Customer Service
Posted on | August 14, 2009 | 1 Comment
What is Konami’s take on the fact that a large segment of the world has to actively break Konami’s own Terms of Service to play? YGO Online International gauges the response and then tries to find a method behind the madness.
Some time ago, I sent a short, polite e-mail to Konami regarding the lack of selectable nations in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online. After all, as I pointed out before, Konami has left entire continents off their outdated list, forcing new players from those nations to break Konami’s own TOS to play.
The response was less than stellar.
Hello,
Dear Sir,
Thank you for contacting Konami Customer Support.
In response to your questions about Y02, I’m very sorry to tell you we have no information at this time regarding this.
Please keep an eye on our website http://www.yugioh-online.net/top/english-eu/index.htm for information about developments and future plans.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your feedback.
Regards,
KDE-US, Customer Support
No information? What, didn’t they notice that citizens of 52 different recognised nations (and that’s not including self-governed territories which Konami have listed as well), making up some 2,341,535,759 (2.3 BILLION) people are not covered?
I’m smart enough to realise that the nations Konami do cater for are the nations they will always likely make the most profit from. But considering that Yu-Gi-Oh! Online caters to all of Africa, which is a continent with 52 nations that brings in the least amount of TP besides Oceania, is it unreasonable to assume that somewhere in the mass of two billion players there may be the possibility of turning a profit?
You see, it’s the striking out of Central and South America and the Caribbean that is most grating. While we can say that perhaps Konami does not want to bother setting up a Chinese language server to cater to the 1.3 billion potential Chinese players (although Hong Kong and Taiwan are selectable and use the language), almost of all of Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean, speaks either English or Spanish.
Language doesn’t hold up as an excuse however when you realise that it is not as if the languages offered by Yu-Gi-Oh! Online currently (English, Japanese, Korean, French, Italian and Spanish) cover all available nations anyway. Portugal is selectable, Greece is selectable, Russia is selectable and so on.
We can take at face value the idea that the nations not selectable simply don’t have a potential online audience the way the current selection does; it would be a waste of time to even make them selectable. But that’s not true when you consider there are nations in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online which have literally never generated one single TP, and that’s with some duelists singing up as obscure countries on purpose widening the spread of TP.
Can we really say Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines, to name just three, could not generate more income for Konami than Oman (current TP: 0), Namibia (current TP: 0) and Samoa (current TP: 0)? In fact, Duelpasses are easily available to physically purchase in Mexico, but you can’t select the nation when you register an account. Am I the only one to find that a little messed up?
Seeing as it’s quite clear that many duelists are from outside Konami’s limited selection, the only reasonable conclusion is that Konami’s administration of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online is marked with complete and utter indifference. Of course, that’s hardly a shock, but this is so easily rectifiable and would encourage so many new duelists to sign up it’s ludicrous to think Konami wouldn’t do it.
But it’s okay. I’m sure it’s good business to not cater to a third of the world’s population in a global game. After all, if I knew better, I’d be the one running the game, right?
Market Crash
Posted on | August 10, 2009 | No Comments
With over 60% of Season 10 complete it looks like Yu-Gi-Oh! Online is going to hit a fourth TP recession which is bad for activity and bad for Konami. YGO Online International looks at what hese TP recessions are and how they affect the game.
What is a TP Recession then?
Simply put, a TP Recession is when the total TP accumulated by the top 1,000 duelists (as ranked by Konami’s TP ranking) for one season is less than that of the previous season.
As Yu-Gi-Oh! is run entirely by Konami as a profit-making venture, the continued rise of TP totals is very much needed for Yu-Gi-Oh! Online to be maintained. Make no mistake, as soon as Yu-Gi-Oh! Online ceases to be a potential profit-making venture, the plug will be pulled.
As of Season 9 there has been three TP Recessions, each of which has lasted for one season and none of which have stalled the overall growth in TP accumulation since Season 1.
