Call YouTube or spend 1 billion dollars to buy video game live platform Twitch

Abstract: Editor's note: Last month, it was reported that YouTube or the purchase of 1 billion dollars to buy video game Live platform Twitch, the latter monthly visits more than 45 million, the valuation of October last year amounted to 42 million dollars. Throughout the domestic game broadcast field, YY lead, 17173 will play live change

Editor's note: Last month, it was reported that YouTube or the purchase of 1 billion of dollars to buy video game Live platform Twitch, the latter monthly visit more than 45 million, the valuation of last October amounted to 42 million U.S. dollars. Throughout the domestic game broadcast field, YY lead, 17173 will be the game live into strategy, Dou Fish, banner, from all the new platform burning money into. The author Qian, Tencent gaming platform product owner, she made some analysis of the domestic game Live mode.

May, the YouTube will be 1 billion U.S. dollars to buy Twitch, a time game video industry has been a lot of people's attention. This is what kind of industry, it is in the end what kind of value, Twich mode of flower in the ocean on the other side of China will bloom?

The origin of the Twitch model

Twitch's business model is very simple, players use software to upload their own game live screen to Twitch,twitch according to the game category and the number of viewers to the live channel to order; The anchor can earn revenue based on the audience's subscription and advertising.

With a huge more than 40 million per month active user base and an occupation of PCs and home-machine channels, the $1 billion purchase price was born, Twitch.

When YouTube, which buys Twitch, was bought by Google for $1.65 billion, and its copycat Youku climbed 7 billion dollars after the IPO, it's hard to judge whether the value of 1 billion dollars is high or undervalued in the current state. However, we will use specific figures to analyze the future of the Twitch model in China.

Cost accounting of domestic direct seeding platform

Any business model, cost calculation is very important, the game Live mode cost = Bandwidth fee + Enterprise operating costs + market costs.

We first analyze bandwidth costs, twitch in the United States has little bandwidth costs, Twitch built the computer room and the state between the fiber, while in the states and municipalities, access to at&t these carriers are free. In the United States if you have a large amount of content, the telecommunications operators are very happy to open access to bandwidth, because users will pay to watch the video with more broadband packages, content and telecommunications are mutually surplus.

In China, the access to each k bandwidth, need to IDC room or CDN to pay for telecommunications or unicom. We calculate the game live example, assuming that the user 800K rate of clarity, if the platform 100,000 people online, is 80G bandwidth, 1G every 250,000, then need to spend 20 million, and 100,000 people online according to game media to evaluate, a single day of UV will not exceed 1 million. Because the personal live broadcast also cannot use the Peer-to-peer delay, therefore the bandwidth cost is very high.

Compared to bandwidth costs, the current domestic broadcast platform blood generally rob high-end anchors, the cost of the market more frightening. Take "dou fish" as an example, the April purchase of high-end anchors, teams and pay the "King's Road" activities in total to pay more than 2.4 million yuan, May also more than 2 million. A single anchor is a little more presentable. 10,000, excellent anchor more than 350,000, the team contract 1.5 million/year onwards, the king of the road of the activities of the Hero League King of all good and bad money. Due to the high-end league resources for the TGA and other official platforms, "Dou fish" in the domestic ordinary place of the second line of the second line of a lot of costs. Similarly, the newly established platform "banner" for the EDG team, also have to pay 3 million/year costs.

These two parts cost Twtich cost close to 0, even so, Twitch is still in a loss state. By contrast, the "burning money" state of the domestic platform is staggering.

The groping of income way

"Burning Money" in the internet industry is not unusual, if the future income can be, "burning money" is understandable, so we also analyze the game Live mode of income May.

Twitch Subscription mode, we do not analyze, the video site dismal paid subscriptions to tell us that the Chinese people do not have this habit; advertising mode, in the near future, advertising model needs of the scale, the brand to determine CPM value, not formed overnight, live buffer advertising market cultivation takes a long time.

Speaking of game live, we might as well see another kind of live broadcast "show field" mode, let 9158, YY, six room make pot full. There are many similarities between the show pattern and the live game, but the difference is great:

1, the same number of people, the game broadcast bandwidth expenditure about 7-8 times the show field (professional and technical personnel can quickly understand).

2, show field of ARPU value more than 400 abound, part of the show is even more than 1000, but the game live very poor, with YY number one anchor "I'm in Dongting Lake" For example, daily live viewers online more than 50,000, but prop income in January only tens of thousands of; ARPU value is only dozens of of the show field.

Game broadcast is a branch of UGC, despite the large audience, but the high expenditure and the non-renewable income, so that the business model cast a shadow. To China's largest game live platform yy as an example, although the game live online more than yy show, but how does yy see the game live?

1, although Lee Colling said the game live is an important model, but unfortunately, the financial results of almost no mention of the relevant information, the company's strategy is not close to the game live.

2, the bottom of the executive team often because of bandwidth problems, the overall reduction of the game live rate subsidy show live, this is in the show team here is completely impossible to happen.

What is more worrying is the risk of copyright law, game live video copyright by the game screen Copyright + Anchor Personal portrait and audio + Music copyright 3 composition, while the live platform to spend a lot of effort and the host signed agreement, only contains the anchor personal portrait and audio rights, once the official game company to disagree, It is difficult to guarantee the benefits of a live platform on the legal level.

Questions and hopes for live games

Question one: Compared to yy, Dou Fish, the banner of these live platforms lack of traffic, so money to buy people has become the only breakthrough means, and the problem of this model is as follows.

1, did not see the direct effect, the author and a lot of anchors and live Web site editing Exchange, showing the number of online fraud is very serious, a platform tens of millions of input, daily average UV only 4, 500,000.

2, due to the slow formation of ecological relations, temporary hit the anchor, can only be sustained by throwing money.

3, the war team signed live broadcast can not have lasting effect, YY first, second anchor Dong Small sa, dongting Lake side, the average daily live more than 5 hours per month, the maximum rest day, such a high strength to maintain the live online popularity, this is the professional team can not do.

The above situation shows that the mode of the buyer's maintenance is actually not scientific, unless there is a steady flow of capital involved, but if the cost of capital investment in research, it is easy to see the problem.

Question two: The team ability is the game video industry bottleneck, the author understands the information is, the profession several platforms, the practitioner experience is deficient, the overall prime number is low, therefore also causes the problem one root.

It can be seen in the video game, although the popularity of the industry, but the current business model is not small, so whether the practitioners have show field experience, value-added services experience, game transport experience, community experience is particularly important. Otherwise, even if you get the investment, it will continue to wear out until closed.

Question three: This question and the direct business model is irrelevant, because the author is the electric competition lover, had to complement such a question, the game video live broadcast to the electricity competition market to have certain harm.

1, the Battle team on the live platform is not love, is only the relationship between the payment and implementation. If the end of the burn money, the team will be less than a large income, for the current immature electric competition team, is likely to fluctuate.

2, the game video industry makes the current many anchor income higher than the battle team professional players, which makes the contestants are ready to retire, or even better than active, and such a phenomenon in Korea is to be eliminated. Wang Power competition Insight and gaming companies can be deeply concerned about this issue.

Although this article on the game has poured a lot of cold water, but the industry's popularity is indisputable, but also because of popular and Twitch case, hot money influx, but after all, the industry is older, hot money is easy to know its shape and do not know why.