Promoting the event for game developers to Japanese market – Case: Game Developers World Championship

Abstract

The commissioner of this thesis is GDWC – the Game Developers World Championship, which is an online event for game developers and the managements are based in Finland. The author had practical training at GDWC in 2020 and worked to increase number of participants from Japan. The subject of this thesis which is focusing about Japanese game developers was selected to find out more effective way to reach potential participants from Japan.

The research question of this thesis is to discover why there are fewer Japanese participants in GDWC and how to attract them to participate GDWC. The thesis is consisted of introduction to the topic and GDWC, literature reviews, research, and conclusion. Conclusion includes sugges-tions of how GDWC can solve the research question. In literature review, various aspects about marketing communications are studied from literature sources and digital sources. In the research part of this thesis, both qualitative and quantitative research were conducted. The survey and interviews were held to Japanese developers who have participated in GDWC to gather their information and learn about the research question.

The findings from literature review and the research shows interesting factors about marketing communications and unique Japanese characteristics in marketing communications. Suggestions in the last part of the thesis gives development ideas for improve GDWC marketing communications activities to Japanese game developers.