Behind the outbreak of mobile social Games in Japan: Card Games lead the market

5 months ago, GungHo, a Japanese online game developer, had a market capitalisation of only $300 million trillion, which reached $5 billion by March. Shares rose 23 times-fold in the past year. All the results behind the thrust of the company in February 2012 on the launch of the mobile card game "Zhi Long Fan City" (Puzzle & Dragons).

The analysis says, "Zhi long fan City" has become one of the most profitable games in the world. Only in January this year, the game's revenues amounted to $86 million trillion. The number of game users is about 11 million. In March, SoftBank, a Japanese telecoms operator, acquired 6.4% per cent of GungHo, a total price of $264 million. Through the acquisition, SoftBank's stake in GungHo grew from 33.6% to 40%, becoming the company's largest shareholder.

In addition to game developers active in the Japanese mobile gaming market, there are major gaming platforms, such as Gree and DeNA. In the third quarter of 2012, Dena's income grew 52% per cent year-on-year, thanks mainly to the card-fighting games it launched, including the Wrath of Bahamut (Rage of Bahamut) and Marvel: Heroes of War (Marvel:war of Heroes).

Japan's four gaming social platforms have an average of 25 million to 40 million registered users, according to the Japanese mobile social gaming market report, Serkan Toto, an independent observer for gaming industry. Facebook has only 19 million active subscribers in the country.

In the mobile gaming market, Japan has many different characteristics than other countries in the world. These characteristics play a great role in promoting the development of the Japanese gaming industry.

The market for strong local social gaming platforms is fragmented

The Japanese social gaming platform is owned by local companies, and the main four platforms include Mixi, GREE, Mobage and line.

Mixi is Japan's largest social network, with mobile-end users up to 80%; Gree and Dena's mobage are mobile social gaming platforms, and besides releasing their own games, they are also a platform for many Third-party games. Line as the most popular mobile communication applications in Japan, in June 2012 also gradually access to the game platform function, the release of the game has more than 16 applications, the cumulative download volume of more than 100 million.

In Japan, mobile social game developers reach 300 to 400. In addition to the main four game platforms, mobile end game platform more than 20.

The huge mobile game ecology has also pushed Japan's social-gaming output to a peak. According to the Morgan Stanley report, social games in Japan reached 4.16 billion dollars in 2012.

Of course, this is also related to the special characteristics of the Japanese mobile game market, as early as 2000, Japanese users began to consume mobile games on the function machine. The advantage of starting very early, so that Japanese users in the iphone era of the game behavior more mature.

The game pays the user ratio to be high the middle-aged user consumes the ability strong

According to the Morgan Stanley report, in 2012 Japan's game-paying user ratio was 15.5%, and by 2013, the rate could rise to 17%.

Of course, different platforms, the user's willingness to pay is not the same. The pay-for-user ratio for social networking Mixi and Facebook is only 5% to 6%, but Mobage and Gree are 14% and 16% respectively. This data is much higher than 5% of the paid subscribers that Zynga offers.

When it comes to investigating the circumstances in which Japanese users will pay, the answer has much in common with players in other regions. Male users, the highest paid function is "enhanced combat effectiveness", the ratio reached 29.8%, women pay only 18% of this function, female users are most willing to pay the function is a virtual image or goods, the ratio of 27.3%, male users in this respect the willingness to pay is lower, only 14.5%; The willingness of men and women to pay for only one function is close, and the rate is not low, that is, items that reduce time consumption.

The reason for the high rate of paying users in mobile games in Japan is also related to game user group characteristics. According to the data provided by Gree, Gree users aged 20 to 29 are 34%, 30 to 39 years old, 27% and 40 years old. This shows that the Gree user base does not exist in the trend of the absolute mainstream of young users. This is different from many social gaming platforms abroad. While Dena and Gree are starting from young users, they have extended the age of their users in the long term.

Users over 30 years of age tend to have less leisure time but are more likely to consume more. This group of users are more willing to pay when playing games, such as they tend to buy more props to upgrade faster.

The Hot card Game

Japan's proven profitability in the card gaming market has captivated other markets around the world, including the United States and China, which are imitating the various successful Japanese cards in the card game, including the Wrath of Bahamut (Rage of Bahamut), the Miracle: Heroes of War (Marvel:war of Heroes), even "Zhi long fan City" (Puzzle & Dragons).

In card games, players often need to gather more virtual cards to improve their game role, or to win more card growth experience value. In the top 20 games on the Japanese gaming platform in 2012, 50% to 70% of the game types are card games. Gree Card Game Doliland, monthly income can reach 26 million dollars.

Although card games have a higher profitability than other games, but also face a high rate of loss. Therefore, the game generally need to be on the line at the beginning of a great appeal to users, and then quickly from the user revenue. Because of the high wastage rate of such users, most of the game's revenue comes from players who are very loyal to the game and tend to invest a lot of money to get a sense of achievement. Of course, this kind of game players are mainly male.

TV advertisement becomes the important propaganda channel of the game

There is data to collate the "Wisdom Dragon Fan City" (Puzzle & Dragons) User data growth trend, from July 2012 to October 2012, the game took 94 days to increase 1 million, but from October 2012 to November 2012, That is, game fourth 1 million user growth only took 19 days, one of the important reasons is that in October 2012, "Zhi Long Fan City" released its first television ads.

The large-scale use of television as a game propaganda channel is a major feature of the Japanese gaming industry. Gree spends millions of dollars each year on television advertising to attract new users, retain existing users and activate lost users.

In the television advertisement advocate, Gree and Dena occupy the important market position. If you want to know how active the game company is on TV, you just have to turn it on for 10 minutes and you'll be able to see them, the article says.

This may sound ironic, because a new media product has to be promoted by traditional media. But this is indeed an important feature of the Japanese gaming industry.

Mobile Communication Application explosion

The Japanese mobile communication application is becoming another important game promotion platform. The games on line and KakaoTalk are ranked in the top selling lists in the App Store. For example, line's game line pop and line bubble.

Line in Japan has nearly 50 million users, KakaoTalk in Japan also more than 10 million users. The advantages of user size, user activity and high viscosity make these communication applications become the preferred platform for mobile game developers.

In a report published last December, Distimo, a market research firm, used the line pop as an example of how a large user base could be used to generate revenue. The research company estimates that line POPs has 1 million downloads a day, and 1 million dollars in revenue from the first 12 days of the launch.

This trend also makes the mobile gaming platform Dena and gree extremely nervous, and began to prepare to cut into the field of mobile communications.

Although the Japanese mobile social gaming market is showing an active trend, but the market also faces some problems, such as local game companies are difficult to achieve the same results abroad, including Dena and gree have a desire to expand in the U.S. market, but the results are always unsatisfactory. Even its most successful "Zhi Long fan City" in the U.S. best-selling list ranked 40 or so.

Another phenomenon is that foreign game companies want to develop in the Japanese market is also difficult, in addition to some Korean games can be listed outside, the United States well-known games, including Clash of Clans and Candy Crush saga even the top 30 are not in.

The success of Japan's mobile social games does give confidence to overseas markets, including China. In the 2013, the industry expects more successful products from Japan. Because of the card games, Chinese game developers are also looking for new models.