After reading the financial report, I finally understood the way to fight fish.
Text | Starlight
| Shi Can
The time to turn in the papers is up.
On March 16, 2022, Douyu announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. The report shows that the total revenue of Douyu in 2021 reached 9.165 billion yuan. Among them, the revenue in the fourth quarter was 2.328 billion yuan, an increase of 2.6% year-on-year, and the gross profit was 245 million yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of 34.3%.
It is worth noting that in the fourth quarter of 2021, the MAU (quarterly average monthly active users) of Douyu mobile terminal reached 62.4 million. Compared to 58.2 million in the same period in 2020, MAU grew at a growth rate of 7.2%. At the same time, the number of paying users in the fourth quarter also rose from the previous quarter.
This steady and progressive momentum has not come easily.
Today, with more than 1.03 billion people on the Internet, the mobile Internet is surging endlessly. Over the past decade or so, people have witnessed a rapid change in the form of media and the arrival of a battle for attention. The curtain opens, and players large and small enter and exit.
In this protracted and intensifying competition, the eight-year-old Douyu is still standing at the top of the track, and its community prosperity is a step forward.
We can't help but ask: under the law of attention economy, what gives Douyu long-term development resilience?
Living water continuously content pool
Imagine how a gaming enthusiast would have a great day?
Many times, playing games by hand is just part of the fun time, and it is equally interesting to study strategies, communicate ideas, observe the gods, or watch the game.
When we try to discuss Fighting Fish, the first underlying proposition to face is, what needs does Fighting Fish meet in the core player community?
It is not a pure game launcher, nor is it a game server in the true sense of the word, but it encompasses almost everything in the field of content consumption outside of the game itself.
In other words, Douyu anchors the period when game lovers are not playing games, meeting the needs of the latter to "study strategies, communicate ideas, observe gods or watch the game".
In the game-derived content consumption scenario, e-sports events are a link that platforms can't get around, because their audience size is becoming more and more important.
According to the "2020 China Game Industry Report" released by the Game Working Committee (GPC) of the China Music and Digital Association and the China Game Industry Research Institute, the actual sales revenue of China's e-sports game market in 2020 was 136.557 billion yuan, an increase of 41.83 billion yuan over 2019, an increase of 44.16% year-on-year. In 2020, the scale of e-sports game users in China reached 488 million, an increase of 9.65% year-on-year.
Image source :2020 China Game Industry Report
It can be said that the increasing coverage of e-sports competitions directly determines the market competitiveness of broadcast platforms. However, everything has a dark side, and the copyright fees of e-sports events have risen, gradually evolving into a real problem that enterprises have to consider, and Douyu is no exception.
After the release of the financial report, on the evening of March 16, the management of Douyu said: "We have decided to adopt a selective event acquisition strategy, fully evaluate the traffic of each event copyright and the realizable value of the monetization end, and finally determine the price of the copyright." ”
At the same time, the management of Douyu also stressed: "Selectively purchasing the rights of the event does not mean that Douyu will reduce the investment in platform content in the future, Douyu will continue to expand and deepen various cooperation with game manufacturers, and then strengthen the investment of self-made content and the construction of communities around the game to ensure that the high-quality platform can also produce high-quality content." ”
This expression once again clarifies the strategic position of Douyu's self-made content. From the perspective of platform development, this means that Douyu is no longer willing to blindly "burn money" to make money, but chooses to use part of the self-made model to cope with the complex market environment and regain the initiative.
Looking back at the past, the action has demonstrated the determination of fighting fish. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Douyu launched a total of 110 self-made e-sports events, a significant increase year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter.
For e-sports enthusiasts, Douyu's homemade events are not only "full of quantity", but also well-made. For example, the "2021 "League of Legends Mobile Game" National Competition Platform Cooperation Competition • Fighting Fish Masters" hosted by Douyu not only made Douyu gain high recognition from the official and clubs of the "League of Legends" event, but also won an extremely amazing publicity.
The tournament set a new record for the number of teams participating in the platform, and the number of participating teams reached 96. The number of spectators of the event exceeded 10 million, and the highest viewing popularity of a single-day event exceeded 6 million.
In order to cope with the long-term needs of users, Douyu has persistently broadened and deepened the content pool, and explored many content areas such as self-made events, anchor IP, and derivative programs.
