Focused on marketing intelligence in Asia, Niko Partners has been keeping tabs on the state of games in the region for the greater part of two decades. We spoke to founder and managing partner Lisa Hanson to get some insight into how the company operates - and what to keep an eye on going forward.

PCGamesInsider.biz: Tell us a little bit about what your company does.

Lisa Hanson: Niko Partners is the leading provider of market intelligence on the digital games markets of Asia. We have staff on the ground and native speakers of the languages in each of the countries we cover.

Where other research firms may provide market size and forecast, we provide market size and forecast plus streetwise on the ground cultural and market information from the demand perspective of the gamers, as well as the supply perspective of the competitors and the regulations and infrastructure. We are approaching 17-years-old, focused on the Asia games market for all of those years.

How has the last year been for Niko Partners?

There is a huge focus on Asia right now, so Niko Partners has had a strong year. When companies need to know about how to enter or expand share in the markets in Asia, they turn to us.

Whey they need to understand gamers or test game concepts in Asia they turn to us. When they need to know about regulations, internet cafes, esports, or their competitors, they turn to us.

Unique visitors to our website have doubled even in the past month and risen steadily throughout the past year.

What recent successes have you had?

We measure success by return clients and the volume of opportunities to convey our analysis to the world. We have had a lot of both this year.

The majority of the work we do for our clients is confidential, but our custom research projects have been interesting and always different from each other, and our syndicated reports get richer every time we publish one.

We very frequently publish articles, analysis, and free reports to our blog, and we also publish a weekly email newsletter highlighting the most important news, earnings reports, etcetera. Those resources are free to anyone who wants to learn more about the market.

What challenges are facing your sector in the market?

There are a lot of sensational numbers being thrown out there, sometimes with pretty questionable methodologies behind them. This confuses the market and makes it hard for companies to accurately develop their own forecasts.

Companies need solid numbers and projections as a base, supplemented by demand based intelligence to inform their strategies and decisions.

What do you think are the most exciting market trends in games right now?

Right now we think esports is blazing hot and will be the primary driver for success in games in the near-term. This falls onto PC and mobile, and on console in some markets (not yet on console in the markets we track closely).

What are your aims for the coming year?

Our aims are to continue to invest in our market coverage and technology to provide our research and analysis in meaningful ways for our clients.

We want to provide the highest value insight on our niche market of digital games in Asia.