TP Recession #1 – Season 2 (-40.6%)
Following the initial Yu-Gi-Oh! Online season, Season 2 saw a fall in TP accumulation by just under 41%. This initial fall was caused mainly be activity drop off due to the game being down and playing host to numerous bugs and other problems as it lurched out of the beta stages. Due to a great deal of maintenance, there simply wasn’t as much time to earn TP as in the previous season, adding to the recession.
Although this is statistically the largest recession, it is also the least important as it came in the very early stages of the game’s history during a general period of uncertainty and instability as Yu-Gi-Oh! Online took its first faltering steps.
Season 3 saw the TP recover in a big way, increasing by around 26% over Season 1 and over 55% from Season 2.
TP Recession #2 – Season 5 (-19.7%)
Season 5 was the season in which the old ancient Egyptian themed version of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online was replaced with the shinier Yu-Gi-Oh! DX inspired Duel Evolution version.
As with any big change over, difficulties were rife, down time was up and, predictably, some people just didn’t like the change and took time to come around, with some leaving for good. Still, the severity of this recession were likely lessened by many players being eager to explore this new game as soon as possible.
Although the change proved conscientious at the time, it certainly paid dividends from Konami once the transition was complete. Season 6 saw TP accumulation rise by 7.8% from Season 4 and 25.9% from the recession hit Season 5 itself to form a new peak in activity.
TP Recession #3 – Season 8 (-26.6%)
Season 7 saw total TP accumulation rise still higher but Season 8 saw a third TP recession afflict the game as that bane of the online game raised its head once again; maintenance.
Season 8 saw an astonishingly high amount of maintenance and, as such, many players simply could not play as much as they would like and some likely just switched off and did something else.
The season is supposed to be spread over five months but, in reality, with all the downtime, Season 8 likely lasted just over three in terms of activity.
Season 9, of course, showed that the demand was still there, with a new record in TP participation being set, an increase of 34.2% over the previous, recession struck, season and 10.3% over Season 7.
And the Future
At the time of writing, projections estimate that a total of 6,624,073 TP will be accumulated this season, a fall of 31% from Season 9 and the biggest since the original recession in Season 2. The obvious cause that can, and will, be attributed to this is the worldwide global economic crisis which I assume you have not failed to notice.
However, other issues within the game are also hampering its popularity. A lack of real, noticeable updates to the game is hurting the online competitive game and many players feel the game is growing increasingly rigid and static, curtailing incentive to play.
It is unknown how much future growth lies in store for Yu-Gi-Oh! Online but eventually, due to their being a finite number of people willing to play such a game regularly, the figures will plateau and will likely even dip slightly. This may even be now. Season 9’s TP total of 9.6 million may be the most the game ever generates, it may not.
But, for now at least, barring the rare and very explainable blips we’ve covered here, Yu-Gi-Oh! Online continues to be a success even with another recession looming on the horizon. It’s when the only explanation for a recession is that people simply don’t care any more that we should be worried.
Pretender to the Throne
Posted on | August 6, 2009 | No Comments
Of all the nations in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online, which can present the greatest challenge to Japanese dominance? The answer is likely the United States. YGO Online International tells us why the current perennial third place nation is the star of hope for a major shake up as well as why we shouldn’t get our hopes up.
At present, as it always has been, the United States lies third in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Online world rankings. As of now, they have roughly half the accumulated TP of second placed Germany. Why then would I point to the United States as the one nation with the greatest potential to topple Japan from its lofty heights?
We must consider the following first and foremost. The countries most likely to approach the top of the world rankings must have sufficiently high populations. As only a small percentage of each nations citizens play the game, on average the higher a nations population the greater amount of duelists it has.
Out of the nations available to select in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online, the United States has the second highest population, behind India. It is followed by Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Japan and then Germany.
