The "runaway" phenomenon that has been hotly discussed by social game developers has quietly changed by the end of the year, and many in the industry have confirmed that a number of developers have changed their strategy and are ready to be placed domestically. Only in April this year, the developers of the Burson-interactive representative also said they could not survive at home, and have gone to the Nuggets on Facebook.
According to Hot Cool CEO Yong revealed that this phenomenon is mainly due to two reasons, on the one hand to enter the threshold of the Facebook platform is getting higher, developers profit space is narrowing, on the other hand, this year, domestic enterprises have to open up to social games support more and more.
Dream shattered: Many developers lose money overseas
Gold nuggets with high expectations for overseas markets soon discovered that the reality was not as good as it could be, despite the rapid growth of Zynga, the biggest social-gaming developer in the world, with revenues likely to reach $500 million trillion this year and even $5 billion trillion in market capitalisation, and many domestic developers are not directly involved in the effort There is even a loss of money situation.
"Happy Farm" developers five minutes of the CEO Gao Shao fly to Tencent Technology, said, at first it is indeed foreign money easier, but with the maturity of Facebook and other platforms, domestic developers to enter the threshold is higher, the current performance of the best domestic applications in the Facebook ranking of about 20. Moreover, because of the exchange rate, the dollar is worth more than the renminbi, so it just looks as if it is making money abroad.
In the overseas market for many years of Hot cool network CEO Yong said that the current overseas market has been largely social gaming companies such as Zynga, rockyou and other occupation, the domestic start-up or small companies to overseas nuggets have not too big market, and should be very difficult conditions.
Yong said that as Facebook's social-gaming industry is maturing, and even as Facebook users continue to grow at a high rate, developers are getting more and more expensive to get users, often requiring 2, 3 dollars to get a user. In addition, social gaming has shrunk in the European market. The Japanese market is very focused on the user experience, developers are rarely able to use ads to get users, which also makes it difficult for domestic developers to open up overseas markets.
Burson Interactive CEO Zhang Wei also very agree, said now foreign market competition is very fierce, at the outset, many developers think abroad is easy to make money to go to sea, now went out to visit a circle after discovering and the reality gap is very large, investment and pay is not directly proportional.
"At present, the whole social gaming industry is still very bitter, generally not make money, of course, a few developers by virtue of the quality of game products to make some money, but currently can feed the whole team abroad is more than 10." ”
The developer's encounter also confirms the former Shenboyang, vice president of Oak. Shenboyang pointed out that if the domestic social game developers in the development of Facebook programs, must be advertised, through Facebook payment will be taken away by Facebook 30% split, the end developers will not necessarily be able to make money on Facebook.
Rekindle passions: Domestic platforms Open
Compared with the rising threshold of foreign countries and the difficulty of making money, the domestic market is clearly developing in a good direction. This year, the grand, Baidu, happy Net has opened the platform, NetEase launched a small game development plan, nine city introduced mobile gaming platform OpenFeint, Tencent also announced that its various platforms will be open gradually. With the increase of the domestic open platform, developers encounter fewer users, the domestic market is not profitable situation is expected to be resolved, and to rekindle the domestic market dream of the Nuggets.
Prior to that, Burson Interactive CEO Zhang Wei has said the company in Happy Net, Renren, friends, 51.com, Baidu Gaming platform are providing application services, but the profit situation is not good. He has said that the company's social game "Happy Baby" in the top five of everyone online, earning only tens of thousands of yuan a month. After deducting the server cost, the personnel cost basically also has little left.
Now, Zhang Wei said, Burson Interactive has about 100 people's size, its main social game for "Texas Poker", "Happy Baby" through the net, Renren one months can earn millions. To Renren 64 divided into, happy Net is not below the industry level of calculation, one months can also earn hundreds of thousands of. Excited by Tencent's move to develop the platform, he says many developers are already eyeing the platform, and the Burson interaction is ready to go.
Hot Cool Network CEO Yong said that the current hot cool a large part of the energy is placed at home. He believes that domestic developers must be based on the domestic, only a foothold in the long-term development, on Facebook, "can only make short-term money." In Gao Shao Fei's view, domestic webgame and social games are more profitable, relying on the domestic market has already created great value. In contrast, the current domestic social game in the model is still lack of user money to set out methods and means.
Recently has been busy to introduce the openfeint of the nine city vice president Shen that the domestic mobile Internet environment began to receive attention and attention of developers, after all, the local market in the operation will be more convenient, there is a good location. He points out that social games are certainly an important category for future mobile internet games, and that mobile phones are a "social tool", so it is a natural fusion for social games to move from fixed-Internet to mobile.
"The Games I play on my phone are mostly social games," he said. Shen that the key to the development of social games at home lies in how the various components of the industrial ecological chain optimize the ecological chain.