made, in China.

Perfect World Beijing develops Perfect World for Chinese/Asian market, which is really, really huge market. Players have different way of playing games, so everything is made to suit their style of gameplay. As u know it, new content first comes to Chinese version of the game, then after it's translated and tested, comes to International version of the game.

PWE has no way to fix bugs or improve gameplay or to balance game. They can only fix translation bugs, and remove Chinese language from game. And they can send players requests about game to Perfect World Beijing, but mostly they don't care about those propositions.

Simple thing is: they are developing 10 games at the same time, and there is no way that they gonna give attention to every game and fix bugs in older games, when there is a lot of work to make new ones.
Post edited by Pensil - Harshlands on

Comments

  • Tremblewith - Heavens Tear
    Tremblewith - Heavens Tear Posts: 1,558 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    I think your post is great, and it really will help clear up a lot for people. Sadly, this will probably be locked soon. There is a rule somewhere around here, that says something about not being able to speak about the other version's of PW, directly like that. D:
  • ColdAsLife - Dreamweaver
    ColdAsLife - Dreamweaver Posts: 432 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    As long as it's a product of PWE you`re allowed to ... in the off-topic.
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  • Vasilisk - Harshlands
    Vasilisk - Harshlands Posts: 208 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Perfect World Beijing develops Perfect World for Chinese/Asian market, which is really, really huge market.
    Just interesting, which part of full profit given by PWI. Is it so low comparing with Chinese market?
    BTW, thats why next game I will play - will be game direct from developing company, not any other localization (g w 2, lol =)
  • Archerpuff - Sanctuary
    Archerpuff - Sanctuary Posts: 26 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    http://www.pwrd.com/html/en/pdf/11_05_en_final.pdf interesting (earnings report pdf)

    http://www.pwrd.com/html/en/ir_earning_call_15.html (earnings report conference call, 1hr )
  • Wildkirsche - Heavens Tear
    Wildkirsche - Heavens Tear Posts: 31 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Thx for the topic^^ have made me read more about..

    Even a german site is online where its announced that it gonna be in german too.
    Strange thing is, its not so long time ago it was a topic about eventtimes ect and it was sayed that there not gonna be a german version of PWI...selfowned^^

    Now when we are at this point the argument PWI = Canada+USA so no European times is out of date, i really wonder if theres any possibility to make something about "Event times".

    If they wanna grow on the european market, they should offer something. Ppl who play it already play it, play it. The most who dont play are disdurbed on exactly this times. A game is a kind of senceless when u cant join one single event. So not really open for a new marked? I mean just to translate a game Client and say, puff new market here we are would fit to PWI, but well not really smart^^

    And i dont think there gonna join a lot of ppl who didnt play the game cause they cant english. Its gonna be a german Client, ok, but when the most ppl on server just talk english it doesnt help so much.

    And no, i dont want a "European Server" i like this "Global" thing ^^ ..but if its "Global" they really should bring in some ideas how all can join Events
  • Pyrostormz - Raging Tide
    Pyrostormz - Raging Tide Posts: 956 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    just reading the first page, do you realize how obscenely profitable this company is ?

    companies would kill for a 35% net income to total income ratio

    they have minimal expenses, and a ton of cash coming in

    now, i dont know how the pwi version comes into this, but this just makes the lack of fixes inexcusable

    they could hire another dozen programmers without putting a dent in net profits

    and in truth, net profit dont reflect real profits, with all the accounting shenanigans you can pull

    edit: just read a bit more
    they have 217 million usd cash on hand... seriously, hire more people

    you made 20% approx more profit, yet paid 7 mill less in income taxes, use that to fix the game 0.o

    hell, i should buy shares in you guys
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  • Waterfal - Sanctuary
    Waterfal - Sanctuary Posts: 2,723 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Interesting.. Located in the Netherlands, but going to make german and french translations Oo;
    Interesting... really interesting...
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  • Xarathox - Dreamweaver
    Xarathox - Dreamweaver Posts: 1,657 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Just interesting, which part of full profit given by PWI. Is it so low comparing with Chinese market?
    BTW, thats why next game I will play - will be game direct from developing company, not any other localization (g w 2, lol =)

    Yeah, I've learned my lesson with games ran by subsidiaries. The next one I decide to go all in with won't be wh0red out like this one.
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  • endlesstorture
    endlesstorture Posts: 4 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Wait isnt there a PW in Japan, i was on the site the other day. and they were having a live ustream fights
  • Michael_Dark - Lost City
    Michael_Dark - Lost City Posts: 9,091 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    PWB - Perfect World Beijing/Beijing Perfect World

    ...

    Except.... you're wrong. Perfect World Beijing is referred to as "PW-CN".

    PWB = Perfect World Brazil.

    Wait isnt there a PW in Japan, i was on the site the other day. and they were having a live ustream fights

    Yes, there is a Perfect World Japan, Malaysia (referred to as PW-MY or MY-EN), and a bunch of other versions.
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  • Neyda - Raging Tide
    Neyda - Raging Tide Posts: 83 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    http://pwi-forum.de.perfectworld.eu/showthread.php?t=30531

    Translation(as good as possible:

    After consulting our IT Department, the european Servers will be located in europe
  • Pensil - Harshlands
    Pensil - Harshlands Posts: 39 Arc User
    edited May 2011
    Ok, I made myself listen to that whole conference call, with lot's of bad english. But in short they said that they're gonna give us more and more sales, and that explanation for lower revenues is the fact that they released only few new games in Q4 2010 and Q1 2011. Tto compensate for that they will give us new sales.
    Their whole plan is to publish as much new games as then can each year and to give sales in older games.They also said that they goal is to publish at least one major expansion for their most popular games each year.

    And they also said that they are generaly pleased with revenues from North America and Europe, but they get most of their money from China, approx 91%. And the rest 9% comes from other markets. Again, they did not said which overseas market gives them more revenues, they just give some hints that North America is slightly better than Europe.
    Just interesting, which part of full profit given by PWI. Is it so low comparing with Chinese market?
    BTW, thats why next game I will play - will be game direct from developing company, not any other localization (g w 2, lol =)
    PWI (PWE) has really small part in their revenues. They home market (China) gives them 91% of their revenues, and all other markets makes them only 9% of their revenues.
    Wait isnt there a PW in Japan, i was on the site the other day. and they were having a live ustream fights
    Yes, there is PW in Japan. But people that run this company said, in that Earning Conference Call, that Japanese market is negligible in terms of revenues.
    ...
    Except.... you're wrong. Perfect World Beijing is referred to as "PW-CN".
    PWB = Perfect World Brazil.
    Ok, I didn't know correct abbreviation. But it's not that big mistake :)
    http://pwi-forum.de.perfectworld.eu/showthread.php?t=30531

    Translation(as good as possible:

    After consulting our IT Department, the european Servers will be located in europe

    That is correct, there will be new servers in Europe. But as I said in my first post, servers in North America are for Europe people too. That does not mean that now players from Europe have no rights on North American servers. After all, it's not going be possible to transfer accounts from North American servers to Europe servers. The new servers should be approached in the same way as you would approach the new servers from North America. Location isn't really important here, but the business policy of people that run PWE.
    As I sad before, there is no support in English language in PW Europe, only German and French, and there is a lot of other countries and languages in Europe. I'm not from Germany or France, so I don't see any reason why would I play on German or French server.