Mobile game development dilemma: Black card flooding marketing costs high

November 6 News, the popular global "Angry Birds" Let the Chinese developers seem to see a big business, whether the app store or Android harsh, for a time, such as Wu, colleges and universities even offered courses to teach. As everyone knows, high bad debt rate, black card flooding, homogeneous competition and high marketing costs, destined for the development of the hands of most people, can only be "other people's miracle."

Hand Tour Profit: Before the "Black card" off

One months ago, Stone Interactive CEO Wu gang basked in a bright bill on Weibo: "World War II's September iOS revenue reached 1.2 million dollars"-even if this is the income before the split, according to the 37 of the App Store, The game after a single monthly income also reached 840,000 U.S. dollars (about 5.3 million yuan). The 6-year game company, relying on "World War II" and "contract" two hand tour gorgeous turn, a monthly excess of tens of millions of yuan, the annual net profit of tens of millions of.

It also provides the imagination for domestic developers to create "China's Angry Birds": Look around, are you already surrounded by iphones, ipads and various anroid machines? The huge user base and the young people's spending power, enough to make mobile game development into a big business-across the mobile and game two concepts, the hand swims without the truth ah? Probably most developers are thinking the same thing.

The real picture may be quite different: hand-swimming is promising, but now it is hard for developers to make money, and high bad debt rates and extreme homogeneity are killing the burgeoning industry.

"Wu Gang is very strong, can be" World War II "bad debt rate control within 45%", Popular Hand tour "fishing Tatsu people," the developer of touch-control technology CEO Chenhao, iOS more well-known on the hand trip bad debt rate is usually around 60%~80%, which means that even in the app store sold 100,000 dollars, The development team can only account for 2~3 million, excluding Apple's split and its inability to settle bad debts.

Bad debts mainly by "black card" malicious consumption caused: the so-called "Black card", refers to the loss of the invalid credit card. After the stolen credit card, even if the owner immediately reported loss, there are still 7 days of lock-up period. In these 7 days, a wrongdoer can use the information of a credit card, apply for an Apple ID, and consume it in the App Store. Because the card is in a "frozen" state in the bank, the bank will not pay the apple, and Apple will naturally not give the money to developers, thus creating bad debts.

More frightening is, this is not "stragglers" individual behavior, has already formed a large-scale industrial chain. The industry to NetEase technology to dismantle the black card industry chain of the approximate path: theft of credit card information via viruses and trojans-mass production of underground teams, bundled into Apple IDs, with the ability to consume-through electricity channels into the hands of ordinary users-to buy iOS products-banks froze to form bad loans.

"Bad debts are particularly evident in the game where app rankings are more Chenhao," he stressed. This means that for mobile phone developers, the top of the work, income is not to talk about the top, the risk of a sharp rise in bad debts.

Gruel: Homogeneity competition with Chinese characteristics

"The Thousand Regiment War" lets the people see "the Chinese characteristic" the competition Acme. An area of excessive competition requires only two conditions: to have imaginary space, low entry threshold. Unfortunately, both of these conditions are fully in hand.

"The hand swims wants to rely on idea to break through, is very difficult-hundreds of teams and you want, does is the same thing", Interactive CEO Schwei Bright Blunt, the hand tour although develops soon, has already been in the excessive competition stage, becomes "The Red Sea".

This point Chenhao zhi also deep feeling, "there is a foreign collection Hand tour works, the effective works of a total of more than 40, light to see the name let a person headache: More than 10 game name with ' Three Kingdoms ', more than 10 with ' warring States '." and touch Technology's products, "catch people" now in the app and Android harsh "almost" products, there are more than 40.

More importantly, in addition to individual developers and small and medium teams, mature client game company, page Tour company, social game company, such as Grand, Blue Harbor, le Element and so on into the Hand tour field, "This year, do not do some mobile phone games, are embarrassed to say that they are doing the game", many senior gamers even changed the label to " Mobile internet entrepreneur ".

If the market prospects, or rapid growth, the problem of homogeneous competition can also be quickly resolved, but now the domestic market for the development of the small poor-"APP store annual income should be around 5 billion U.S. dollars, 37 divided, leaving developers about 3.5 billion U.S. dollars, Android Harsh's annual income is probably 3~5 billion, plus about 4 billion dollars. One of the Chinese developers can only account for 6%~8%, about 2 billion yuan, this is equivalent to 2003 years of traditional client game scale, can say that the market has hardly started, "Chenhao Zhi to NetEase technology to calculate a" clear account.

Of these 2 billion dollars, there is an advertising revenue, and the game outsourcing development revenue of the main overseas market. For individual developers or small teams, there is little room for overseas markets-no denying that people do not understand overseas markets. "In the top 50 of America's most famous hand-travel charts, Pocket Gems, TinyCo, Teamlava, CapCom, Zynga, Backfilp each have 5 games on the list, and how many places do you have left for others?" he said. ”

"Angry Birds" is the miracle of others, after entering this market, the first thing is to face this fact, "Schweiliang said.

Kidnapped Hand Tour Marketing: The vicious circle of money hit the list

Earlier, NetEase technology had reported that domestic social game developers had returned to their home markets as a result of the forced use of Facebook credit and the surge in marketing costs. This point, the hands and social games the same: once by the product itself into a better position, must be a large amount of money to spread to "hit the list" of the ranking, it is possible to form a sustained income, and then continue to invest in the promotion, forming a vicious circle.

This is the Blue Harbor CEO Wang Feng has a deep understanding: this September, Blue Harbor launched the first iOS game "Mad Mice" on-line 3 days then rushed to the ipad free game number one, but a few days later the position quickly declined. "Rely on products can get a good position, but want to stay in the list, must rely on promotion," Wang Feng summed up the way.

"The user base is ranked first (to be considered) in both the app and Android markets." High ranking can bring more downloads, and then increase revenue, which is known in the circle. After the product entered the TOP50, almost every company has to do one thing is "punch List"-a large number of users to buy downloads, to maintain a good ranking on the list.

More representative is Topjoy, "it in AdMob one months of promotional cost is 2 million U.S. dollars, an average of 6 dollars a free user", lamented the high cost of marketing at the same time, Chenhao Zhi also complained about the promotion of price rise, " The first half of this year domestic buy a free user 0.8 yuan, a foreign 1.2 yuan, now almost rose 50%, domestic 1.2 yuan, foreign to almost 2 yuan.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)