Of course, if population was the only factor, India would be by far the greatest nation in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online but the second most populated country in the world has failed to make the world rankings as of yet. So obviously, there is more to the equation.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Online is a recreational game. As such, it is supported entirely by the spending of non-vital discretionary income, i.e. money we don’t really need. For that system to work, Yu-Gi-Oh! Online must be available in nations whose citizens, on average, have a high amount of this income. In 2009 what this means is nations with strong western-style economies in relation to other nations.
When we use that filter on the small population ranking I gave above you can likely tell the effect. Filtered, the ranking now reads; The United States, Japan, Germany. The next nations would be France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Korea and Spain. Do you notice it? With this filter of strong modernised economies applied to world population, the top eight nations are, not so coincidentally, the ‘G8′ of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online. Not in perfect order, of course, but there just the same.
To focus on the United States a little more strongly (after all, it is its cause we are championing in this article), let’s take a look at what the U.S. brings to the table over, say, Germany, at present.
The most obvious one is, of course, population as we’ve already covered. The second, naturally related, is that the United States is home to the second largest manga and anime market in the world after Japan itself. As explained in earlier articles, the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, as a whole, rests on the shoulders of the anime series. The vast majority of duelists, on or offline, start with an interest in the anime. With its large population and enormous anime market, the United States holds a rather obvious advantage.
As an English speaking nation, the U.S. also has the advantage of being targeted by Konami’s second largest language market (after Japanese). This gives it an enormous advantage over, say, India or even unrepresented China, as their languages remain relatively uncatered for. Naturally enough, the main seven languages of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish) are the de facto or de jure languages of the ‘G8′ of the game.
When all these are combined, you can see that at least in theory, the United States is the potential greatest challenger to Japanese dominance in the world game.
But of course, it isn’t. Not right now.
If all I have suggested above is accurate in any fashion, then why does the U.S. sit a distant third? My belief, as I touched on in an earlier article, is that the United States’ ever-growing anime market is as much a hindrance as it is an aid.
As the anime market in America continues to grow and more and more shows are purchased for dubbing and broadcast on children’s TV, the market is spread ever more thinly against an ever expanding variety of shows. While this could account for a lot of the current situation, another factor to this must be considered.
Bakugan.
While I’m sure hardcore Yu-Gi-Oh! fans will wail at the comparison, Bakugan is very similar to Yu-Gi-Oh! in intent. It is a collecting based combative game, spurred on by an anime franchise. Differences, which work in Bakugan’s favour, is that Bakugan has miniature figures, appealing to every kid from 7-11, the core of any anime franchise, as well as the undeniable fact; Bakugan is fresher and it’s hitting America pretty hard.
Yu-Gi-Oh! is over ten years old as a franchise. It is simply harder to keep fresh and enticing to new emerging audiences. Especially with an ever growing amount of options in the second largest anime market in the world. Yu-Gi-Oh! Online finds itself a hard sell with all the games in town turning up.
And that’s why, as I stated at the beginning of this article, that the United States has the potential to be the one nation to challenge Japan. Even with all the conditions perfect, it may never happen. But right now, the conditions are far from perfect and there’s a real danger of the life of the game in the U.S. being choked out very slowly. Let’s hope it can rebound.
Time to Play the Game
Posted on | August 2, 2009 | No Comments
The 13th Yu-Gi-Oh! Online Championship is coming up and while the question of WHO will win is the most important one, the question is also of WHERE the future online world champion will hail from. YGO Online International gives some odds as to the second question.
The 13th YOC will begin its Preliminary Tournaments on the 4th of August and YGO Online International will do its best to be there to cover the entire competition from start to finish. with the first preliminaries now only two days away, let’s see which nations have the best chance of producing that rarest of duelists, a world champion.
Japan (6-time World Champions)
Japan has had a champion duelist more times than anyone else, six times in all. Japanese duelists also tend to dominate the last 16 of the world championships in large numbers. Therefore, the spot of favourites can only go to the number one ranked nation in the world. At the end of the day, the odds favour a Japanese duelist winning the tournament.
