H5 games have business.

Guide: In the technology gradually narrow and mobile phone app games, PC-side web games, client game distance between, and gradually play their advantages across the screen, and let their content is no longer limited to the simple small game category, can gradually extend the player's game time and bonding degree, The natural income model is also slowly converging and stabilizing with other game types.
The technology to gradually narrow and mobile phone app game, PC-side web game, the distance between the client game, and gradually play their own cross screen advantages, and let their content is no longer limited to the category of minimalist games, can gradually extend the game time and cohesion, the natural income model is slowly and other types of game convergence and stability. In the industry, the view of the future of the H5 game has tended to coincide.

Wen/Zhang Shule

Published in the November 2014 issue of the journal Internet Economics, abridged

Throughout the summer, the micro-trust friends circle by a very poor expression, the body of the cat ruthless "brush screen." "I used 11 steps to surround the nerve cat, beat 89% people, you can surpass me?" "The rules of the game is very simple, in an alienation version of the Go interface, the player needs to do is to click on the dots around the nerve cat." But its default to share template settings, so that friends have fallen into the "show IQ" mode, leapfrogging to compete for the minimum number of steps, according to the game propaganda words, is "simply stop."

Of course, like the Ice bucket challenge that followed, the popularity of the cat is only one weeks, however, as the mobile Internet is often a phenomenon-level game, the neuro-cat but let the whole game industry to see the HTML5 (hereinafter referred to as H5) technology may bring great variables for the game ...

Why did the neuro-cat succeed?

"Surround the Nerve cat", "See You have Multicolor", "Dozen penguins", "Squeeze bubble" ... This year, the class, a lot of small games one after another occupy a micro-trust friends circle. The rules of these games are extremely simple, the game time is extremely short, two minutes can end the game. Just as it is a short time to play a game, their life cycle is very short. Within a few days, these little games will disappear.

They all have a common set, sharing the mobile end of the most popular micro-trust in the circle of friends, and small partners. This set in fact from the beginning of last year's hot "crazy guess map" game began, become a lot of mobile phone games must be set, and by Tencent hand Tour "every day Lianmong", "Every day love to eliminate" and so on "absorb", became a standard configuration of social games.

The use of social circle of peer psychology, is a key to the success of such a game. The game "See You have Multicolor" the developer has said to the media, they are based on the social circle of friends and information sharing chain, focusing on the user to share and compare the module, prompting the players to get better results can not help but to show off in the circle of friends. At the same time, they are in the user's circle of friends to promote the peak period, but also the formation of hot spots and topics.

The most effective means is to use the player's lazy mentality. "Let your friends have a try," see how your friends play. "such as to attract players to share the game words, appear in each game, the player only need to click a key to be able to share to the circle of friends, of course, share the same time, the game side will give a little luck, such as increasing the game gold or time. This is in fact from stealing vegetables, trading slaves, such as early on the PC end of the popular social game, the same.

All this is not enough to make a cat such a small game successful. Comparing two sets of data is not difficult to find, 2013, in the micro-letter circle of friends in the phenomenon of a small game, in addition to Tencent itself several, only "crazy guess", in the hot week, the peak value of users is only 300,000, and in 2014, only 7 August, "The National Search for the name of the house" 2 days was played 60 million times, "See You have multi-color" online 2nd users up to 30 million, "surround the nerve cat" more create 3 days 5 million users and 100 million visit the miracle.

"The former need you to download the app to play, the process will lose a lot of users, the latter, you just click to open a circle of friends, you can play on the Web page through the browser, and do not have to leave social applications, such as the neuro-cat is using a micro-trust browser to play Equal to the fragmentation of time in the middle of a friend back to the information of the blank boring time to fill, which is superior to the poor also at a glance. The game industry is so analytical.

Playing directly on the Web page is precisely the key to the success of the cat, that is, they are based on the H5 technology of the Web games.
Even jobs had a little bit of "low tech".
"No one wants to use flash," Jobs said at a company meeting in California State Cupertino headquarters in 2010, and the world has begun to enter the H5 era. ”

By definition, H5 is a collection of technologies that create interactive effects of web pages. In short, it can make flash on the mobile side does not have the animation effect, namely H5 is the mobile end of the Web page. But if H5 is viewed simply as a technology to replace Flash, it is too underrated of its true capabilities.

"For a long time, the game will have to choose on which screen, mainly with the game host corresponding to the TV screen, handheld game consoles, PC and notebook computer monitors and mobile phones." "People in the industry point out:" And you are almost impossible to play on different screens of the same game you like, even if the transplant passed, you can not continue on the other screen game progress. ”

This is not good news for players. Similarly, it is difficult for game vendors to transplant games to different screens. "Only special blockbuster works will be transplanted, such as" Final Fantasy "," true three unique "and so on, and often the effect of transplantation is not good. The industry insiders said.

The so-called effect is not good, mainly for game play on the contradictions difficult to reconcile. such as tablet and smartphone is touch screen, console with handle and key, PC is keyboard control. and H5 Technology applied to the game, you can achieve "one development, multiple screen sharing." In short, the programming language allows players to play games on any device's browser, allowing developers to present the game to a wider audience.

Once the fragmentation of multiple screens is resolved, the energy of the entire game world will be fully released. And for the mobile end, this advantage is more obvious. No need to download the app can play, this is H5 in the spread of the advantage. In technology, snail Digital Technology Co., Ltd. Chen pointed out: "You can write like a Web page to write games, without too much extra learning, and a large number of documents and plug-ins available, which in itself is a huge change." There are a lot of cases where you can develop a app game one at a time, and the threshold for using H5 to develop mobile games is lower, and it takes less. ”

This is also illustrated by the success of the neuro-cat, which has been mentioned many times in media reports that the game has only one design plus a programmer, and it takes only a day and a half, which is much cheaper than the same minimalist but app version of the "Crazy guess" cost near 10万来.

