Social gaming ups and downs: the era of stealing food card class or burst

Zeng Hang Shanghai Report

The era of "stealing vegetables" and "parking spaces" is gone.

In just two years, the bubble of a mild social game based on the social connections of acquaintances has begun to burst. In China, the "Happy Farm" red all over the country's social game maker Shanghai Five minutes Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as five minutes) began mass layoffs; in the United States, Zynga, a representative of mildly social games, plunged, and in the most mature Japan, the enthusiasm of users has long been through fish, Stealing vegetables is turning to a more serious card type game.

Most of China's big social-game makers, including hot-cool, Kevin-British and Lego, have been busy with the transition, reducing the intensity of casual social games and pushing social gaming into a more severe format.

Social games that once occupied countless fragments of time, is starting to appear in a new guise, whether it's a social network of Facebook, Tencent, Sina Weibo, or a social gaming firm such as Zynga, Hot, Kevin, and music.

1. The bubble of mild social gaming has burst?

"From a global perspective, the slight social game of stealing vegetables and raising fish is a hopeless situation," he said. "Pan-tourism CEO Guo Fen said he had worked in Japan and China for many years in social games, witnessing the rise and fall of mild social games."

The rise of social games is due to the open platform strategy of Facebook, Tencent, Kaixin (Weibo), Renren, and mixi these large social networks, which were in dire need of some mild social games to maintain social relationships among acquaintances, enhance stickiness and increase their own incomes.

The outbreak of Chinese social games, the earliest by a "happy farm" of the "stealing food" type of game driven by the Shanghai social game developers Five-minute development, launched in 2008, 2009 Red all over the country, the total number of users over billion, the formation of "people stealing food" pomp.

The popularity of "stealing vegetables" even causes social problems, many white-collar night set alarm clock up to steal food or prevent others steal food, and in the work time indulged in it, to the extent of the impact of work. Many companies have even introduced rules prohibiting the playing of such games.

Chinese-made social games have also traveled across the sea, shining abroad. A few years ago, when the heat was the first to transplant social games such as Sun Ranch to the Mixi social network in Japan, these games quickly captured the Japanese PC and mobile screens, and were successful, while social gaming companies represented by Le elements were equally successful on Facebook.

In the United States, social gaming vendors, represented by Zynga, have also created stunning results, relying on the Facebook platform. Zynga's concept of social networking was successfully marketed in just a few years and was once warmly sought after by Wall Street.

The influx of entrepreneurs into social gaming has been accompanied by Chinese companies calling for the slogan "China's Zynga" as Zynga goes public.

Since last year, however, the slight social game of stealing vegetables and raising fish acquaintances has been significantly downhill. When users of social networks such as Facebook, Tencent and Renren are tired of these games, it's hard to have new social games to attract them.

Not long ago, the industry news, because the "Happy Farm" and the reputation of the five minutes in the round of financing failed, had to do a lot of layoffs, now only 20 employees, the peak period of five minutes employees nearly 300 people.

The five-minute decline is a microcosm of the decline in the social gaming market. In fact, domestic social-gaming firms, including Hot, Kevin, and music, have been quietly shifting over the past year, starting to reduce their energy in light social games and move on to more serious web games.

Guo Fen said that in the highly mature Japanese market, the bubbles in the lightly social games of stealing vegetables and fishes have largely burst, user activity has fallen sharply, and the Japanese market has become the world of a more serious card-like social game.

--zynga, the biggest banner of mild social gaming, has recently been in a slump, with Zynga losing $22.81 million trillion in the second quarter, and its share price has fallen to less than $3 from the IPO's $10 trillion.

Zynga's daily active users have dropped from about 70 million to just over 55 million since buying Omgpop 210 million dollars.

It should be noted that not only is Zynga's decline on Facebook, but the veteran gaming firm EA has also turned off some of the most popular social games on Facebook, such as the popular monopoly game.

The bursting of a mild social-gaming bubble has also had a direct impact on the previously hot social-networking concept, with Facebook's share price down since its listing, even below China's Tencent.

2. Why don't social games make money?

Why did the wave of mild leisure social games pass so fast, since the 2008 and 2009, and the rapid cold weather?

In terms of numbers, the number of users in social games is huge. Tencent operates a QQ farm with more than 100 million active users. As far as the user base is concerned, social gaming is much higher than other online games. But in terms of revenue, social gaming is less profitable than web games.

Kai UK Network CEO Wang said, social games on the scale of the demand is very high, need to have more than a person online is fun, if your friends on the social network are not on the line, only you alone in there to steal vegetables, fish, grab parking spaces, will feel very boring.

In the early days of social games such as "Happy Farm", there were few similar products, so there was a "universal stealing", and the social games that were on the line, such as the "Skyscrapers" of Kevin, were quite successful. But since then, a lot of social games have sprung up, users have been diverted, the number of new social game users is difficult to go up, can no longer reproduce the year of "stealing food" pomp.

In addition, the lack of subject matter is also an important reason for the sluggish growth of leisure social games. When stealing vegetables, fish, pasture, building city, coffee, car parking and other social game theme was discovered, the user fresh feeling in the past, it is difficult to find new themes to attract players.