Talk about the domestic game market

This article peeps out the status quo and trends of some domestic game industries from a relatively macroscopic level and then summarizes them into eleven elements, including: Homogenization, Shanzhai, Skin Rendering, Numericalization, Page-up, Micro Dependence , Advertising Dependence, Cross-platform, Overseas Markets, Free Modes, Service-Oriented Games, Regulatory Syndromes.

Homogenization

The most obvious feature of serious homogenization of the material is the proliferation of three-state theme games. There are countless games that are just named after the Three Kingdoms and then combined with some prefixes and suffixes (but out of cultural familiarity and recognition, popular culture based partly on historical facts and deductions can be sought after under different forms of expression, such as the Three Kingdoms series or Westward Journey series, there will still be a large number of developers also hope to be able to similar themes and then cut into the market in order to obtain a certain share of the business). Some similar types of games (similar in theme, similar in gameplay and overlapping in target audiences), such as popular search and fairy games, magic games, or urban construction games with a large number of fans in game fields , farm games, restaurant games As well as the fishing type of game, the same competition is full of players market, and some developers do not mind in a single platform with several similar types of their own games, such as hot cool "Dream Seabed" and "Fishing Holiday" (These have good earnings in the Qzone platform).

The most potential risk of homogenization is to challenge the player's freshness, which can easily become uncompetitive if they are not new to gameplay or gameplay (including game screen style and sound effects).

Skin change surgery

In the field of games (especially web games), the suspicion of changing skin is most likely to arouse controversy on the players' market (either in the form of re-creation or in the name of classic regeneration). In fact, quite a few games that appear in the sequel are also because There are too few new additions to the gameplay feature, which includes the following elements.

● cost element. Especially in the absence of prior market acceptance, developers consider the cost from the perspective of the previous investment in the way to save, in this case the possibility of re-gaining market recognition is not high.

● new channel element. Get new ways to get in touch with changes in the elements of differentiated players, such as some relatively localized features.

● Flow operation inertia. Game production has continued into a streamlined industrial line, with no change in the basic skeleton case, the introduction of new games with external morphological differences, there may be continuity of success.

In fact, this is a rather unique cottage technique that could be a cottage for a product by a team of developers, or a piece of work that is repeatedly confirmed by the market based on the user's preferences within the company.

Cottage surgery

Cottage is the most unrequited game in the domestic game, basically followed two lines: the typical case of the overseas cottage (most of the eyes focused on staring at Facebook or App Store shine game, such as the sensational " Draw Something "," Temple Run "," Fruit Ninja "," Cut The Rope "and" Doodle Jump "are some of the most powerful plagiarists. Some cottage-based teams have even become the top game development teams in the country, Millions of accumulated users) and the cottage for creative products (this is the most criticized in the country is the strength of the company's copy of the startup company, of course, including the original game product core team hijacking behavior, and in the operation of the Differences, it is easy to show a tendency to stand up judgments, mostly unable to withstand the strong impact of R & D companies can only sadly accept the fate of being eliminated.

Earlier, we had carefully weighed the evolution of cottage mentality and the impact on a large area of ​​developers, including damage to the brand (for example, is positioned as a habitual plagiarism), to develop business inertia and make reference a necessary But these are apparently unable to resist any fast-driving economy (reducing the R & D cycle and costs, and getting a certain percentage of the market on the basis of the original market acceptance in order to accomplish the most primitive accumulation).

Numeric

In the context of low-end browser (such as high proportion of IE6) and obstacles in technological innovation, a large number of games (especially web games and social games) adopt very ordinary screen renderings and not high-end Game engine, which relies on numerical logic to mobilize the enthusiasm of players to participate in the game, such as: adjust the level of experience to control the life cycle of the game; through the value of deployment in order to achieve some players have super game influence; or in a ratio of the relationship between players involved in game props Or other rare property product competition.

Especially in the second point (through the value of the deployment to achieve some players have a super game influence) in the game more adept in the game in some VIP player level, in addition to the corresponding special rights, The amount of excess amount of access is also the player to chase the main direction (some of the VIP level of the game is quite subtle, up to ten levels, and then in accordance with the relationship between each level of property to players over the value of the ability to meet players to pursue beyond and vanity Behind, it is different levels of high subscription investment).

There are also betting features that use implicit probabilities to keep players engaged in the acquisition of certain rare items (such as betting, gambling attributes, if not specified). In spite of policy scruples, it is equally in the interest of developers to repeatedly appear in web games or mobile games as replacement vests and become a major source of revenue for certain games.

miniaturization

In the client game situation is uncertain (such as overseas super-game blockage, the strong competition of similar products, the operation of the channel simplification, high operating costs, and the relatively extreme proxy mode of operation), and webpage game competition tends to be tragic (Overly concentrated homogenization, higher user acquisition costs, combined R & D cost pressures from game quality improvement, and a relatively unordered competitive environment), social games and mobile games have attracted relatively low barriers to entry A large number of developers in the seemingly blue sea market unconstrained competition, whether the strength of the gaming company's strong market for new cards or new R & D companies to take a break in the new market, the miniaturization of the game to a new Scale, of which the most powerful platform driven by Facebook, Qzone, App Store and Google Play.

Despite the revenue downturn of social games in China and the overseas breakout and dilemma of mobile games, domestic developers are confused and frustrated. However, with the infiltration of three major concepts of leisure, mobility and relevance at the user base and developer level, Social games and mobile games will appear to be defined as "potential" industries.

