Social game maker wants to abandon domestic SNS website to make money for sea

News from the April 12 News of the upcoming IPO by the gaming developer of Facebook, a foreign social networking site, has sparked a chain of global-related industry shocks.

Tencent Science and technology recently learned that a large number of domestic social game developers are brewing "flee" overseas, they even abandon the domestic renren, net, 51.com and other old partners, and hope to Facebook, MySpace and other sites in exchange for a place.

In addition, the RockYou, MySpace as the representative of the foreign web site is also behind the impetus to accelerate the developers "flee" speed.

These news for the domestic just profit SNS website, seems to be a fatal disaster. Domestic game developers why large area "flee", the domestic SNS website Why was abandoned, this phenomenon behind what hidden? Tencent Technology launched an investigation.

Most domestic developers struggle for survival

The popularity of social games such as "Happy Farm" and "Sunshine Ranch" has made the 5-minute, hot-and-cool social-game developers famous. However, they are only the tip of the iceberg, hidden under the water, is more for survival and struggle for "small workshop".

Burson Interactive CEO Zhang Wei told Tencent Technology, social game developers in the domestic survival is not easy. Take their company for example, Burson Interactive in the happy Net, Renren, friends, 51.com, Baidu game platform on all provide application services, but the profit situation is not good.

The second social game, "Happy Baby," ranked top five on Renren, but for a long time, the game only brought in tens of thousands of yuan a month for Burson. "Happy Baby" the original monthly revenue of a hundred thousand of Yuan, divided into after leaving our company 780,000, after deducting the cost of the server, staff costs basically little left. ”

"Happy Baby" or belong to the more successful "minority". According to the introduction, the current domestic more than 80% social games monthly income of less than thousands of yuan, SNS platform to take most of them. At present, the highest proportion of the domestic network is Renren, they and developers to take 46, that is, Renren net revenue of 40%, developers can take 60%. But if you switch to a 64-divided social platform like 51.com, developers will earn only about 40%.

Foreign platforms, by contrast, seem to be much more generous. For Facebook and Apple's iphone, they share 37 per cent of developers, that is, developers can earn 70% of their revenue, with only 30% of them on the site platform.

An unnamed industry personage said to Tencent technology, divided into how much is not the biggest problem, the social platform is transparent is also affecting the interests of developers important factors. "If the monthly income figures are not real and transparent, it will not benefit the developers," he said. ”

In addition, the domestic SNS website user is not willing to pay for the game habit, also become many developers "flee" one of the reasons. In many people's view, social networking sites such as Facebook have a more transparent mode of cooperation and a more avid consumer, and domestic social networks are unlikely to have the same strength in the short term.

Flee overseas reason: chasing 10 times times profiteering

Compared with the "shabby" of domestic social game developers, the trappings of foreign peers are undoubtedly enviable.

RockYou, the President of social game developers and co-founder Shenjia, revealed to Tencent that RockYou's top ten social games on Facebook could earn tens of millions of dollars per quarter.

Zynga's performance is even more stunning. As the biggest social-game developer on Facebook, Zynga has a 237 million active monthly audience, and Zynga has more than half of the top ten games in Facebook. According to the analysis, Zynga's revenue this year is expected to reach 500 million U.S. dollars. Moreover, the company's recent initial public offering (IPO) activity is expected to reach $5 billion trillion in market value.

Foreign users strong spending power, especially the domestic developers are jealous. According to foreign market, a more successful game, each paid user should spend about 20 dollars per month-if at home, this figure may only 20 yuan, consumption level is a full seven or eight times times lower than abroad.

In the case of Facebook's popular game Farmville, which has an average of 30 million active users per day, about 600,000 people are paying for it every month, and if they spend 20 of dollars a week, the game will earn $12 million a month, and nearly 150 million dollars a year. If the developer is divided into 70%, the annual revenue of a game is about 100 million dollars----------------------------------------------------

The sharp contrast between Chinese and foreign treatment makes domestic developers choose to flee. According to Zhang Wei, Burson is also looking at foreign markets, and intends to provide services for social gaming abroad such as Facebook.

