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Wargaming Asia has a huge remote team. Here’s how it keeps it all together.

Jasper Nicholas, general manager of Wargaming Asia, is based in the brand’s Singapore office. And he has a rather demanding job. He describes it quite simply as managing Wargaming Asia’s relationships with other entities, as well as ensuring his staff are all well-trained and capable of taking on any challenges that might come with running a regional server for a MMOG. But Nicholas is also responsible for one more thing: he manages a huge team of close to 100 staff remotely.

Nicholas at TGS 2014
Nicholas at TGS 2014

Nicholas at TGS 2014.

As some regional startups (Games in Asia included) may be able to tell you, remote working is no joke. In his interview with us at Tokyo Game Show 2014, Nicholas reiterated a problem echoed by many who work remotely. The distance between you and your colleagues will always present problems.

Handling human emotions and managing work-related problems is tough enough when it’s face-to-face. When done remotely, over the internet and via Skype calls, you lose out on body language and even tones of voices. It’s not an easy job. Yet Nicholas has been in his role for close to three years, and the Wargaming Asia team has done nothing but grow, in his words, aggressively.

The secret sauce

Wargaming Singapore Asia
Wargaming Singapore Asia

According to Nicholas, there are two factors that have helped ensure the team’s success so far. One of those is having a base in Singapore. The Wargaming Asia headquarters in Singapore was the first to be set up. Though this was followed by offices and hubs in countries across the region, Singapore has always been the beating heart of Asia’s Wargaming network.

The challenge for him, Nicholas shared, was in connecting everyone. As an operations hub, Singapore was that perfect connecting point for everyone else in Asia. Wargaming Asia’s team has close to a hundred staff in its employ, and it is set to grow even larger, with its recently opened Japan and Taiwan offices. Nicholas is also looking at growing the brand’s presence in Australia and new Zealand.

(See: First World of Tanks community meetup in Vietnam sees overwhelming response)

That led to the other factor, the one that helped Nicholas to successfully grow the team from a single office in Singapore to countless others across the region.

Wargaming offices global
Wargaming offices global

Wargaming’s offices have spread far and wide across the globe.

According to Nicholas, it has so far been finding “the right talent, with the right mindset, and the right set of values.” He shared that the attrition rate of his employees has been very low, with many of them in it for the long haul. Nicholas usually scouts for people in the market who already have the appropriate expertise, but also keeps an eye out for how well they will fit into the company’s culture.

As for just what that is?

“It’s a large gaming family. I couldn’t describe it any way else,” he said. “If you talk to all our employees, they will say the same thing. We’re operating in a family environment.”

Nicholas told us that he runs the business in a very “non-traditional way.” He isn’t constantly tracking an individual’s attendance, nor is he always checking in on what they are doing.

(See: The 3 things Pocket Playlab thinks an indie studio needs to focus on)

“I give them the freedom to think about how they can provide the best value to the company,” he said. “I think that’s a formula that works really well.”

Wargaming in Asia

It has been important for Nicholas so far that Wargaming Asia be transparent with its customers. Not just in terms of its game service, but also in how the company runs, and what it plans to do. He wants them to understand and realize that they, too, are part of the Wargaming family.

wargaming-tgs-2014
wargaming-tgs-2014

The queue at Tokyo Game Show’s first public day.

And many players have embraced this MMOG from Russia. There are currently three million registered users in Asia, a region where online games tend to have a lifespan of about three months, six months if you’re lucky. When World of Tanks launched in Japan last year following the opening of Wargaming Japan, the service had less than 5,000 players. Today, there are over 100,000 active players, and many of them thronged the Wargaming booth on Tokyo Game Show’s public days.

World of Tanks is two years old, yet it draws a peak of 25,000 concurrent users, while mobile game World of Tank Blitz has close to 10,000 concurrent users and over two million installs. Combined, these numbers contribute to an active user base of close to half a million people.

Wargaming Asia certainly has done well with Nicholas’ secret sauce in keeping the remote team together. When asked about his vision for the brand in Asia, Nicholas shared that he’d like to see Wargaming in “a very strong position”, where it could possibly have more than 10,000,000 users and a very strong and loyal community following. For comparison’s sake, there are now 100 million registered Wargaming users worldwide.

(See: Gamers say yes to tanks! Wargaming announces 100 million registered players)

More importantly, Nicholas said that he’d love to see players who would grow with Wargaming and go to school with Wargaming. Essentially, he’d want to just constantly build great relationships with these same players every day for weeks, months, and even years, up to the point, he says, where Wargaming will be a household brand for entertainment.

Given the speed at which the brand has been conquering a region like Asia, I’d say, look out for that!

This story is part of our Tokyo Game Show 2014 coverage.


Some of the Wargaming community in action:
  • Did you go to the World of Tanks meetup in Jakarta last weekend? (PICS)

indowotcover
indowotcover

Following a successful community gathering in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, the Wargaming Asia team moved on to Indonesia, where its latest gathering, held on June 8, drew more than 160 gamers.

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The post Wargaming Asia has a huge remote team. Here’s how it keeps it all together. appeared first on Games in Asia.


The post Wargaming Asia has a huge remote team. Here’s how it keeps it all together. appeared first on Games in Asia.