UGC and social marketing activities in the gaming industry

Today's world information dissemination rapidly, information flattening trend is obvious, especially in the internet industry. There are also some notable changes in the relationship between game companies and players.

The original game company is a developer, is a promoter, the player is an audience. Now, the player is very close to the game company, and even participate in the development and dissemination of the game. From UGC to social marketing, the era of national Games has come to us.

Research and development

From the point of view of development, after years of development of the game industry, the current player's appreciation of the level of the game increasingly professional. They can be very good at screening the quality of the game, and more and more picky, not easy to meet. Game company updates are difficult to keep pace with the player's consumption. The current game production is both content to attract players, but also need to quickly build content to retain them. Like Blizzard company every year will invest a lot of manpower and resources to carry out the "World of Warcraft" Update, a few G updates to ensure the freshness of the game, and constantly attract players to play. But there are not many companies that have the strength to update the game.

At this point many game companies will take another approach, in the game to add a number of spontaneous play, allowing players in the designer to allow the conditions or framework for two times "development."

One mode is for the player to make certain modifications to the existing business game. Usually we call it "MOD." Like "The Ancient Scrolls" "Spore" and so on, the content of the game is almost completely open to the players, can meet different users in different aspects of the special requirements, very scalable, players can use a variety of tools to edit the game, modify, add content.

Domestic online games also have a lot of similar games and system functions, such as RPG games to join the "pinch face" function, there are many players on the internet forum dedicated to "pinch face" tutorial, templates, code. Players in the free display of image, good character code is required to buy the forum currency or even renminbi, these are UGC in the online games.

Another mode is the player in the current use of commercial games to play the permitted, personalized creation. Typical game is "Minecraft"

In the game, there is no goal, no upgrade, some just under the conditions of the game simple rules for production and creation. Players in the game can easily make a small cabin, castle and even the city, if coupled with the imagination of the player, the Sky City, underground City are equally able to achieve, experience the general feeling of God. Similarly, in the online game, we can also see, home, base, and so on, more and more adopted, these are also the player's two times "development"

First of all, UGC's game content can ease the game company's research and development pressure. The development of new game content by the company itself will soon be consumed by the player, while the player's own exploitation can reduce the company's development costs and time.

Second, extend the life cycle of the game. The new game content by the player unceasingly produces, lets the game maintain the vigor for a long time, increases the game the LTV.

Again, can increase the user's active degree and user stickiness, not only in the game, like Slamacow team, through the "Minecraft" produced a lot of humorous animation, attracted a large number of fans to discuss and participate.

Promotion Articles

Game product development is completed, we hope to do product promotion, so that more players know our products, and then to further understand the product, gain the recognition of the player, and ultimately prompted the player to pay. The process is dominated by the publisher of the game, and the current industry trend is to get all players involved in the process.

The way we used to be is the traditional way of marketing, single transmission. For example, we watch TV commercials, mostly puff. According to Third-party data companies, users have less than 30% confidence in such ads. Not only waste the company's resources, but also the audience's relative rate is very low.

And now we are more in the way of social marketing, not only a number of transmission, but also a strong transmission rate, ROI is very high. We trust our family, friends, and even the reputation of a weak relationship. Like we go to a place to travel, need to book a hotel. We will be in Ctrip or where to visit the Internet to see the hotel's user rating. We do not believe in these hotels advertising, but will go to believe those who have never met, but in the comments on the message of the user. Similarly, we are going to find a restaurant nearby to eat, we will certainly be in the public comments to see the evaluation.

All game companies in the game to promote the time, you can establish a mechanism to deepen the communication and relationship between the players, through the content or topic, so that each player becomes the product of the disseminator, and then through the integration of the major information platform to create greater results. The most obvious example is Apple. We rarely know about Apple products through advertising, but we often know about Apple via the Internet.

Of course, compared to foreign free sharing, free movement, free speech, China's public opinion evaluation is influenced by opinion leaders. Because of the influence of many factors such as cultural media, most people do not want to expose themselves in public, but at the same time enthusiastic onlookers, more willing to appreciate the joys and sorrows of others, so when an opinion leader character appears, will greatly arouse the resonance and esteem, such a person or thing can meet the needs of many users, Thus attracting explosive attention and follow. This is also the main reason for the more choice of domestic product promotion and the interaction of opinion leaders in micro-blogging.

Whether it is the UGC of the game production or the socialization of the marketing way, it represents the game enterprises more and more attention to the player, close to the player, better service for the player. And users are no longer simply consumers, to a certain extent also become the creator of value. Just like "Little Apple" can get into the American AMA Award, and the audience's active participation is inseparable. In this era of national entertainment, the development of the game industry has entered a new stage, a large number of UGC and socialization of marketing information has become the inevitable development of the times.