Web game

As far as the current domestic industrial environment is concerned, web games seem bound to become a temporary collection and transition point for various forms of games. In the name of unprovoked games, web games gradually take over the banner of large-scale online games and become the player's new entertainment choice , Social games emerged after a short period of user excitement, and began to reinvent themselves as web games.

With access to the social games that make users an advantage and revenue has often become shortcomings, including the top Hot Games, Kay Ying Games are looking forward to getting better book reports from web games.

As for mobile games, which has always been led by casual puzzles, it has also recently shown a tendency to move closer to mobile online games. This is even more evident in the revenue table of the App Store in China. Typical examples are "fairy" Road "," Hu Lai three countries. "

Advertising dependency

We have argued that in addition to R & D, operation platform and users, a reasonable chain of industries will become an indispensable intermediate service provider (such as advertising service, information service, statistical service, hosting environment service and qualification application service) In fact, no matter whether it is a webpage game, a social game or a mobile phone game, intermediate advertising marketing service providers are rising rapidly in the number of games, such as the popular Kiip or Tapjoy.

While the usual game marketing means nothing more than: advertising platform investment (the location of the platform recommended, the value of the user platform imports, other games recommend import), search engine SEO or SEM advertising (based on Baidu and Google's search engine optimization, and keyword ad buying), PC or Mobile based ad networks (ad placement and split implant based on various sites), typical game medias (such as Sina games or 17173 game sites), social Network (push of game information on blogs, forums, microblogs and email relationships), offline outdoor advertising (such as bus body, subway or outdoor stop advertising). Of course, some malicious competition may also be included, such as the malicious interception of competitors in SEM advertising or the use of out-of-line advertising display in the advertising of game media.

In fact, a host of gaming benefits are rewarded by marketers over a variety of ad cycles, either by advertisers who run ads, or by continuing to spend on advertising in order to maintain the game's user base after the game reaches a certain height.

Cross-platform

Jeff Coghlan, founder of Matmi, put forward a typical view: Apple and App Store changed the overall game environment (touch experience, real-time experience, creative leadership), and then the cross-platform game will be more meaningful, which Similar to Giordano Contestabile, senior director of mobile business products and business planning at PopCap - he believes the biggest trend in the future is cross-platform gaming, especially porting games on the PC and the mobile; of course EA's Wilson Wilson Thoroughly, he believes the winner of a huge future will be those who have successfully created a cross-platform gaming experience.

What has come to be known is that there are various cross-platform tools such as Ansca Mobile, Sibblingz, GameSalad or HTML5 language on the market, enabling convergence from PC to mobile, including such things as "Immortal" or "Dream Journey 3 "and other web games," Hu Lai Three Kingdoms "," happy aquarium "as the representative of social games, they are moving to the phone side, and achieved good performance.

Beau Hindman believes the future of gameplay should be such that users can play games on nearby devices whenever they want to.

overseas market

Although overseas markets are a more unfamiliar business environment, and are constantly facing local regulatory policies and the strong blockade of local games, all this is not a serious obstacle for developers who urgently need to expand their markets to gain revenue. , Especially in the current domestic game business environment (such as cottage clusters in the mobile game industry, extremely low user willingness to pay, cheat everywhere, and black-card issues that make everyone complaining).

In addition to the Southeast Asian market (the export destination of traditional domestic games) with a similar cultural concept, the new region is creating a new distribution environment as the new games emerge and the distribution environment improves, including the regional distribution market characterized by social networks (Such as Orkut's South American market, Facebook's North American market and Traditional Chinese market, StudiVZ's German market), and the global distribution market characterized by the App Store and Google Play (a large number of mobile phone distribution options are globalized, especially English as the language of choice for the game).

Free mode and service game

Whether it's a Free To Play free game or a paid game that offers IAP mode after Paid, the biggest difference from a full paid game is that all players no longer have the same game experience (such as a similar game experience), but instead a differentiated game experience (Such as more visible data acquisition, more powerful props and equipment, more charismatic games), turning the core of the game's presentation to two levels: the first is which links can drive the player to pay for the game ; The second is how to present the paid gamers a differentiated experience in the game (including game glory).

The realization of these ways is nothing less than the game to the service-based migration, the game's creative industry to make it a complete open-ended product services, and tend to serve a handful of the dominant players in order to complete the game's revenue. Resulting in four kinds of judgments: no willingness to pay, and there is no migratory scene; no willingness to pay for the game, but the migration of the new game can be realized; willingness to pay, but the general amount of the payment; there is a strong willingness to pay, And it's possible to be a handful of Whales users.

In China, the serious service tendencies of developers about Whales users are quite obvious. On the whole, the games sometimes show competing entertainment (such as Immortal VIP level and VIP level VIP level, which are basically the same as those mentioned above To the numerical).

Regulatory syndrome

In addition to domestic game user oriented market confusion, another layer of inevitable pressure from regulatory policy.

But in fact, what makes developers more confused is the disorder and resilience of regulation that makes it difficult for developers to identify which areas are suitable for play (for example, nascent social games and mobile games, how to protect the whole after regulation The vitality of the industry); and which must find its way into the rules of thoroughness (such as which subjects are taboo, which forms of expression are taboo, and which forms of advertising do not touch the bottom line).

In fact, more people are not clear, including viable and unfeasible channels, and which human-based resilience exists in these judgments (for example, under what circumstances is allowed, and under what circumstances Nor is it allowed) or how different reviewers evaluate the gap between similar application reviews in the face of the same issues.

Author Zheng gold, the game state responsible person, the game states mainly pays attention to and parses the field of social games and mobile games both at home and abroad, and regularly expounds the depth of the industry.