King.com: How to make money crazy?

$King. COM (King) $ Recently the author is playing a game on the phone, called Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga), an elimination class casual game. All around the friends are very strange, ask me how to play a girl to play the elimination of the game? As a serious game enthusiast, with the ridicule of friends, spend time in such a simple, colorful game, it is because the game itself has the irresistible magic, but also prompted me to talk about this popular worldwide works.

2011 years, the game developer King.com A team of five people to develop a trial game, named Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga), and currently, the candy theme packaging of the game, has been sitting in the app store revenue top three, And is proud of the Google Play game download leaderboard Champion and income list runner-up, even defeated mighty strategy game Clash of clans! Created a remarkable miracle in the history of the game.

Before we talk about this game, let's take a look at the amazing performance of King.com, the developer of this big hot game, which recently released its first quarterly earnings, which grew by 195% to $608 million in the first quarter of 2014, with a 142% increase in profits from the year before. to $127 million, a single quarter's net profit exceeded $100 million! At present, as a mobile phone casual game manufacturers, its market capitalization of up to $6.5 billion, and the majority of the company's revenue is the hero, this is the Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga). An elimination class of casual games, can achieve the current results, Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga) What is the magic? We may as well think together.

First of all, Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga) is a free game. Perhaps a lot of people will spend 99 cents on a paid game, but how many people are spending money on a casual game? So the developer of Candycrush saga (Candy Crush Saga) King.com wisely positioned it for free, that is, it does not enter the threshold and anyone who downloads it can play. So how do you make money? Don't worry, as long as the player addicted to play, there is always the way to earn your money, we go over the next. The low threshold makes it easy to attract users, and the game currently has more than 50 million active users per month, with a total of more than 2 billion games per month. 70% of the users did not pay for it any fees! But it doesn't matter, there are 30% left!

From a visual effect, Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga) is very easy for most people to accept, the game with beautiful characters, shiny colors and sweet music. All this makes the game very friendly to most people. See this game colorful picture, whether it is a boy or a girl, have a play of the impulse. There is no place in the game to make people feel "rough", every visual element, whether it is glamorous candy, or cute cartoon characters, are carefully designed and produced, the impact on the screen, first Help Candycrush saga (Candy Crush Saga) in the user heart to lay a good impression of the head array. In addition, do not underestimate the sound effects of this game, the player every action is accompanied by surprise and stimulation, see a candy is eliminated, and occasionally "sugar crush! "," tasty! "The sound of encouragement is an invigorating and fulfilling feeling. Its background music relaxed and happy, often listen to not tired, to the player to bring the enjoyment of hearing.

King.com, who started out for a custom-made Facebook game, is fully aware of the importance of social to a game, Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga) is tied to Facebook accounts from the start, and players can see their friends ' scores. Every pass, the player can see the performance of friends in this, if you feel better, you can share the results of a key to Facebook, show off. And in some new links, must obtain the aid prop which the friend gives to pass, this restrictive condition becomes the game viral marketing important element. Currently, the cost of getting a user on Apple iOS is about $2. If Candy Crush is cross-promoted to 100 users, of whom 10% are trying to play, the King.com company will save $20 in marketing fees. Of course, for users who do not want to share, king.com will never let you, I clearly remember, I play to a certain level when the game prompts me, if you want to continue to play, you have three choices, first, go to Facebook and your friends to share this game. Second, pay directly for tickets to the next level. Third, complete three specific tasks, but can only complete one task per day, three days after the completion of all three tasks to continue the next level. I was unable to log on to Facebook for a well-known reason, but didn't want to wait 72 hours to continue playing, so I chose to pay immediately. With Facebook's account bindings, in all games in King.com, PC and mobile can be synchronized, the items you buy on the PC can be used on the mobile side, and on the mobile side can continue to play on the PC through the level, so that users play longer and more convenient. Social, is a key factor in the success of Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga), how to try to get players to talk to each other about the game, using the game mechanism to compete with each other, mutual benefit, and thus prolong the game life, are the mobile internet era to make money.

King.com Company has no shelves, especially to respect the players. For example, due to the 65th game is too difficult, leading to the loss of some players, so, for the notorious 65, King listened to the player's voice and modified some of the game content, appropriate to reduce the difficulty, greatly restore the user. In addition, the Candycrush saga (Candy Crush Saga) also holds the attitude of being fair to every player, regardless of whether there is a fee, the number of levels that all players can play is the same. And in the game sometimes appear the flashing hint function, is also randomly generated, and will not because of the paid relationship to get more tips. In addition, the candy generated in the game is also completely random, so that every challenge can be met with different surprises. Users who do not pay at all, as long as the number of play, always because of a dog poop good, and through a very difficult level.