The ultra-low threshold even attracted some enterprises to use the H5 game for Word-of-mouth Marketing, a recent example from the North Zhuhai Arch Inspection station, its development of a "arch North Shadow Hand" small game. In this game, the player needs to help the border small brother Seal, in each round fixed area cover the border seal, then carries on to the next round, the successful daily work through the game, has carried on the ingenious implantation propaganda.

And more game companies in which to see the positive. Some game makers have started hoarding H5 games heavily. According to the author understand, there are three-tier game companies have been a large number of old games into H5 games, is expected to have Chiyu, and then the form of a platform to release, to build mobile phone games on the platform.

Just a little game.

Ma Yi, Egret co-founder of the game engine support for H5, said: "In 2D, there is no big difference between H5 and native games," says one of the many possible implementations of the game. A year later you can do the legend of the Sword Tower. Two years later, you can do the "endless sword" such as 3D games, because the 3D form of the Web game and the original 3D form of the technology is no dividing line. ”

But in fact, the current H5 game, can only be a minimalist game, and temporarily only on the mobile end eye-catching.

Alex, Softgames CEO of the world's largest H5 gaming platform operator, points to the development of H5 games, for developers, there are three major hurdles: the first is to develop a HTML5 game that works on all platforms is a challenge, though it can be universal, but under different conditions, The designer must test on a massive support H5 device; the second is that the game needs to be compatible with a variety of control methods, your users may be through the mouse, keyboard, smart TV remote control or their iphone to play the game; third, the H5 game's audio lag is caused by browsers, especially mobile browsers, loading time is too long , game cotton, the most direct reason for the browser crash.

Obviously, in the current state, the H5 game can only temporarily in the form of small games on the mobile end, especially the audio and video embedded is not enough in the page conditions to be fully displayed in the present. "Too complex to render, even if the Web page can load normally, but the mobile internet speed of users mobile phone can not stand, traffic costs are unbearable." "Insiders said:" And on the PC side or TV, compared to the mobile end, the quality of the game requirements higher, if you want to achieve a cross screen, to accommodate the mobile end of the H5 game temporarily difficult to market. ”

On the H5, more and more companies join, also can deteriorate to different degree of living space, in the nerve cat big heat less than one day, a variety of shanzhai games have appeared, all kinds of "surround xxx" the same kind of cottage games are frequently seen in Friends circle, including many well-known companies, such as playing games on the first time a "surround yy bear", Low-tech content is a key to making it quick to be a cottage. The creator of the nerve Cat Qin Chuan estimates: The cottage nerve cat about 5 million of the traffic.

The ills are already apparent in foreign H5 gaming companies. At the beginning of September, HTML5 gaming company Moblyng the bankruptcy. The company is the world's first attempt on mobile devices to do cross-platform HTML5 game, and successfully produced a number of games, so that users on Facebook and mobile users to play the same game, the download has reached tens. But in the user experience, can only do on the social network and mobile devices to open the game is very smooth, but in the game process, because of the various technical factors in the process constraints, many games have appeared card machine or pause.
An urgent need to solve the problem of profitability
Even if it is easily broken tens of millions of these H5 games, is still more popular than wealth.

The report of the China Youth Daily described the following: "The use of such games often takes only two minutes." One player said that this kind of game is not as big as the large game design exquisite, the plot is complex, but does not need to sit in front of the computer to stare at the computer screen motionless, does not need to invest the money to buy the equipment, does not need to struggle for the victory. Although I don't love it, I don't mind using it to pass the time. ”

In it, it reflects another problem, the time of fragmentation is too short, the popularity of time is very short, such a game is not like the app game by buying equipment to get the benefit. In this respect, the game company is also very helpless. Successfully launched a phenomenon-class small game "dozen penguins" Guangzhou hundred fields will be the development of its main goal of H5 game positioning for hatching and accumulation, at present did not find a profit point, is only the accumulation of user stage.

Making fast money by implanting ads may be the only option at the moment. There are reports that "surround the nerve cat" on the access to Tencent's wide-dot advertising. According to Sohu it reports, "neuro-cat" at the peak of the maximum income of up to millions per day. At the same time, there are insiders said that even the focus of the cottage H5 games can make money, as long as the product can have millions of visits, a few days to earn a a hundred thousand of is no problem.

But it's not easy to get millions of visits and stand out from more and more H5 games. 9G Game founder Huanggayang Think, nowadays every 100 games, can appear 1 phenomenon class game. Industry insiders point out that with the massive eruption of the H5 game, the rate of outbreak will be lower, and only by the outbreak of those days of advertising revenue, nor long-term.

The technology to gradually narrow and mobile phone app game, PC-side web game, the distance between the client game, and gradually play their own cross screen advantages, and let their content is no longer limited to the category of minimalist games, can gradually extend the game time and cohesion, the natural income model is slowly and other types of game convergence and stability. In the industry, the view of the future of the H5 game has tended to coincide. At the same time, another form of profit is quietly appearing.

Just not belong to the game company, but enterprise-level network marketing. such as health yuan medicine will be measured age of beauty app game "Magic Mirror" optimized into H5 games, and through their own micro-letter public number, called on fans to play, thus forming brand communication, and such as "crazy guess map" such a game, but also suit, for the enterprise mobile social Word-of-mouth to create an intangible word-of-mouth effect ...

H5 game, perhaps itself is not a game so simple, now the key is still strengthening technology, from the phenomenon into the normal, otherwise the player aesthetic fatigue, perhaps even point to open the Web page of interest are not ...