Hot Cool CEO Yong share social games Japanese market operation Way

April 19 News, social game developers Hot Cool CEO Yong recently guest "blog Training Camp", on the social game in the domestic development, social game internationalization and other aspects of the topic to share, while answering the on-site social game practitioners to ask questions.

The following is a live graphic record:

Yong: I wonder if everyone has eaten dinner. Because it's 7:30, not too early. For our company, 7:30 many colleagues have not finished work, eat dinner can lift the hand. I believe that the dinner is Sohu, the other rushed over to eat. So the industry is very hard.

Social games are very competitive with homogenization

I have been working in this industry for a while, but I am very excited about the industry and I think the industry is changing people's lives. Just now in the Sohu company with some peer exchange, I also found that everyone is very hard, but very excited. People have always felt that these days, blogging, Twitter, or whatever, are changing people's lifestyles, and getting into the industry is really exciting.

I entered the social game is not very accidental, because I started the first company is to do SNS, do social network, we began to do in November 03, is one of China's earliest SNS company, called billion friends. My partner and I just came back from the United States, took an investment, no hesitation, no one knows what the domestic situation, directly killed to do. Look back to think of the real risk now, from the beginning, did one months after the discovery of domestic already has thirty or forty SNS company, then is November 03. Now do social games are facing the same problem, China's homogenization of the competition is very serious.

Huawei Stimulates International Road

When I was a friend, I wondered if I could find a shortcut and how other companies would grow. At that time I looked at some of the companies I admired, one of which was Huawei, and Huawei had a very big bottleneck in all its growth in 03. It wanted to go out, but it wasn't that easy. When Ningzhong wrote the article, he said that when your product went to Japan and Russia, others ignored Chinese things. I also met when I was in Japan. I have seen Huawei go very successfully in internationalization. When I started working for this company, we started in December 07, when we started releasing our services in 08, the products based on social networking, the application of social networks and social games, which should be a very international one, should be an international thing from the first day. So we wrote our vision on the wall on the first day of the company, and we want to be a global competitive international social gaming company. It is because of this idea that at least I myself have this idea that our entire team, including myself, has a lot of energy to go to international markets. 08 The first half of the time we pushed, there is a company called Friendster, it is the pioneer of SNS, is the first SNS company, billion friends is also the first to imitate Friendster to do. We released the application to Friendster to test the water. We made a lot of attempts on Facebook in 08 and found it very difficult. December 08 came out, we may be the first company in China to put the same type of products posted to Facebook, 09 March 10. We've posted our Sun Ranch, the so-called farm-class product, to Facebook. One of the most popular products on Facebook, called Farmville, was released at the end of June 2009. At the end of June, Zynga lifted the banner and knocked down other companies. But his product came out. When we released this product on March 10, 09, I was holding a very complex mood, there is a "steal" feeling. Because I used to study in the United States, educated, worked. In the West is it still like the Chinese, like others, whether he has the same degree of acceptance. I have been holding such hesitation, I have done a lot of market correction. But others say this is beyond the moral bottom line, saying that should not be stolen. So I've been very hesitant about pushing this thing on Facebook. Just this time one of the other things on Facebook that was done early on the farm was a product called Farmtown, a farm town. It is earlier than Farmville, in my hesitation that time, Farmtown rapid growth. I just thought that everyone else was up and we tried. This is the first problem we encounter in internationalization. The concept of this product is not suitableWestern culture.

 

