One of the surprising aspects of the Chinese game industry is the number of westerners who are thriving in the fast-growing market.

Typically, they combine the dynamism of local conditions with their experience of game management, finance and global markets to come up with a best-of-breed operation.

That's the path Martin Finch, co-founder of Shanghai-based Panda Tap Games, is taking. He works with local developers to publish their games to English-speaking market.

We caught up with Finch to find out more.

Pocket Gamer: Can you give us some background on Panda Tap Games?

Martin Finch: Together with my partner, we started Panda Tap in late 2012.

Part of the Shanghai Multimedia Industry Association, our goal is to help local Chinese developers publish their games overseas by working with them, providing advice about translation, testing, technical support, and monetisation .

We published our first game Pop The Fruit 2: Puzzle Bubble on the Amazon Appstore in March. It's going well.

How did you build up the skillset to set up the business?

I've been developing and publishing games on iPhone and Android for the past two years, so I've picked up a lot of skills and experience, including a lot of heartache.

It's provided me with good insight into how to publish mobile games. I also previously worked for EA in Shanghai and gained a lot of project management experience from that position too.

In terms of what I do, a lot of my time is spent 'teaching' the staff what they need to tell developers. There are always a lot of technical questions, which originally surprised us.

In terms of Pop The Fruit 2, why did you think it would work well internationally, and how many changes did you have to make?

To be honest, the gameplay didn't require a lot of changes at all. It was already what I would call 'international style'.

Most Chinese mobile game players, including developers, are used to playing Western games, and so a lot of the time, their games don't look or feel like they were made by a Chinese studio.

The only thing we changed was to include some extra monetisation features such as ads in the map screen (not the main game screen), and provide advice in terms of the difficulty level and cost of in-app purchases.

The world is a big place, so are there certain territories and languages you concentrate on?

At the moment, our main focus is English-speaking markets such as the US, UK, Australia etc. This is mainly because we have more marketing and cross promotion reach in those areas.

For example, the highest downloads of the games I've personally developed such as Killer Shooting Sniper X come from the US. So we can exchange the AdMob ads in that game with in-house ads, which promote our developer partners' games and get them more exposure.

More generally, what do you think are the main areas of Chinese games that need to be localised for international release?

Based on our experience, I'd say it's monetisation and adding the SDKs needed for in-app purchases and ad networks such as Chartboost. Perhaps that doesn't fit under localisation exactly but it's the main work we've had to do so far for any title.

Often Chinese developers won't have Amazon, Google Play or iOS SDKs in their games and so sometimes there's a lot of work to get them integrated. Also, some teams have trouble reading through English documentation, so we've helped them by giving code suggestions where we can.

One recent example was a developer couldn't get in-app purchases working for the Amazon Appstore. We'd been through this process before and were able to help them by providing a JSON file example needed for testing, and also helped test the game before it was submitted to the store.

What is the main thing you're looking for in games you want to work on?

I'd say the overall quality and lifespan. We don't have a strict formula, but if we think a game will be played for a long time because of its quality and re-playability, then it's something we're interested in.

Of course, it also has to have a clear path to monetisation such as in-app purchases and ads etc. But we're not restricted by the type of game - bubble shooter, racer, slot machine - it's all good so long as the quality level is there.

What do you think are the biggest challenges for Chinese developers looking for international success?

I'd say it's probably the lack of prior experience in terms of marketing and promoting a game overseas.

Most Chinese developers know they can publish on Google Play and the App Store, but many lack the knowledge to increase their downloads through cross promotion, blogging, or other techniques.

For example, SEO and App Store keyword optimisation is a big part of our marketing effort. I've seen some Chinese developers publish games on the App Store and use keywords which a native English speaker just wouldn't search for, and so their downloads have suffered.

What's it like being a westerner working in the Chinese mobile games industry?

I'm originally from Manchester, UK, but I'm slowly becoming more Chinese in my thinking - I guess! It's exciting to be working with Chinese developers, particularly because we can have a strong impact for developers because they don't have overseas publishing experience.

Of course, it can also be a challenge because many of the studios are very young and need help, but there's always a lot going on - new studios, new events, new games, new opportunities. China, and particularly Shanghai, is an exciting place for mobile games.

What should we expect next from Panda Tap?

We have more games in the pipeline, which we're testing for release in the next few weeks. We just released our first iOS title - Rich Dragon Gambling: The Chinese Slot Machine Game too.

We'll also be releasing High Speed Moto: Nitro Motorbike Racing - a casual motorbike racing game on iPhone. This already out on the Amazon Appstore.

Longterm, we're aiming to release larger online multiplayer games and we're talking with some local developers about publishing their titles overseas. They are quite Chinese in style, though, so it'll be interesting to see how an overseas audience reacts.

Thanks to Martin for his time.

You can check out what Panda Tap gets up to via its website.