Last year, Douyu successively launched more than ten PGC variety shows such as the immersive interactive secret room entertainment show "The Great Escape at the Speed of Lights", the indoor interactive game reality show "E Up to Explore the Class", and the comprehensive entertainment talk show "Mini Planet". Relying on the professional team, Douyu's self-made variety shows have blossomed everywhere, and there is no shortage of hot variety show elements such as talk shows and secret rooms, and the richness of the genre is amazing.
Douyu's investment in content doesn't stop there.
In 2021, Douyu announced a series of incentive policies to vigorously support professional users such as anchors, game media, and contracted UP owners to produce original videos. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the average daily submission volume of video content on the Douyu platform maintained a strong growth momentum, increasing by more than 100% month-on-month, an increase of 3.6 times in 2021 compared with 2020, and the number of videos played on the platform exceeding 30% increased by 56% month-on-month.
From home-made esports to video submissions, a steady stream of differentiated content forms a moat for Douyu.
The new tour is at the forefront
On the evening of November 7, 2021, Douyu held an exclusive event called "League of Legends Mobile Game Jinx Night". At the end of the hour, the well-known artist Angelababy appeared in the live broadcast room as promised, and the screen behind her released a heroic blue-haired COS poster. A "dream linkage" that broke the dimensional wall was opened, and the barrage in the live broadcast room rolled up rapidly...
The impressive data left a footnote for the night. The number of hits in the live broadcast room of the event exceeded 17 million, and the number of bullet screens exceeded 400,000. "Jinx Night" won 10 Weibo-related topics, and the topic read reached 350 million. The full platform exposure of the event exceeded the 400 million mark, and the total interaction volume reached 3 million.
Since the establishment of a relatively complete game zone ecology in the third quarter of 2021, Douyu has begun to devote more energy to in-depth cooperation with game manufacturers, loLM ("League of Legends Mobile Game") is a typical case.
Douyu and game manufacturers have co-created a LOLM player community, and the specific cooperation methods also include providing live broadcast benefits, purchasing exclusive props, etc., which complement events, activities and community topics, and work together to enhance user stickiness. It is reported that as many as 70% of Douyu LOLM users have used the strategies launched by the platform, which shows the high degree of community activity.
At the forefront of the game trend, Douyu and game manufacturers maintain a mutually empowering cooperative relationship, which is vividly reflected in the mobile game "Magic Tower".
According to Qimai data, the "Magic Tower" mobile game topped the Free App Store list on December 14, 2021, when it was opened for pre-download, overpowering a number of veteran players. After the official start of the public beta, "Magic Tower" ranked at the top of the best-selling list, once ranking among the top 5 of the list, and broke out of the gold digging ability that should not be underestimated.
In fact, Douyu is the closest partner in the release of "Magic Tower". As a key new swimming project in the second half of 2021, the former is everywhere behind the rise of "Magic Tower".
How does a comprehensive, sophisticated cooperative operation work?
First of all, Douyu created a new tour area for "Magic Tower" from the direction of intermodal transportation, anchor, content, function, and community atmosphere construction, and built a base camp. After that, the platform and the game manufacturers worked together to incubate the head anchor of the special area and create the anchor IP. When the ecosystem is established, Douyu will be able to make full use of the platform's unique resources and content distribution capabilities to provide manufacturers with a considerable number of high-value users, and continue to promote the linkage of head anchors and create high-quality content.
In summary, this refined operation strategy is not only a measure for Douyu to improve user stickiness, but also a fulcrum for it to explore the game distribution model, and it is also an inevitable requirement for the development of the industry to a certain stage.
With the popularization of terminal hardware and network infrastructure, the Internet traffic dividend has peaked. All these phenomena show that the game market is changing from an incremental market to a stock market, and the era of brutal growth in buying has become a thing of the past.
The data shows that in the first half of 2021, the growth rate of China's game user scale was only 1.38%, a new low in recent years. LiftOFF's 2020 Mobile Game Report shows that the cost of paying users for game activation worldwide increased by 24.2% year-on-year in 2020.
Image source "2020 Mobile Game Report"
Considering the high cost of customer acquisition, the extensive buying style is no longer suitable for the current situation of the Red Sea.
From the perspective of demand, game manufacturers seek the shortest path to reach the target users, and players need more intuitive and sensible content recommendations. The fighting fish in between the two, on the one hand, is closely related to the game industry, on the other hand, it is directly oriented to the precise customer group, so it has a window function innately.