Experience and sentiment of entering Japanese market

In addition, we are in the process of internationalization, in the process of my entering the Japanese platform, but also because of my SNS practitioners, I know that Japan's largest SNS based on PC and mobile phone is mixi, I have been watching it, we would like to try internationalization. Then I knew it was going to be open in August, and I wanted to kill it anyway. Huawei's entry into the Russian market faces a problem when other companies look at the show and Chinese companies do it. Westerners say Chinese companies can also produce switches, routers, and impossible. It was 96, 97. When we entered Japan, Mixi the same idea, what can Chinese companies do? He felt a little dismissive of us. Japan is a closed country, the whole business is also a relatively closed business. I was also able to find their CFO, talk to them, and say try it and see if it can be done. The other side said we are very strict on product quality. In fact, they are extremely strict about the quality of the products, including the quality of the products they are now demanding. The products that Chinese do are generally not good, so you must turn off the products. At that time we spent a lot of energy in doing Japanese products, and finally reluctantly submitted to audit, the other side of a check, you have a problem, translation is not correct, bounce out of the box in the middle. Similar to some very small problems, is really very harsh, almost crazy harsh. We have no way, we will change, adapt to the local environment. You really have to adapt to him in that place, he put forward a lot of things do have some reason, we now slowly understand. We're going to do that. Changed a few times, and changed everyone tired, so we are not on the first day of platform release, we started in June to prepare, but in the third, fourth genius online, because he felt that time you changed almost, we were also no way, the platform on the line, our products have not been online, and quickly to change this thing. So we encountered a lot of obstacles in the process of internationalization.

But from now on, I think the internationalization is a success. From the internet point of view, I dare not say that the hot cool is in the international market success. But it is also one of the few to be aware of internationalization on the first day of its existence and to succeed on the road to internationalization. Our Sun pasture, animal park, Sunshine Deep-sea has launched a lot of products, whether in China, Japan, Facebook, Europe and the United States, Russia, South Korea are in a more advanced position. When we first released our products in Russia, we released our products and made a lot of improvements. So far in Russia all social gaming companies, we are ranked top five gaming companies. It's also a good score on Facebook, where all of the people in China are doing the best they can, and many are doing it on our own. On the one hand, I think Facebook is a little bit familiar. In America. On the other hand, the market is big. But Facebook is really a very competitive market. In particular, China's internet companies, Tencent to buy DST, Russia's that company, this is a good thing, this on the internationalization of the road is absolutely expensive, which is certainly very high cost. Step walked over. Even if he goes into Russia, have not entered the mainstream market in the west, such as Europe and the United States, Japan, such as the market, did not go in, we want to do social games, since to fight in this industry, we have to compete with the first-class companies, like the company to compete with people such as GA. Including now, Zynga thinks hot cool is their global competitor. They don't have a few competitors, maybe 35. There are two or three families in the United States. Put us in the position of a competitor anywhere else in the world. It's also very stressful for us, and Zynga's attention to you will kill you with money. China also needs to be healthier in the capital markets. But indeed, with one of the top one or two companies in the world, last year, this year, and next year, when competing with a company like this, we do feel that a lot of other people's stuff is worth learning. For example, he is in a lot of technical aspects, his own ideas, although the U.S. gaming industry is far from the Chinese online gaming industry, but he has a lot of ideas do catch up very fast. And there's a lot of innovation, and he's constantly taking it out and zooming in on his capital indefinitely. We are also learning this kind of thing, learning his mechanism. Compete directly with him on Facebook. And the mechanism used in the Chinese market, the Japanese market, the Russian market, the Korean market. From our goal, we must be in the world's most mainstream battlefield and the most cattle companies can duel. In the next two or three years, the entire social gaming industry will have a Chinese company in the world. This requires hot and hard work with the peers here. Thank you!

Social Game depth andLife cycle issues
 

Question: Liu always hello, I come from Sohu White society. We had a team in Sohu that ran the game on Facebook, earlier than you, we were late 08, you were March 09. We run a game called Love Dogs at Facebook at the end of 08.

Yong: I should have read your blog. I think you may have recently joined the White Society.

Question: To ask two questions, the first question that I have not been trying to understand, the social game determines the depth of the game. The game may be simple and the lifecycle is short, so if a player plays for 6 months on a social game. The first month will be able to search the player 80% of the money, his economic system is becoming stronger and less need to charge money. When you play a game, you can receive 80% of his money in the first month. How to charge? How do you charge for this game? In the depth of the game, how is hot cool solved? The game depth is not enough case, hot cool how to solve the problem of charge? You are very leading in the Japanese market, do you have a mobile phone in Japan based on social games on the development of the mobile phone in mainland China have a pioneering children's suggestions?

Yong: The first question you ask is a lot of stuff, and you're talking about it. I've been thinking about how our company has been through these things, including the way I've been associating myself with other peers, foreign companies, and chatting with them. Social game is not a very shallow game. Second, what is the life cycle of social gaming? Third, how do you achieve sustained income.