Odds 3/1
Germany (4-time World Champions)
The other great dueling nation has had four championship winning duelists in the past, including Season 9/Summer 2009 champion xXSuperstarXx. However, with so many German duelists now dueling under the flag of Seychelles, Germany’s chance for a second consecutive title may be weaker than usual.
Odds 5/1
United States (2-time World Champions)
Season 8 saw America’s dubious win in Season 6 (by a Japanese duelist under the American flag) wiped away when EricGT took the title of champion, the Unted States’ second overall. But the game in the states is becoming stagnant in a lot of ways and is even retracting in others. The U.S. can win, but it’ll be harder now than at most time in the past.
Odds 9/1
Dark Horses
Looking for another nation to break the monotony of the big three? Here are YGO Online Internationals picks for those looking for an upset.
Seychelles With international ringers batting up for the tiny island nation, Seychelles may go further than having a finalist, as they did in Season 9’s championship. Odds 14/1
Korea Despite being a powerhouse, Korea has traditionally fared badly on the world championship scale. This season should prove no different but the quality is there for an upset. Odds 18/1
Denmark The Danes have had solid representation with duelists making the last eight twice in the last two championships. Further glory, however, is likely beyond their grasp. Odds 25/1
Italy Even though it is a strong dueling nation, Italy’s championship record is pretty abysmal. There is little to suggest things will change this time around. Odds 35/1
United Kingdom The U.K.’s position in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online is weakening, not being secured. A severe lack of recent glories on the tournament stage seem to suggest more disappointment in that regard. Odds 38/1
France Much like Italy, France holds a very patchy record on the tournament stage and so any entry beyond the last 16 would be a major upset for the country. Odds 38/1
Spain Spain’s inability to make major inroads towards a world championship is likely to continue with the declining interest in the game worldwide hurting nations like Spain rather than helping it. Odds 40/1
Canada This is actually probably Canada’s best chance in a while at capturing the world title, depending on who enters. But even that best chance would need a lot of skill and luck to make the last 16. Odds 47/1
And the Rest?
What are the odds anyone else in the top 20 can claim the gold? All odds after this would be at 100/1 and higher.
Australia 48/1
Greece 50/1
Israel 55/1
Switzerland 57/1
Bulgaria 60/1
Luxembourg 60/1
Russia 63/1
Austria 70/1
Egypt 80/1
The Eastern Front
Posted on | July 29, 2009 | No Comments
Israel has reached its greatest heights yet in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online, it is currently battling powerhouse Australia for 11th place. YGO Online International takes a look at the unchallenged champions of the Middle East and what they need to continue and build on, their success to date.
Israel’s rise has been slow, but also steady and inevitable. Debuting in Season 3 in 21st, the Middle East champions have slow clawed their way up the table, with a few bumps along the way, to finish in a record 12th position last season, just outside some of the greatest, most consistent nations in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online.
This climb was facilitated not by the triumph of one excellent duelist who poured their efforts into claiming the top of the TP Rankings. No, it’s a steady number of hard working duelists that have aided and maintained Israel’s rise through the rankings. For you see, the fact of the matter is this. While one record-breaking duelist CAN take you far (one time as high as 12th, although that may no longer be possible), it is simply the nations with the most duelists that in the end rank in the top ten or so.
But right now, and in the near future, a TP hog may just be what Israel needs. Right now, the nation is fighting it out with Australia for 11th place, an all new high should Israel clench it. But while Australia is hampered by a terrible Season 9 which saw the Oceanic powerhouse plummet to 15th, it has made a major rebound and it appears right now that it is winning the dogfight.
With all other things being equal, Australia has the natural advantage, having 10 times more internet users than the much smaller Israel. So when it comes to mobilisation of numbers in order to gain an advantage Israel is at a big disadvantage. That is not to suggest that Israel is pulling ten times less the TP of its current rival, but it is losing out by around 4,000 TP, enough to bridge the gap Israel opened up the season before.
The current struggle for 11th is still close enough that it is entirely possible that Israel can eventually just overhaul Australia before the seasons end and rejoice in its new found triumph. But even if it does, what will the future hold?
