A big break in social games

Is this a developer-led revolution or a stack of games for social platforms? "Business value" magazine Xiayong | After 2009 years, ChinaCache's COO Xu Shiqing found that the company's business has grown rapidly.　　Xu Shiqing in the Blue Flood, is the domestic well-known Internet basic services ──CDN (content distribution network) company, its business growth or decline, can be judged the internet market growth or recession barometer. "The server hosting business has only begun this year, with more than 20 customers now." Some customers are hosting our servers at the beginning of the year only a few, but the development speed is very fast, in a few months, doubled in succession to dozens of units.　　The company's SNS Open Platform Senior advisor Feng Guangkun said, not only the number of servers, the business contact with the blue flood of the number of companies also more and more. Blue Flood, the high-speed development business, is a CDN and server hosting for social games (Social Game) developers, while China's current social games, regardless of the number of products or developers, are experiencing explosive growth. "There are at least three or four new social game developers in the country every day."　　Insiders say this is no exaggeration.　　"Poke" and the video site boom of the year, the social game development market is booming, the incentive is still capital. The games were first noticed, in the news that Facebook users in social networking sites have soared and are starting to make a profit.　　Some of the most popular third party social game developers on the site have already been profitable for Facebook itself, with annual revenues reaching 100 million dollars, data from several US agencies show. Then came the news of the growing capital entering these social-game developers. Some of the few that can be identified are: November 9, a well-known game developer Electronic Arts (Electronic Arts, or EA) announced that spending 275 million of dollars in cash to buy a British social game developer playfish--the developer's game on Facebook ranked second November 17, Zynga, a developer of the top Facebook game on the farm, FarmVille more than 15 million of billions of dollars in investment, with a total of $54 million worth of $250 million trillion in annual revenue (2009 estimates).　　It is expected that social game developers will be listed next year. At home, the social game market in the industry's hot debate and rumors, is also becoming a "money of the boundless myth." For example, whenever someone gathers, "QQ Farm" and its developers "5 minutes" almost certainly mentioned. Under the operation of Tencent, the growth speed and earning ability of this community game is very astonishing, according to unconfirmed statement----50 million yuan per month; founded more than 3 years ago, the farm game was released last November "5 minutes", also became the eyes of many people can be copiedSuccessful sample.　　What kind of market is this? The Poke was born in 2005 when Facebook wanted to make it easier for users to interact with each other's profile pages, messages and comments to enhance the "user-friendliness of the user pages". Facebook explains this feature: "It's a way for you and your friends to interact, and we encourage you to give it your own explanation." "This feature is simple enough to have any unwanted meaning, when a user" poke "another user, only a system prompts:" So-and-so person stabbed you. "　　That's all it is.　　But from an interactive point of view, it is more like the basic archetype of all Community games-you have a virtual object (including yourself), a person who is interested in you to make some changes to the item, and when you feel the change, you change the object in the past. This interaction between users is often persistent.　　"Poke" This seemingly boring function, quickly by the user developed into a "stab war"-in fact, is constantly stabbed, poke past, and then become a "super poke", "poke" This action allows users to define themselves, such as from "he stabbed you" into "he touched your head." In the future, the "poke" inspiration was quickly brought to some early game user interaction, and the popularity of happy net to China, such as many people are very familiar with the "sale of slaves."　　The game introduces a simple virtual data system to measure the price per user after being "traded" by other users. After Facebook opened the platform, the game of information interaction between users was completely created by Third-party application providers.　　With the rapid popularity of "parking" and other games, more and more application providers will "Battle", "virtual operation" and other design, as a community game an important part of the join.　　Although the community game has spawned a lot of play, but all the basic still follow the "poke" rules, interaction is any game to spread and sticky users of the most important reason. The explosive growth of Chinese social games, with the exception of capital incentives, is one of the main reasons for the relatively low entry threshold for the market. "Less than three or four people, more than ten people, have technology, art, planning, can make molding products, investment may only need hundreds of thousands of yuan."　　"Billion broadcast media CEO Huhai said. Billion broadcast media is originally an advertising company, because bullish social game market, at the beginning of the year, Huhai with a team including himself, 5 people, Research and development on the line named "Happy Swineherd" game. The game is up to 50,000 active users a week.　　At present, it has 2.8 million registered users on Renren, 600,000 active users, revenue and active degree of the top ten. Although in a much more distant future, social games will certainly become an important part of the social platform business model and have a promising future, standing in the presence of the springing up of game developers, the first, I am afraid it is the life of a badly beaten. "Last year to the beginning of this year, social games are not many, social networking site users are looking for games, and now completely different." We are second in the domestic market to enter social games, catching up with the last bus just broke out at the beginning of the year. Huhai said, "But even now, if I have a few people in my hands and have almost 500,000 dollars in cash, I will still choose to play social games."　　