First of all, social game is relatively simple, we are also this concept. Social games will become more and more complex, we all say social games, China happens to have a web game, China's game is very developed, derived from the Web game. Not long after the rise of the European web game, China has directly developed it into an industry. Web games have a lot in common with social games to some extent because we've been thinking about them for years. I think the complexity now doesn't mean future complexity.

Second, even if it is the life cycle of a product like this one. I feel his user lifecycle and the life cycle of the game, one is how long users can play, a game, how long a product can last, for example, you play a PSP game, a lot of stand-alone games, your user's life cycle may be one hours, two days a day. But the life cycle of the game may be one months, three years and five years. So social gaming also has this life cycle. At first we were in the Sun Ranch when we also have investors, investors are asking me, you do this thing even if you make it in the future? After one months is not the life cycle is over. You have to develop new products. I said it's not. Let's try it. After one months the product is still playing, at least the game continues to fire, the user is still growing. Investors over a period of time and come to ask, this product may be three months time cycle, after three months you will do? I was already a bit emboldened, I said this product should be good, as long as we have been doing maintenance, operation, update, there is no big problem. We even had to plan for the three-year life cycle. This is a more arrogant assumption. Those people certainly don't believe it. Another three months, 09 March or April, someone ran to say this thing is half a year's life cycle. After six months, the product life cycle is still long, users are constantly using. Even this simple product, its life cycle is not only one months, two months, three months. I really believe that the life cycle of this product will last for at least two years. This product, like Sun Ranch, is, conservatively, a life cycle of 1.5 to two years. But that premise is our insistence on the idea of social gaming. It's really not like a traditional MMO and web game. Traditional MMO like an adult, he came out of the day has been 18 years old, parents have spent countless efforts, they learn a lot of things, come out is a mature German people. So he doesn't need to make too many updates. Others do not need to spend a lot of effort to maintain. This person has a self-learning ability. But social games come out as a baby, and you have to spend time nurturing, guiding, and teaching him to do things. Also constantly cultivate his various aspects of other functions. In this direction, you will be able to extend your life cycle. Go back to pay, pay in China, a lot of people do social games, many people are actually from the Web game out. Web games are coming out of the MMO industry. Chinese web games are all about activity. Today an activity, one week another activity, recharge and so on. A variety of activities to the user's desire to pull up, to pull up the recharge, he has a direct result, is to shorten his life cycle. Therefore, the typical web game a group of servers life cycle is three months, six months. He's constantly squeezing users, and I'm hoping to do it in three months. We've been on FacebookTo do, I have a very deep understanding of the company, because they do not rely entirely on activities to charge. The activity itself is a function. He himself does a lot of operations, this operation is based on the user's point of view, so that users get a lot of things. Falwell, a lot of people play for a long time, including myself now still playing, because I will not be flooded with a lot of things. I don't feel like I'm being squeezed, of course there's something else that's constantly being updated from the perspective of the user. Your charge cycle will naturally lengthen.
 

Moving this piece, there must be a lot of companies in the mobile, I do not understand this area you know so much, but I strongly believe that the mobile phone is the most suitable for social games. The opportunity here is no less than you have to internationalize, to do something else, to go to Facebook to do it, really no less than this thing. Mobile phone because of industrial chain problems, by operators, the domestic SP control, he must be deformed. What his metamorphosis is, he needs to become a seeker.

Social games where the original user gets

Question: I asked a game-running question, and now many developers want to put their game on Facebook. The hardest part was where the original group of users came from. Initially there were two meanings, one from the beginning to the size of thousands of people. These thousands of people may bring some users, but some developers do not have the ability to buy ads, and can not be able to pass the good operation of the flow to him, how he does?