Israel’s current push for 11th is based on two things, it’s own crew of duelists and the plummet in Australia’s TP in Season 9. As Season 9’s TP factors in less and less in future seasons, Israel will not be able to count on the second advantage and, as mentioned above, the natural advantage in mobilising duelists lies with Australia. With no evidence that Australia’s shock Season 9 plummet is going to repeat itself, Israel returning to 12th (if it even does make 11th this season) in Season 11 is a real possibility.
So what does Israel need? It needs, quite simply, a prima donna duelist. A duelist with the time, and the dedication (and as some would point out, the lack of a social life) to amass a large amount of TP in Israel’s name. This is the one thing that will make Israel the superior of the likes of Austria, Switzerland and Denmark, not their equal.
For you see, not only do the best nations have large amounts of duelists represented, a selection of their duelists are also winners, who place consistently high in the top 1,000 TP rankings. A group of good duelists will take you further in the end than one great duelist but it is the combination of both that offers Israel the best chance of breaking through the glass ceiling and establishing itself as one of the true powers of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online rather than a nation merely on a roll of good fortune.
The Treaty of Rome
Posted on | July 25, 2009 | No Comments
Over half of Europe’s nations are now members of the supranational entity, the European Union. YGO Online International takes a look at the hypotheticals to see how a one Europe representation would affect the online world rankings.
As of the time of writing, 19 of the European Union’s 27 member states are represented in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Online World Rankings. (It’s easier to list the ones that aren’t represented so here we go; Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia) Some have come close, or are very close, to breaking into the top 1,000 TP ranked duelists but for the moment, 19 is what we have to play with.
An easy way to play with statistics is then simply to add up the current TP of these 19 member states are compare. So let’s do just that.
As of the June 28th rankings, a joint European Union representation would hold 1,957,498 TP, almost two million points total. This would place this hypothetical European Union representation second in the world rankings, behind Japan. Of course, this is no great surprise seeing as second is currently held by an EU member, Germany anyway.
Other interesting things to note; Germany would provide over 50% of a European Union’s TP alone, further showcasing a dominance which, as we’ve already discussed, owes a lot to Konami’s physical presence in the nation. While Germany does have the largest population of any EU state (80,000,000 or so), it is certainly not more than half of the EU’s entire population (just under 500,000,000).
Hwever, population distribution does play a role to a certain extent. The five largest EU member states (Great Britain, Germany, Italy, France and Spain) are also the five highest ranked EU nations in the game. After that, however, things become a lot more muddled (although it also true that many of the nations have similar population size, adding a certain level of randomness the lower you go), although it should come as little surprise that 64th placed Cyprus is the third smallest nation in the Union too.
Adding the 13 non-EU European nations in the world rankings would only increase this hypothetical groupings score by 109,513 to just over 2,000,000 TP (2,067,011 to be exact), a negligible influence at best.
The conclusion, therefore, is that rather than shake up the online game, a European Union representation would only serve to stagnate it by reducing the number of nations competing while also entrenching itself in second place far more firmly than Germany has at present and all without really competing against Japan, despite doubling its TP.
Whatever the pluses and minuses of the European Union as a supranational entity, it appears its impact and overall use in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online would not be very helpful at all.
The Korean Wave
Posted on | July 21, 2009 | No Comments
Some time back, we looked at problems affecting the spread and popularity of the online game in Korea. YGO Online International returns to the ‘Land of Morning Calm’ to see how these problems have affected Korea’s standing, if at all.
If most of you try and register a new account with Yu-Gi-Oh! Online, you’ll notice a whole host of nations that are unavailable for selection. This is nothing new, but one nation actually is selectable, but not shown to most. That nation is Korea.
This discrepancy stems from the passing of a 2007 law in the Republic of Korea intended to combat common problems in Korean online games. This law states that in order to register in a Korean-based online game, you must enter your Resident Registration Number (a good equivalent in the United States would be your Social Security Number) to confirm your registration.