These advantages are directly reflected in the effectiveness of cooperation. At the beginning of the internal test, Douyu's "Magic Tower" anchor number and anchor quality led all the way, and the top 10 of the first month after the public test accounted for 6, the top 10 of the popularity list accounted for 7, and the top 10 of the income gift list accounted for 6. Through coordinated scheduling of resources with game manufacturers, Douyu hatched a garigari, the head anchor of the special area with the influence of the whole network, and made the traffic and flow data of the new game crush the competitors.
"Magic Tower" has proved that the propaganda strength of the fighting fish may be far more powerful than people think.
A combination of punches on multiple topics
Stimulated by high-quality content and fresh games, douyu's steady growth is well documented.
When the basic disk is stabilized, a deeper question surfaces: In the face of such an active player community, how does Douyu operate? What is the starting point for building a community atmosphere?
In the summer of 2021, around the topic of "college entrance gas station", many Douyu anchors recorded a video of support for The Students of Guangdong University, and many netizens left sincere words of blessing. Under the topic of National Day, people cheered for the motherland together. During the Olympics, enthusiasts opened their conversation boxes in the exclusive topic area.
Although the player is the basis of the ecology of the Douyu community, this does not mean that the game is the only thing to talk about. All of the above are Douyu's initiatives to improve the health of the community, and they bring a lot of positive energy to the platform.
Interesting topics like "gaokao gas stations" are a microcosm of the douyu community operation strategy. Taking the keyword "topic" as the source, Douyu has explored a set of methods of infinite divergence.
From the content level, Douyu chose four key directions: "topic × event", "topic × game", "topic × anchor", "topic × hot spot of the whole station". Anchors, games, events, and hotspots, they are the places where ordinary players will look, and naturally promote users to integrate into the discussion to the greatest extent.
Every day, a variety of novel information topics grow naturally in Douyu, attracting people with similar interests. Conversely, when a topic becomes popular, it can stimulate more anchors and users to contribute enthusiastically, thus forming a highly participatory community atmosphere.
From the perspective of product logic, Douyu innovatively launched the "Live Broadcast Room Hot Discussion Channel".
In the past, live broadcast rooms and fish bars were usually only for users to discuss the topic of anchors, which was more limited, and the current setting was equivalent to tearing down the "fence". After the channel is opened, the content linkage between the live broadcast rooms, the small communities of the anchors and the small communities of the games of the whole station becomes simple, and the resonance effect of user discussions is amplified.
For example, during the "The Internet" Invitational Tournament held by Zard, the head anchor of the DOTA2 division, Douyu created and operated a number of topics around the event, and the response was quite large. The cumulative reading volume of related topics exceeded 20 million, and more than 5,000 graphic and textual content were produced.
Looking at the overall situation, in the fourth quarter, the Douyu community produced tens of thousands of hot topics, of which tens of millions of hot topics were born, and several game topics were read by 15 million. Douyu also kept the basic plate of e-sports and did not relax, and carried out diversified topic activities around famous events such as Ti10 and Major, with more than 4,000 articles and a total reading volume of more than 6 million.
Heat and data may be abstract, but the player's interactive experience is real and concrete. In order to retain users and improve stickiness, a healthy and rich community atmosphere is undoubtedly a top priority. The reason why Douyu strives to do the topic is to provide players with fresh and diversified communication soil, and further promote the vigorous development of the UGC ecology.
Based on this, the commercialization of Douyu can go more steadily and farther, rather than just fighting for one day.
According to the information disclosed in the earnings report, the main reason for the decline in Douyu's advertising and other revenue in the fourth quarter was that it used a part of the advertising traffic that could have been directly monetized in order to continue to explore new commercialization models. This also echoes Douyu's continuous investment in research and development, content production and so on. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Douyu's research and development expenses increased by 11.5% compared with the same period in 2020.
Cao Hao, Vice President of Finance of Douyu, said: "In the future, Douyu will continue to upgrade the content linkage of live broadcast, video, graphics and community, and continue to strengthen investment in the content side and investment in research and development. At the same time, we will continue to explore new monetization methods in addition to live rewards, improve the efficiency of monetization, and strive to bring long-term value to shareholders. ”
Those at the helm have chosen a long-term path. In the future as far as the eye can see, Douyu will explore along this path and deepen the community ecology. In essence, the resilience of Douyu also comes from this trust in long-term value.
Looking back at the product form itself, whether it is live broadcasting or online community, their prosperity proves the same thing: tandem islands are always one of the most authentic meanings of the Internet. In time, we look forward to Douyu being able to build a livelier and more prosperous player park.