Yong: At that time you did have a lot of tools to use. When we first started doing it, we had the same doubts. May 09, we also have a lot of doubts, we do not have money to advertise, how to do? Although there is investment, but you have to spend money to advertise still very sad. So I began to observe what others were doing. At that time the text feed came out for a while, just launched a graphics feed, I was a look, this is not a picture ads? Good, we're going to do this too. But it's also a lot of trouble to see someone else do it and actually go through the API. Because of the Facebook API, if you and his platform relationship, you have to ask a lot of questions, no one to ask, you have been trying to go a lot of detours, we took a lot of detours, found that the feed how to send out, It's not what you want, it's ugly. You can go this way at that time. I remember suddenly one day a big application went down. Not a competitor, I forget which company, I suddenly found that our traffic increased. Then find the reason, just found that we have a lot of people here in our forum said a certain SNS products how to die, a look at this is another company's SNS products, the way to optimize, so that others in search when you can search for your application. But I don't think that's going to work anymore. But I believe there will be a new way. Like China we do a company, early how to bring users over. For example, some of today's so-called fans, you can use fans, Facebook fans you can also exchange links, the entire industry chain on Facebook and the eco-chain and the internet's industrial chain and the ecological chain is no different. A friend of mine has more than 2000 friends on Facebook. By the way the Chinese are best at it, 1.1 points accumulate. It's the only way you can compete with a company like this for a Chinese company. People are just throwing money at us. The Chinese understand the product better than they do. It's up to everyone to delve into it.

Suggestions for entering the Japanese market

Question: I am a happy Fish pond developer, we have gone the same way, there are some similar feelings. The first question I want to ask is the internationalization of the road, you said that the first day you start to do the company when you understand this. What do you think is the most advantageous way on this road? What do you need most? Is it a talent pool or a partner or something that affects the most? Why did you succeed in the Japanese market? But some people did not succeed in the Japanese market? Like me.

Yong: Happy Fish ponds have also done very well, you should be through partners to do. But, as far as I know, the company you work with is not going to succeed. It's very prudent to find a partner in Japan, I think. Basically, Japan's start-up companies are not capable. The Japanese are a particularly old-fashioned, especially well-behaved one, very well-behaved, I remember a joke, or the Japanese told me. An American company is outsourcing Russian companies and Japanese companies. The condition is that you do 1000 products inside, can only have one unqualified product. After one months, they went to the Russian company to say, "How are you?" The Russian company said that it has not done well, the rules of the inside is not clear, and then discuss the meeting, because we are doing is very sophisticated, you these things we look down, very unclear. He asked the Japanese company, the Japanese company also said, not finished, sorry. He said can you send us the product specifications of the offending product? We did the product. Japanese companies I come into contact with a lot of Japanese is very old-fashioned, not adventurous spirit, lack of entrepreneurial spirit. So it is prudent to choose an entrepreneurial partner in Japan. You really have to be successful in internationalization, the team must have this strength. I always tell our team, no matter what, I must rely on their own, you rely on yourself you know, only you know the rules of the game you can know how to succeed. No matter how you depend on others, success is a sham. We have a very deep lesson here. In the Russian market, there is a company in Russia you know, I do not like this company, I quarreled with them a lot of, they are very short-sighted, one months to earn money, make it after you. In addition, a social gaming company that once benefited has already done a lot in the market. We release another product when we do not find them, we rely on their own is the hope, his ideas and your ideas are completely different. His own charges, ideas and you are completely different, he completely want to make money, you want to a longer term. A lot of people here, at least like our company, we want to keep growing fast. We want to go in the long run. He was very short-sighted, and we were utterly unacceptable and disgusted.
 

In the Japanese market, Japan's mobile phone is very advanced, I believe that China has many models will follow the Japanese model to go. I have seen many innovations in China already in Japan. Japanese mobile phone users more than PC users. For example, we found three peaks in our products on our PC. One is morning, one noon, one night. But on the phone there are two peaks. One is the morning, the other is the night. Night and it's very late. Why is this the reason? In the morning a lot of people on the subway, I was on business in Tokyo, Tokyo is usually 9 o ' clock to work, you are 8:40, on the streets of Tokyo rarely see people, after 8:45, many people like ants from the underground drill out, Tokyo's public transport is basically underground, subway. Just like an ant. Black suit, white shirt, black and white one ant came out of the ground. Those people are in the subway and playing with these things at work. Others are at night. The peak duration of the evening was longer, from 89 to 12 and a bit. In Japan, mobile phones are not exactly like China's, and they are also used for lunch at work and at noon. They are more concentrated, and they are concentrated places, such as on the subway, on the road, at home, which is also a significant difference.