Some time back, we here speculated that this would potentially damage Korea’s participation levels and thus its ranking, in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online as any addition to the demanded criteria of registration, no matter the common sense of it, is always going to filter out potential duelists.
Korea were once ranked 4th in the world in a position that seemed nearly as guaranteed as those of the big three above them. Outside of the US, Japan and Germany where international and continental offices are based, Korea is very much Konami’s favoured child and are cultivated as Japan’s only challenger for regional and world dominance. Even Konami can be the international competition card when they think it can make some cash from it, you see.
Of course, nowadays Korea ranks 6th in the world. That’s certainly not a bad position and it does mark Korea as one of the world elite. But it is a fall that hurts in terms of perception and reality. For such is the nature of TP rankings, and it is easy to forget this, that this suggests that Korea, believed by Konami to be its second or third most valuable market is represented less and likely draws in less profit overall than either Italy or the United Kingdom (All that TP accumulation has to be financed by buying BP, remember. If you’re not ranked highly, you’re also not making Konami money).
As of the time of writing, Korea is no closer to reversing this trend than it ever has since its initial fall from grace. The irony is that this online game being so affected by the law is also one of the few that does not stand to gain much, if any benefit.
The law is intended to accomplish two things. The first to avoid undue strain on Korean servers by stopping international game players from playing on Korean servers. While this is an issue in online games with very low participation in English servers, it is not the case in as internationally popular a game as Yu-Gi-Oh! Online where the server most likely “infiltrated” the most is in fact the English server.
The second goal of this law was to fight against the prevalence of “gold farmers” who damage the virtual economy in online games by offering to earn you in-game currency in exchange for real life cash. Of course, the irony here is that the only party capable of doing this in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online is Konami themselves, who sell Battle Points in exchange for real currency.
Whatever the positives and negatives of this law as regards the vast majority of online games, when it comes to Yu-Gi-Oh! Online these restrictions end up making the much-vaunted Korean wave (the recent spread and interest in Korea culture in Asia, north Africa, eastern Europe and the US) more of a ripple in a pond as far as the online game is concerned.
When You’re Big in Japan
Posted on | July 17, 2009 | No Comments
“May your reign continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations…” begins Japan’s national anthem and it seems like it may be true in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online. But why? YGO Online International takes a detailed look at the birth and assisted rise of Japan’s dominance.
Japan controls the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online without opposition. As competitiveness is what breeds interest in such things as ‘world rankings’, that’s not a very nice thing for me to admit but it’s true.
As the news piece “Kimi ga Yo” in this sites weekly “News in Brief” mentioned, 742 of the 1,000 internationally ranked TP duelists for the week ending July 12 were Japanese. In other words, 74.2% of the top 1,000 are Japanese, and when you calculate the TP, 74.6% of the TP gained this season has also been from Japanese duelists.
But while that explains the facts of Japan’s dominance of the global game, it does not explain the how or the why.
The reason is quite simple; Japan is the nexus point of all things Yu-Gi-Oh! and so has an inherent advantage. If we imagine Yu-Gi-Oh! as, say, a lake, with many rivers and creeks flowing from it representing all the different nations then Japan would be, well, it would be the lake itself. Because, you see, almost without exception (the only major one I can think of is the 4-Kids produced Duel Capsule Monsters mini-series) Japan IS the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise.
Japan gets all the cards, it (obviously) gets all the anime first, it gets the most TV time and, so far as I know, it is the only nation that has actual TV commercials for Yu-Gi-Oh! Online. The only big push in promoting Yu-Gi-Oh! Online outside of Japan that I can recall is when Shonen Jump in the US gave away a disc back in February, 2005.
So you see, it isn’t just the case of Japan having advantages. It’s the fact that each advantage feeds of another one, multiplying the effectiveness of each until the game in Japan pulls so far ahead we can barely see it any more.
The Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, as well as the rest of the franchise, is tailored almost exclusively to a Japanese audience, meaning its cultural relativity and appeal is greatest in that nation. The franchise, as a whole, also has a much earlier start in Japan than anywhere else in the world, giving Japan a head start that must not be overlooked. These are obvious points, perhaps, but they show the foundation given to the franchise in Japan over many years that the rest of the world had to erect in a hurry.
Now, if this natural advantage was not enough, when Yu-Gi-Oh! Online was being produced and beta’d, the majority of news released, the majority of beta testers and so on, were of course, Japanese. So we see more and more advantages piling up and Yu-Gi-Oh! Online hasn’t even been released at this point.
And so, when the game was finally released, and all the print media for it was circulated in Japanese magazines with far higher circulations than their international variants, when TV commercials for the new game were broadcast from Wakkani, Hokkaido to Taketomi, Okinawa and with this all focused not on a brand new questioning audience but one with a very strong idea of what Yu-Gi-Oh! is… well, it caused an initial explosion in activity that the rest of the world has been struggling against ever since.
While that explains the reasons behind Japan’s early dominance, you may be wondering why things are the same in 2009 as in 2004. Wouldn’t growing international interest in the game eventually erode Japanese dominance, even if just a little? It could, that’s true, but it won’t.
You see, save for a very occasional interest in the game in Korea, the Japanese game of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online is the only game in town as far as Konami are concerned. Everything else is just trimming. Therefore, while Konami pumps money into promoting Yu-Gi-Oh! Online in Japan, with continued features in magazines, TV commercials and so on, the international market is very much neglected. This means that the amount of players coming in from elsewhere in the world is minimised while Konami continues to ensure the opposite is true in Japan.
In other words, Japan’s dominance of the game globally is being artificially maintained because, in reality, Yu-Gi-Oh! Online only pays lip-service to the idea of truly being an international game. And that is the one reason, which encompasses all the others, why Japan rules the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! Online; because Konami ensures that it does so.
But before we get too depressed, let us remember that these things only apply on a grand scale. There is nothing to stop the individualist, the single duelist, from any nation, from becoming a great player and winning the YOC. With only 7 of the final 16 duelists in the Summer 2009 YOC being represented as Japanese nationals and with 6 of the 12 YOC winning duelists being nominally from outside of Japan (Yes, GREATENPEROR is actually Japanese, but I didn’t select his nation, did I?) we see that while the individual finds it impossible to fight economics, it can fight against another individual duelists no matter where they’re from.
The French Connection
Posted on | July 13, 2009 | 1 Comment
France has been traditionally part of the ‘G8′, the eight consistently highest ranked nations in Yu-Gi-Oh! But is there a chance for the nation to do anything but maintain its current status? YGO Online International tries to get a grasp on the the nation that could be king.
France’s 5th place debut in Season 1 seemed, at the time, to be an obvious and fair representation of the nations dueling ability and potential. Nestled behind the “big three” as well as Korea, it was only fitting that France and Great Britain would duke it out for the dubious title of “best of the rest.”
But when France was knocked from its 5th place roost in Season 3, it was a double shock. It was leapfrogged not only by Britain but by Italy as well. Since then France has remained 7th in the world. As Italy and Britain continued to rise, France finds itself trapped in a remarkably consistent and immutable partnership with 8th placed Spain.
Why is this so?
Much like the German question posed previously, it comes to anime. While France has a large anime market, it could not, in hindsight, be expected to compete with the English-speaking market dominated by the United States and Britain. Meanwhile, right around Season 3, in fact, 4Kids Entertainment massively ratcheted up its presence and advertising in Italy, which included the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise.
And so, France has suffered not so much from a lack of potential but from the timing of the realisation of another nations potential. However, Season 3 throws up another curious statistic. In that season France only earned 5,567 TP, an appalling amount even in those early days and less than any nation outside the top fourteen and less than even newcomer Hong Kong.
While the impact of this startling recession is now limited, due to the nature of the world rankings, as the starting point for France’s current position it lingers as an intriguing question.