So finally, let's talk about the profit model of the game that we are most concerned about. Overall, the game has three big profit models. If the user is likened to a pyramid, then up to 70% of users are under the pyramid, they are unwilling to pay, so they are encouraged to carry out viral marketing to expand the impact of the game and spread the range. Users in the second tier like to continue playing games without advertising, waiting, and invitations, and they are willing to pay for props. For this part of the player, King.com sells a number of use-limit props to help them break through the specific each level, so as to achieve profitability. At the top of the pyramid are the heavy players (core users), who not only play for a long time, but also good at playing the game, king.com the sale of magic packs to attract high-spending people, the magic package is extremely expensive, the most expensive spell package "stripe effect" up to $39.99, equivalent to 250 RMB to unlock a spell! But the heavy players spend willingly, because the presence of spells reduces the difficulty of each game, rather than the specific level. If a player buys a spell pack, they may be able to avoid paying for the previously limited number of charge items. However, these spells are not all reasonable to use, spells can help these technical good players, and the technology of the bad players that use the magic effect is not small, can only obediently in each off to buy props clearance. Not only is Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga), King.com's other games are also used to treat the player's profit model, essentially the so-called tiered pricing in marketing to the extreme.

King.com has a lot of similar casual puzzle games, its game tactics and team collaboration is also worthy of reference. The company likes the massive game tactics, 35 people a group, every three months a game, the failure cost is small, facilitates the innovation. Don't forget, now the most red Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga), the start of the development team is only 5 people! The newly developed game is first released to King.com, and if it responds well, add more gameplay and more levels, and then transplant it to a social platform. When the mobile Internet is prevalent, the mobile end becomes the strategic commanding point of King.com, so the company replicates the success model from King.com to Facebook, and when the game succeeds on Facebook, the company then transplants it to the mobile side. Candy Crush Saga (Candy Crush Saga) is filtered through this process. Innovation requires experimentation, and when there is always a failure, the way that multiple teams develop quickly makes the cost of failure very low, and after a game fails, there are other games. Its rivals, such as Zynga, will spend more than two years, spending more than 100 people, and investing $10 million to develop Ville series games. This risk is too great for innovation, because once innovation fails, it can be disastrous. And in King.com, the reason is innovation, because if the failure to lose only 35 people three months of time, fully acceptable. With these tactics, King.com successfully launched a number of casual games, king.com now the number of active users per month is 108 million.

In an interview, King.com's chief operating officer, Alex Dales, attributed the company's success to the increase in casual gaming users, who are now looking for casual games rather than resource management games. This change does help the company rise! We look back on the 2010 Facebook Top Game list, the top 10 are almost all resource management games, and to 2011, 2012 or even 2013 years, you will find a significant change in the situation, casual games instead of the resource management game location. Many people actually have no time to play resource management games, so some high-level leisure, without thinking too much of the puzzle game is more popular. In this tide, Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga) defeated Clash of Clans (tribal war) is absolutely logical thing, have to admire king.com this homeopathy and for the surfers.

Oh yes, have to mention the king.com share price, so good light asset company, then the best-selling products, so many users, so real deal profit, so good mobile Internet game Enterprise concept, referring to a a-share valuation, the price-earnings ratio is not 50 times times also should have 30 times times?

Precisely wrong, the company's current price-earnings ratio is just 10 times times, while most Wall Street analysts even think 10 times times is still overvalued, continue to see the company decline. For example, Adam Krejcik, an analyst at Eilers, said: "King.com's reliance on Candy Crush saga (Candy Crush Saga) will inevitably result in a sharp decline in revenue at a certain time, We are now seeing signs that the game's revenue momentum has slipped, and few companies have been able to sustain success, especially in the hands-on tour, although King.com's performance is far more than its competitors, but only one game is clearly not a sustainable long-term strategy. "

Indeed, the hands of the players are changeable, if they find a new game, King's income will quickly decline. Previously, Zynga was also very successful on the Facebook platform, and it seems that investors still have a shadow today. The Farmville developer, Zynga, was priced at $14.69 after the IPO in 2012, but as the number of active users continues to decline, share prices have fallen, now only $3.10.

Rationally back to a a-share, we have to point out that a a-share market in a large number of high-p ratio of the hand travel concept company, far from their current price-earnings ratio, hand travel is very beautiful, very profitable, but any rounds hand tour, there is a great probability of being proved to be a "short-lived ghost." Referring to King.com's valuation in the US market, please be more calm. If the above article you did not look carefully, it is OK, hope this last paragraph, may help everyone.

King.com: How to make money crazy? Go