At the Game Growth Trend Forum of the 2023 China Game Industry Annual Conference held on December 14, Wang Xiangbin, founder and CEO of DataEye, delivered a speech entitled "Mobile Game Marketing and Mini Game Development Trends". Wang Xiangbin reviewed the development of the entire game industry from last year to this year from three parts: the purchase volume of game apps, the development trend and purchase volume of mini games, and the insight of Douyin mini games.
The following is the content of the speech: (slightly redacted)
Good afternoon, delegates, we are Wang Xiangbin, CEO of DataEye, and today I will share with you about mobile game marketing and the development trend of mini games. I will share with you the overall development of games this year from the entire game market this year, including the data of mini games.
In 2023, the amount of mobile game materials will be overwhelming: more than 13 million in the first half of the year, and more than 9 million in the second half of the year
First of all, judging from the market data of the entire mobile game launch in the past two years, this year, the scale of materials for the entire game has increased by more than three times year-on-year, and there has been a large increase in the first half of the year compared with last year, mainly because after the epidemic was lifted, a large number of game manufacturers began to enter the competition for the entire game marketing and purchase volume.
However, from the first half of the year to the second half of the year, there were some declines, mainly because the macroeconomic environment was not particularly good this year, so the overall investment of manufacturers in the second half of the year declined slightly.
Judging from the number of games invested by game apps in the past two years, including its main body, the number of buying companies participating in game delivery has been declining in the past two years, and the reason behind this is that I believe everyone knows that the economic environment is sluggish, and the consumption level of players has declined, resulting in more involution on the purchase side, fierce competition, and rising purchase costs. Therefore, many game head buying companies are becoming more and more cautious about spending money.
What are the changes from the perspective of the APP theme? There are also some periodic changes in the game theme this year. First of all, the two themes that are more active this year are legends. The reason why Legend is active is mainly due to the unification of the copyright of the game continent, and the resolution of the copyright issue will also make the subjects involved in the game launch and the delivery more active.
The other is two-dimensional. Relatively speaking, ACG was relatively cold on the buying track last year and the year before that, but this year, the overall launch is more active, and a number of good ACG mobile games have emerged, such as miHoYo's "Honkai: Star Dome Railway", Tencent's "White Night Aurora" and "Back to the Future: 1999".
From the perspective of key gameplay, at present, in the large market of APP games, MMORPG is relatively concentrated. The strategy category has cooled down significantly this year, and there are actually cyclical reasons for the cooling of SLG delivery. Because the entire SLG has experienced several involutions of purchases, including the War of the Three Kingdoms led by Tencent, NetEase, and Alibaba, and then to the multi-civilization war of Lilith and 4399, and then to the battle of ants and the battle of differentiated themes. In the first two or three years from 2022 to 2022, the entire purchase cost has increased by nearly two or three times. By this year, in fact, there has been some volume that has not moved, so the overall delivery has been reduced.
Based on these data, the game industry as a whole, especially the app purchase volume in the past two years, has two main characteristics.
The first characteristic is that in recent years, everyone has become more and more cautious. There are two parts to this, one of which is the old project marketing expense card. The other part is new games, and new games are more cautious in spending money, because in the first half of this year, the speed of new games was very fast, and after the release of version numbers returned to normal, the products in each hand had a blowout release cycle. However, throughout the first half of the year, from the perspective of the strategy of new games, purchases, and launches, most games are launched in waves, which is difficult to last, which also reflects that everyone is more cautious in spending money and recovering costs.
The second feature is that the creative consumption of the entire purchase volume is getting faster and faster. From three or four years ago when an idea could run for six to seven days, to today it takes three to four days. It is enough to show how fierce the competition is in the creative market in the field of marketing. So in the first half of this year, the entire game marketing market has put out more than 53 million short video ideas, which is a very exaggerated number. This reflects the competitive intensity of the entire creative consumption and creative PK.
From the market data just mentioned, we can also make some insights into the issues related to the APP buying volume industry from 2022 to 2023.
The first is that China's game market, especially the APP market, has entered the stock market, and the user experience and scale have not increased significantly, and the game-related revenue data has continued to decline in the past two years, and a large number of manufacturers have entered the era of the Red Sea background.
In this process, we believe that with the macro situation of the national economy, all walks of life have basically entered the red sea background of the industry, and the big structural opportunities are disappearing. However, for all walks of life, some local points are also constantly rotating and rising, such as the game industry, the rise of mini games in the first half of the year is also a very important feature of the game industry.
Mini games have huge potential: the market size is expected to exceed 30 billion in 2023 and 50 billion by 2025
Regarding the development trend of mini games in 2023, including what is the purchase volume, we can look at several sets of data.
The first is about the market size of mini games, judging from a number of data, including our speculation, the market for mini games will basically exceed 30 billion in 2023, and the market size of mini games may be close to 50 billion in 2025.
The development of mini games has the following characteristics:
First, the category of play is both light and heavy, and the profit method is diversified.
Second, big platforms have entered the game one after another, and the more the cake in the mini game market, the bigger it is. Platforms like Alipay and Didi are constantly laying out mini-games.
Third, the first-tier large manufacturers have not fully set foot in the field, and the second-tier and small and medium-sized mobile game companies have benefited.