Checking the tables at the time indicate that while the top French duelists of the time, CLARAMORGAN and cossafred740, maintained their status from Season 2, no other French duelist made it into the top 1,000 TP ranked duelists in Season 3. This vanishing act is certainly puzzling and leads one to believe that, for a short time, there was a great reduction of interest in the online game in France.
Now, Season 3 was a recovery season after a large recession in terms of global accumulated TP the previous season. This would suggest that France was one of the more sluggish nations when it came to recovering from that recession for whatever reason. Which pretty much concludes the mysteries behind France’s current position in the world rankings.
But what of the future? Season 9 saw France fall some 70,000 TP short of 6th place Korea, maintaining a relatively similar gap in Season 8. Meanwhile, the country also strengthened its own lead over 8th placed Spain, from 20,000 to 25,000 TP. Which, unfortunately, seems to suggest that the status quo is likely to remain so for France. And if Season 10 to date shows us anything its that the cracks dividing France from its immediate rivals above and below it, are potentially developing into chasms.
To pharaphrase King Louis XIV, this is the state of France today.
New Zeal Needed for New Zealand
Posted on | July 9, 2009 | No Comments
New Zealand continue to spiral down the table and it seems no end to their indignity is in sight. YGO Online International tries to trace the root of this latest slump and whether the Kiwi’s can force their way back into the upper half of the world rankings.
New Zealand is ranked 37th in the world at present, but this current ranking in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online hides a surprisingly competitive metagame in the regular game.
Part of the overall slump in Oceania participation in Yu-Gi-Oh! Online is likely due to the wrapping up of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX anime and the lack of a debut on Australian or New Zealand television for Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, creating a large stretch of time in which the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise is not being promoted in the region.
Contrasting population alone, not the most perfect system but it makes for a good base, New Zealand should be generating some 20% of the TP that Australia does, on average. As of the time of writing, New Zealand generates a mere 8%.
If it is correct to say that both Australia and New Zealand are suffering a recent slump in participation levels stemming from the same cause, then why the large discrepancy in what remains of the online communities there?
While Australia does play host to Konami’s Oceania headquarters, it does not have the same effect of generating interest in the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise as it, unlike its counterparts, focuses on coin-op and casino games. Even if this was a large boost in Australia, the close geographical, economical and cultural ties between the two would lead to this effect being replicated, at least in part, in New Zealand, as the other continental headquarters likely do to, say, Canada in North America, Italy, France and Spain in Europe and Korea and Singapore in Asia.
The truth may be, disappointing though it is, that New Zealand is finally settling into a level it can compete at and that New Zealand just does not hold quite the same interest in the online game its larger neighbour does. New Zealand has traditionally been a low TP scorer and actually finished bottom of the world rankings in Season 3 (and would be ranked 58th if they held that amount of TP today).
When New Zealander duelist clickme finished top of the TP rankings for Season 5, it obscured the reality that while not a true one-season wonder (New Zealand earns TP off and on), New Zealand has been punching above its weight class for some time.
In fact, it’s interesting to note that if New Zealand fail to rank in the top 1,000 TP ranked duelists this season, then they will have failed to score in half of the total seasons to date (Seasons 2, 3, 6, 9 and 10). With all these facts spread out, it appears that New Zealand is returning to a more natural station and that even with its recent slump Australia’s status as Oceania’s champion is unlikely to be threatened.
keep looking »Season 10 Table (August 16)
| Nation | Points | |
| 1 |  Japan |
11092337 |
| 2 |  Germany |
1581678 |
| 3 |  United States |
715738 |
| 4 |  Italy |
306090 |
| 5 |  Great Britain |
302819 |
| 6 |  Korea |
230861 |
| 7 |  France |
146768 |
| 8 |  Spain |
138124 |
| 9 |  Canada |
105828 |
| 10 |  Greece |
78441 |
| 11 |  Australia |
58899 |
| 12 |  Seychelles |
58391 |
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