The cool companies that have been investing in Japan are also aggressively expanding their overseas territories. Hot Cool CEO Yong Tencent Technology, in addition to cooperation with Japanese operators, hot cool also for Facebook, MySpace and other platforms to provide services, the current hot cool overseas revenue far beyond the domestic market.

RockYou and MySpace fueled

Due to cultural differences and limited channels, most domestic developers do not know the "escape" path. This provides an opportunity for overseas companies such as RockYou.

RockYou is not only a game developer, but also a global game distributor. Its founder Shenjia to Tencent Technology, rockyou hope and domestic developers to cooperate and common benefit, rockyou will domestic developers of the game works to the world, while domestic developers to rockyou pay a certain proportion of commission.

"We have worked with some of the bigger social-game developers in the country and we want to continue to look for new opportunities for cooperation," he said. China has a lot of talented developers, and RockYou is willing to help them succeed. Shenjia said.

Not only is Rockyou,myspace Chinese website gathers the friend net also hoped to use own background, joins the Gold Digger's ranks. Friends of the network announced the launch of "China's first social game contest" to attract the domestic outstanding development team, found full of creative applications. MySpace also promised that the winners will be recommended to MySpace.com and other well-known foreign social networking sites.

Domestic social networking sites self-help: scramble to woo developers

Domestic social game developers "fleeing" phenomenon, but also caused the domestic social networking site group panic. Renren, 51.com and other sites have come forward to woo developers, trying to make the tide.

Thousand Oak Interactive Vice President Shenboyang recently called for: domestic social game developers in the "earn fast money" at the same time, but also should be more for the domestic platform, should be "to do a good job in China's market" after the development abroad.

Shenboyang points out that Renren's own API is similar to that of Facebook, where developers can first develop on everyone's web, and Renren will be more developed in mentality and will try to make users choose better apps. Shenboyang says Renren can help or start money for developers, and can even provide a lot of publicity for developers.

"Renren excluding pay channel fees and developers are generally 64, developers to get six Renren four, which is close to Facebook." Shenboyang points out that domestic social game developers who do program development on Facebook have to advertise through Facebook, so "it's not necessarily going to make money in the end".

51 Garden Deputy general manager Wang Jinqiang also repeatedly stressed that 51.com is not a closed platform, hoping to attract more developers in their own platform development. "What I'm more optimistic about is the concept of joint development and joint operations that are coming to the community at a time when the platform and the developers are all the same." He also pointed out that for good social games, 51.com will give a lot of resources to support.

As a community site upstream enterprise, sing to CEO Dai also can not help to "go to sea" domestic developers cold water. He said that Facebook has hundreds of thousands of applications, the domestic developers launched the game does not hit the ads as a go, but advertising will account for more than 50% of the cost of the revenue ratio.

"You can earn 2000 dollars abroad and earn 2000 yuan in China," he said. But you have to spend 1500 of dollars abroad to advertise, but also to spend several times the domestic price of renting a foreign server. ”

Dai also pointed out that domestic social game developers also have to consider whether the local support credit card to buy some cards, fees as high as 20–30%. So in a comprehensive perspective, developers are actually very difficult to make money. "We also hope that developers to make things first in the domestic launch, we have to help you debug and operation, operational data after the good, you get abroad to make money." ”

Thousand oak Shenboyang even threatened to say, at present domestic some large-scale net swims and the webpage game company also is engaged in the social game, if the domestic game developer all goes abroad development, "when they want to come back again, may discover has lost the original market".

Burson Interactive Zhang Wei also admitted to Tencent technology, the development of foreign countries is not easy, Burson interaction only set up overseas payment channel spent three months, and the program is very complex, so far has been costing more than 1 million, the benefits are not presented. But even so, going abroad is still a common option in the industry.