Paris-based Ubisoft is making headway in Asia, and mobile games are a key to the publisher's strategy. In broad terms, Ubisoft takes a popular brand, adapts the art style for local tastes, and leverages local partnerships to effectively promote the game and place it on the many app ecosystems in the country. Such was the case with Might & Magic Heroes: Era of Chaos, a mobile game created exclusively for the Chinese market and published by Tencent.

Gamasutra talked to Aurelien Palasse, Ubisoft's head of publishing and licensing for greater China, about what Chinese consumers are looking for in a mobile title, and the unique challenges of opportunities of the market there.

When you came here, what was the publishing situation?

Aurelien Palasse: So when I came in China eight years ago the situation was different, because the market was mainly PC and free-to-play. It's only in the last five years, I will even say three years, that there's been a shift to premium content on PC. All the casual business has moved to mobile pretty exclusively here in China.

So it was mainly web games and free-to-play, and even eight years ago, Steam wasn't that popular yet in the West. So for Ubisoft, we didn't have a strong free-to-play catalog at that time, so the business was mainly on the gray market for us. And when mobile came through four, five years ago, we directly jumped in the business. 

So what were and what are Ubisoft's plans for publishing in China and how are you actualizing that?

I can talk on my side, on the mobile side. So the mobile side has two parts: iOS and the rest. For iOS, we go more directly.

We work with Apple and their store here and all the games that you can see that are released in your territories in the West are also available here, fully localized, fully China-ready. So the game has been tested, proofread in Chinese, customer support adapted, social network reframed. This kind of thing.

On iOS, China is pretty -- I won't say straightforward, but for Android we work with local partners because the market is more fragmented into different local players. So that means we need to do censorship approval.

So for example on Hungry Shark, we have to remove the blood. It's one of the things we have to do. All the builds which are localized for the Chinese market are done by Ubisoft, we don't give the game or the source code to any partner. We just team up with them on the publishing side.

On the top of these two businesses, we are developing partnerships to make games in China for the Chinese market working with some of the best local developers here in China.  We have two Might and Magic and one Assassin's Creed that have been announced.

Ubisoft removed the onscreen blood from the Chinese version of their mobile title Hungry Shark

In your opinion, what does the Chinese market want? What is it that Ubisoft is trying to deliver to the Chinese market?

I think Chinese users basically want brands. And I think that's where we are good at Ubisoft. We don't develop games. We create worlds, we create brands. And it's a different mindset.

On the studio here and in every development, you have brand director, brand manager, that really makes sure all the marketing, the positioning is well done, which China is maybe not as advanced at yet.

But on the other side, to crack the market here, you need good monetization. I think Chinese players that are playing a Ubisoft game, even done and developed by a Chinese developer, they expect the game to have good storytelling, gameplay, with some breakthroughs. So that's what we're trying to do.

What can you do as Ubisoft to make your games stand out on app stores in China?

If you look at, for example, the game we released with TenCent, we put out Might and Magic and we made it more chibi, more cute, so it's more appealing. But they know it's a Western brand, which is important also for a Chinese user because they are not totally out of the world. They know Marvel, they know DC, they know Assassin's Creed. So for us, I think it's a very strong advantage we have compared to non-IP games.

Might & Magic Heroes: Era of Chaos trailer

I think that's is interesting because people think what's successful in Asia is Asian brands, right?