The future development of Mini Games will be driven by a number of related factors. The first is the breakthrough of the product supply side, in fact, the main thing here is the work of technology. For example, breakthroughs in interactive technology and engine technology, Unity's export of H5 game packages, and breakthroughs in the upper limit of local caches, etc., can allow Mini Programs to accommodate more and richer gameplay, and even improve image quality, which are all important factors to promote supply-side changes.
The second is that the needs of domestic game users are changing. Judging from the data of the current survey, 84% of the respondents believe that the fatigue of gamers is rising, and everyone is looking for lighter weight and more diverse gameplay, which is the current change in the psychological appeal of the entire gamer, and the mini game is exactly in line with this.
What are the trends of different types of mini games? In the entire mini game ecosystem, from the perspective of buying volume, it is still relatively light gameplay games such as cards and placement. Traditional large buyers, such as strategy games, do not have that much of a large investment scale and budget in mini games, mainly because the gameplay and the gameplay of small game players do not fit particularly well.
Challenges and opportunities for different types of games in the mini-game track. First of all, for traditional and mature game categories, in mini games, its advantage is that user stickiness is higher and ARPU is higher, but the challenge is that the gameplay and the gameplay of small game players are not very compatible. However, with the breakthrough of APP mini-game interactive technology proposed by Sanqi, Gigabit and other manufacturers, and the cultivation of user Xi. After the breakthrough, the mini game can be used as a simplified version of medium and heavy apps such as MMO and SLG, bringing new possibilities for multi-terminal acquisition.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for innovative games is trial and error. Because a large number of gameplay methods need to be verified by the market, although the production cost is low, the failure rate is also relatively high. From the perspective of challenges, the homogeneity of the products in the mini game track is serious, and the gameplay & themes need to continue to make breakthroughs. Innovative and light mini-games have the characteristics of short development cycle and flexibility. On the one hand, it adapts to the fast-paced market changes in the mini game market, and on the other hand, it can enjoy the first wave of explosive traffic.
From the perspective of the scale of delivery, in 2023, from January to the present, the overall scale of mini games will continue to rise, which is actually mainly due to two factors.
The first is the advantage of traffic, especially after the interconnection and mutual benefit of the major Internet platforms, the traffic brought to the mini game ecology is very rich. The second is the characteristics of the mini game itself, which is significantly better than the traditional APP game in terms of purchase cost and promotion advantages.
In the first half of this year, unlike APP games, the main body of the purchase volume of mini games is actually rising month by month and quarter by quarter, the core reason for this is that the development cycle of mini games is short, and the production cost and purchase volume are relatively cheaper, which can allow more small and medium-sized manufacturers to have more opportunities to enter the game.
Regarding the future development trend of mini games, at present, small games are actually more casual games such as chess and cards, puzzles, etc., but by this year, they are gradually developing in the direction of medium and heavy, high-quality products. Especially with the entry of domestic mobile game manufacturers such as Sanqi Mutual Entertainment, Gigabit, and Kaiying Network into the game track, traditional gameplay such as shooting, RPG, SLG, MMO and so on has fully blossomed in the mini game track.
The monetization model of Mini Games, the difference between Mini Games and APP is that its monetization models will be more diverse. From the initial ad monetization, to in-game purchases, to the current hybrid monetization, it is becoming more and more diverse. From the data we have observed, the addition of the ad model does not reduce the long-term retention of the game, and even the overall retention rate is better. The main reason is that hybrid products can meet the gaming needs of both paying and advertising players, and the user pool has become larger.
In addition, like APP games, there are fewer and fewer forms of single purchases, and a large number of manufacturers are pursuing more and more diversified marketing methods. Because a single purchase volume will cause a rapid rise in costs, all manufacturers are aware of this problem. In the field of mini games, more diversified marketing mixes such as influencer marketing and building private domains are also becoming more and more common.
Douyin mini-game distribution : IAA casual products dominate the ecology, and moderate products are emerging
Finally, let's take a look at the Douyin mini game platform, which is also a gathering place for large and small games in China, at present, the distribution of Douyin mini games, from the list of our tracking Top 50, nearly half of the Douyin mini games are mild, but from this year, a large number of medium and heavy products have begun to enter the game, but there has not been an obvious head product. Therefore, it is still in the emergence period of products, and has not formed an inherent pattern. For the layout of moderate IAP, compared with other mini game platforms, Douyin mini game opportunities may be more.
The second is the three advantages of Douyin mini games. First, Douyin, as a pan-entertainment user platform, is backed by 600 million active players, of which 76.4% of the mini game users are covered, which is also a relatively large user base.
The second is to pay attention to the ability of revisit and long-term operation. Douyin-related game review capabilities are good, and at present, the official also provides some developed components, including game cards for information flow, sidebars, one-click attention to Douyin accounts, etc., which can help developers build a private domain ecology based on themselves.
The third is diversified marketing capabilities and abundant promotion resources. At present, the Douyin platform is an advertising platform with particularly rich marketing scenarios in China, so its marketing methods will tend to be more diversified, which is a great advantage for reducing the customer acquisition cost of Mini Games.
Regarding mini games and Douyin mini games, I think they are both facing some challenges at the moment, but of course they also have advantages. For example, the biggest challenge at present is that we see a large number of games in the market market, or they are hot spots, but its homogenization is very serious. The second is the churn rate of users, including retention, which is also a relatively big challenge for the entire mini game industry.
For Douyin mini games, most of the game users pay attention to short video content. How to cultivate the user's Xi is also a challenge. The comprehensive connectivity capabilities of Douyin Mini Games may be the most attractive to the average developer.