Whether the operator channel is a coal pit or a gold mine

Is the operator channel a coal pit or a gold mine? Short-term billing for stand-alone games may be honey, for heavy games, it is a painful existence. And at the beginning of this year, mobile mm channel bad debt incident undoubtedly let the short charge short board on the front of the heavy online games ap are more uncomfortable.

If you compare operators to app stores and other Android app stores, you'll find that they're like two worlds in top-game games, especially online games.

In the operator channel, the game user usually means the small white: The culture level is not high, the income level is not high, the terminal level is not high. They are called the three-low user, but this is the user, in China has a huge population base, and prop up the Chinese operator channel billions of of the market size of the hand. High pay, low ARPU, this is the operator channel user characteristics, they are a huge gold mine to be excavated.

However, this huge cake, not everyone can eat.

The carrier channel of self-made heaven and earth

Early operators of the store, with a series of qualifying rules, in addition to the rules, there are a lot of unspoken rules, because of the large and complex three operators of the internal structure and system, as well as relatively less transparent rules and regulations, making everything and "people" involved in the unclear way of the relationship. A game can be successful in the operator channel, "People" is often the main factor. The "person" behind means the ability to get traffic and recommendation bits. However, in recent conferences, operator channel leaders began to appear frequently, and to the industry to show their own open posture, look forward to reversing such an inherent impression.

Operator channel closed and the characteristics of the system, so that the existence of carrier channel agents become reasonable, these operators application partners are often referred to as AP, they understand the carrier channel user characteristics and carrier channel needs.

But it is a big company, in the carrier channel product strategy is mainly a stand-alone game, they clearly know what kind of products can be suitable for these relatively low-end users of the game habits, a more important reason is that the landing operator channels, means that operators must be provided by the billing method. Now in addition to the telecom love game opened a payment treasure and other third-party payment means, the other operators more than the number of channels to open only the short billing, and set the monthly maximum limit of the short generation billing model is clearly not able to meet the needs of heavy game players. is not suitable to rely on big R pull High income heavy net swims.

Although these big companies did not do, but the demand is always there, so even if the short billing is not suitable for heavy online games, many AP (operator application partners) or the top of such a short plate on the road. Recently, however, they are being subjected to another heavy pressure from the short term billing outside the pay limit.

Move mm "oolong finger"

Short-term billing is a convenient and quick advantage, but in the use of short-term billing, bad debts began to inevitably arise.

Just last month, mobile mm held a developer salon in Guangzhou, in this meeting, the mobile mm for their platform to do propaganda, and talked about the bad debts, they then declared: mobile mm platform, TENS app application of the bad debt rate of 3% or so, millions app application of the bad debt rate of about 5%.

But is that so? In recent times, some APs have provided us with some different information, which they call "the Oolong finger" event.

After the Spring Festival this year, some AP received a January statement from the mobile MM platform, the number above makes them feel helpless. In this statement, a number of AP not only in the month without any profit, or even the settlement amount is negative, from negative tens of thousands of to negative hundreds of thousands of, and even the AP negative account limit of up to millions of. AP application reconciliation, the result said the main reason is CERs 13 bad debts.

"The massive bad debt incident, in fact, began last August, when the AP's bad debt rate was as high as 30%." The massive bad debt situation mainly appeared in the October Heavy network game, the slight or the stand-alone game influence is small. "An AP told the Grape king so.

This massive bad debt only appears in the mobile mm platform, mobile game distribution channel mobile gaming base is not so serious, asked why this situation, the AP replied: "Mainly because the MM channel relatively open, but the precautionary measures are not sufficient." “

However, may not only be bad debts of the management of the problem, the bad debt CERs, according to the conventional calculation is difficult to on, more specific reasons to move mm is also being searched and looking for.

"In any case, we are always the last to be hurt." The AP finally said to us.

The generation and impact of bad debts

The causes of bad debts are profound and complex, at least at this stage, it seems, as long as the use of short-term billing, this is a problem can not be fundamentally solved. Earlier, mobile, unicom and other operators and AP in the agreement between the ratio of bad debts to 8%, but over time, this ratio is no longer clearly stated, but with the actual situation changes.

There are three main types of short-term accounting for bad debts:

1, User generation

Users take advantage of the operator's billing vulnerabilities in the most typical latency, from the user initiated to the billing success is a delay, the delay from 10 minutes to 2 hours, the most serious time delay up to 6 hours. That is, users can use a balance is 2 dollars card in 2 hours to brush out hundreds of of the recharge, this situation in the heavy game in the presence of especially common;

2, SP production

There will be SP using the carrier issued by the preferential package card, from consumption, take advantage of;

3, Brush Gold studio and game business or network union, using operators of various billing loopholes, brush gold arbitrage.

The impact of bad debts on AP is manifold, the 1th is the impact of income, the massive bad CERs not only affect the income, but also cause the AP to appear the barriers of capital turnover difficulties;

The second is the impact of the game itself, when the operator billing loopholes are intended to profit merchants to use massively, will have a huge impact on the game's economic system, soaring prices, economic collapse. On the other hand players will also go to buy black gold instead of real recharge, affect the player's willingness to pay, further impact on income;

Third, in the face of these uncontrollable risks, and there is no corresponding risk solution, AP will lose confidence in the operator channel.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, short-term billing for the impact of heavy online games is not only bad debts, the major operators for the short generation of recharge have set limits to move mm for example, usually a single recharge limit of 30 yuan, the daily limit of 600 yuan, the monthly limit of 1000 yuan. When you need to recharge a higher amount, you need to do multiple single recharge, increasing the difficulty of the payment process. On the other hand, a single month's recharge limit also directly kills the likelihood of big R appearing. For light hand travel, the short billing is honey, but for the heavy net, it is like arsenic.

The direction of the future

The bad debt problem is not completely unresolved, and China Mobile is experimenting with new solutions, such as balance verification, real-time deduction, and so on, and in some areas. These methods can minimize the possibility of bad debts, eliminate the game of malicious large amount of brush gold, but in a short time, it is difficult to implement large-scale. The implementation of the new plan requires more than 30 boss system (Business Operation support System) coordination, it is difficult to coordinate.

And according to our understanding, for the "Oolong refers to" the follow-up, move MM and AP actively negotiate and find ways to solve the problem, such as the plan to introduce a Third-party payment method such as payment of the SDK, etc., but has not proposed the final solution. No matter what, we look forward to moving mm to properly resolve this problem, and in the future to prevent the occurrence of similar events.