"What they see is that they can enter this threshold within their means and still have a chance to face the future." The Chinese path is more than 200,000 people with a network game with "a server with thousands of people on it", and it is possible to achieve a break-even level. Although the "majority of free, a few players pay" model, but the distribution of social game users pyramid more flat, user ARPU value lower. In the emergence of a large number of social games, user migration threshold is very low today, any game in the charging mode slightly careless, it is possible to quickly lose users, to the last discreetly.　　Huhai also admits that although "happy swineherd" active users have reached 600,000, but the monthly income is not much. Compared with making money, what is more missing is the right of speech. Even the world's hottest social games, such as Zynga's farm, are still unable to get enough bargaining chips for social-game developers, even if the number of users has reached more than 65 million. Social games are dependent on social platforms, so the game thrives entirely on the prosperity of the Community platform. "In China, this is more obvious, such as Renren and social gaming, much like the relationship between mobile operators and SP." "Some industry experts said," the game of consumption through the ' Everyone beans ' this virtual currency to achieve, renren to get cash and then the game developers to divide, follow such as ' 46 ' ratio. "At the same time, the biggest difference between Chinese social games and America is the uncertainty about the development of social platforms in China, the soil on which social games depend."　　Compared with 300 million users, a family alone, open-minded Facebook, China's social platform is still in the war period, the most profitable Tencent QQ, not open to outside developers, and Renren such an open platform, has not seen a strong profit case, but has been more and more community games have been badly beaten. In China, the development of social games is more complex because of the uncertainty of the underlying soil.　　In addition to social networking sites, many other types of internet companies are also using huge user traffic to try to import traffic into their own set of social gaming platforms, and to complete their transition from product to community platforms. The sharp increase in social games, so that Baidu, Qihoo 360, Storm audio and video have a full choice, they will be good community games to put into their own community, and then guide users to "reside" in which to circle users. Because users on these platforms are mostly registered with the platform's registration system, social gaming does not have the ability to store user data in theirServer.　　Therefore, the social game itself to the user's viscosity can only rely on these sites to complete. At present, the domestic such platform, there are more than 10, the pattern has not formed a steady state. "Feng Guangkun said," Tencent, Renren, happy net, sing roaming, and then to Baidu, Sina and other traffic can be introduced to the platform, dispersed the individual community game users. "This makes each social game, operating on different platforms, facing a completely different crowd, the money has not been earned, the cost of operations has been elevated." The user's social game is fragmented, and it can only help the platform to enhance the user stickiness and interactivity of the platform without the power of game. Although sitting in China's vast internet base, but for now, social games can only be on a platform, set up a fragmented and low flat user pyramid.　　The platform to the social game as a chip, launched a fight of operational capabilities. The three advantages of increasing stickiness, earning money and entertaining social networking have made social gaming a part of the social platform.　　From Facebook, the opening of the social platform has enabled it to attract a large number of Third-party community game developers and, together with the platform, to promote each other from offline to online relationships.　　Despite the intense competition in China, the weak voice, the fragmentation of user data, and even "the death of a large number of social games," it can also be seen that the entry of a large number of original social gaming products is tearing open the living space on Chinese social platforms and pushing upstream from the downstream. Online, in less than 2 years, the number of social games has accumulated more than 100, in the user's stickiness and income rise began to show.　　And sing is also using its community Game store mode roaming platform, quickly expand its SNS architecture of the new "forum." "In this trend, third party developers of social games are acting as a group, showing strength and promoting openness throughout the social platform arena." Feng Guangkun said, "If your platform is not open, it is like blocking the entrance of Community games, the new community games will be to those open platform to go." These games, as long as there are several valuable, can make those platforms get the advantage of the first.　　"So even in China at this stage, social games may be just a bargaining chip in a social platform game," the merit is recorded, but when the number of social-game developers becomes more and more rapidly evolving into more social-gaming products, it can tear up more space for the entire social-gaming market. In the interview, almost all the people in the industry are optimistic about the future of social games, even if they also judge the developers to enter too fast, death cases will be more and more. "We may have a hard time in the next year or so, and there will be fierce competition and a game on the lower reaches of the industry chain," he said. "Huhai said," but the market has only started, and everything has just begun. He believes that for a social game developer, if there are two games in operation, two in development, two in planning, it is reallyStand firm, and that day will come soon in a year or two.