The biggest three problems in entering the Japanese market

Question: I have been working with Japanese companies since 06, when the main mobile products, the introduction of content. Recently I have just started my own business, as a company there are some Japanese partners, there are some opportunities. Now is the chance to do social games into Japan's market. Getting ready to do it. I am now taking the social game as part of my first entry into the Japanese market. In fact, there is a big fear in my heart, is also afraid of encountering the compatibility at that time, code, with Chinese ideas can hardly understand the problem. I hope you can enlighten me on this. Do you have the biggest obstacle at the development level before you go to the Sun Ranch in Japan? Can you give me a two or three-point headache?

Yong: Sun pasture was a relatively mature product at the time, and they were less picky from the product level. Some of our later new products, when the sun was released, they were very picky. We have a very good relationship with some of their companies, but they are still very picky. At that time and Misnes cooperation, encountered a lot of difficulties in the platform to cooperate on this level. The first is no account, if you cooperate on Misnes, you have to have an account. I made an account in 04 and later found out that the account was out of use. and to find someone else's mobile phone registration, Japan's mobile phone is the real-name system, you can not find someone easy to help you sign up for an account, because his account can be tied to the phone, you can do illegal things above, mobile phone holders will have problems. You can solve the problem of the account directly, and now the problem of the account will still be put in front of everyone. Find more friends to think of ways, we were also looking for a lot of friends. There is also a very abnormal requirement on Misnes that when you submit your application, your application must have 10 users. I myself think, I two users find it very difficult, let me find out where to find 10 users. Then all the time, their CFO helped a lot, saw 10 tests came over, and then barely solved.
 

The second is the technical issue of the platform. First of all, the language of this piece, understanding will be relatively better, but Japan actually, although he said to write a lot of documents, we see the efficiency of Japanese companies are definitely not up to the Chinese company. We sometimes ask a question, ask their platform that side, then let their CFO turn over, or copy to their CFO, ask the past, basically to one weeks before you come back, he is busy every day, I really do not know what to do. I went to their office, and everyone was doing things. There is a Chinese to tell me a joke, in Japan some people can 24 hours a day staring at the computer, not moving, nothing to do, in the same job. I think maybe a lot of Japanese are like that. His reaction was very slow. Another technical problem, we encountered a validation problem at that time, our engineers, because we are on the first batch, the beginning of the test, their platform is also tuned, the validation of the problem is always verified not past. Our company at that time that several colleagues in the meeting room inside office, want to concentrate, our colleague said, the platform must have made what change, he did not inform us, so we cannot verify. After about half an hour, there must have been a change, and we had nothing to move. When you encounter a technical problem, he does a lot of changes, not necessarily to inform you. These are not necessarily Chinese companies doing well, doing so transparently, and so concerned about developers. It is because of their Japanese company's system that they do not take responsibility. And Chinese companies, like Facebook, say nothing about it, and he'll tell you any changes you make. The advantage in Japan he is relatively respectful of the market, relatively fair, there will be no 9010 of the split. Many people do not believe in the social game market at first, how do you work for others. But after I went to Japan, the stronger feeling was that their listed companies were very trusting in the market for social games because they believed that the platform companies would not abuse them and would not be unfair to them.
 

Third, in the test, because the test is a very important, especially the mobile phone test, we are in Japan's mobile platform, the product is the most advanced. Japan I know another mobile phone game company, they have four hundred or five hundred of mobile phones, each product on the line to test at least 200. The beginning of the phone on the line, are let Misnes help us to do some testing, because we have only a few limited mobile phones, roaming in China so expensive, we even spent 100,000 yuan, in 9, October, one months of the test cost is 100,000 yuan. The premise is that we asked him to help with the test. Test on the PC is also, he will speak a variety of situations, I think the Japanese or self-test can do well, it is worth our study. In China, for example, it doesn't matter if the product is rough at first, but it won't work in Japan. A year old at least to achieve the level of seven years old, he hoped that your product is a relatively complete, users will not have too much protest. When the machine is not allowed at all, you become a machine. The Japanese soon lost interest in you.

Moderator: If there is no question, we can communicate next. Thank you, thank you, Liu.