5 facts about the Chinese gaming market
Henry Fong , CEO of Yodo1 , shared with Gamasutra his vision of the Chinese market for gaming applications. Yodo1 itself helps Western publishers to enter the market of the Middle Kingdom, which is one of the largest iOS and Android markets.
We wrote about it on our App2Top site and saw considerable interest in the material from the developers of mobile applications. We offer you, Habrayuzer, information for reflection.
In fact, 8 out of 10 top games in the Chinese App Store are made in the west. For example, at the moment Plants vs Zombies from PopCap (EA) ranks first in the gaming top of paid games, and Fruit Ninja - the second. And despite the fact that in China, local games are sold quite successfully, most of the paid downloads still fall on Western projects.
')
The Chinese do not like to buy games, but in fact they spend a lot on them. Having chosen the game you like among the free variety of the App Store, they are ready to spend large sums through IAP. Now all 10 games of the Chinese App Store top are free. According to unofficial sources, top-end f2p games in the smartphone version earn $ 1-2 million a month on IAP alone: twice as much as six months ago.
Why precisely f2p-mechanics?
This fact goes against the preferences of Western players who do not like to demonstrate their achievements and bonuses in games. Chinese players, on the contrary, boast about their purchases and trophies. This is quite consistent with the concept of conspicuous consumption that is relevant in the new China, when luxury goods play the role of high status symbols.
Such preferences are fairly easy to use when planning the mechanism for monetizing a game. For example, you can add the ability to place some bonuses on the user's avatar. Or include the service of acquiring additional in-game social status with premium features.
For most Western developers, MMOs are mostly PCs, but Chinese users are actively playing similar projects on mobile devices. Moreover, 10 out of 10 top-grossing cash games in the Chinese App Store are MMOs or projects that are very similar to them. And MMO ports on iOS or Android, such as Three Kingdoms or World of Warcraft, already have millions of users.
The Chinese mobile application market has a number of problems: fragmentation (there are more than 100 Android-stored devices alone) and piracy. As for the second, you can protect your content and revenues by tying identification of passwords and IAP payments to an external server. In any case, as Henry Fong advises, cooperation with a local publisher will help companies get rid of many of the problems they are likely to meet in the Chinese mobile gaming application market.
We wrote about it on our App2Top site and saw considerable interest in the material from the developers of mobile applications. We offer you, Habrayuzer, information for reflection.
1. Most of the paid gaming downloads in the Chinese App Store accounted for Western titles
In fact, 8 out of 10 top games in the Chinese App Store are made in the west. For example, at the moment Plants vs Zombies from PopCap (EA) ranks first in the gaming top of paid games, and Fruit Ninja - the second. And despite the fact that in China, local games are sold quite successfully, most of the paid downloads still fall on Western projects.
')
2. Chinese users prefer f2p games
The Chinese do not like to buy games, but in fact they spend a lot on them. Having chosen the game you like among the free variety of the App Store, they are ready to spend large sums through IAP. Now all 10 games of the Chinese App Store top are free. According to unofficial sources, top-end f2p games in the smartphone version earn $ 1-2 million a month on IAP alone: twice as much as six months ago.
Why precisely f2p-mechanics?
3. The Chinese brag about their virtual content.
This fact goes against the preferences of Western players who do not like to demonstrate their achievements and bonuses in games. Chinese players, on the contrary, boast about their purchases and trophies. This is quite consistent with the concept of conspicuous consumption that is relevant in the new China, when luxury goods play the role of high status symbols.
Such preferences are fairly easy to use when planning the mechanism for monetizing a game. For example, you can add the ability to place some bonuses on the user's avatar. Or include the service of acquiring additional in-game social status with premium features.
4. IMO is popular in China
For most Western developers, MMOs are mostly PCs, but Chinese users are actively playing similar projects on mobile devices. Moreover, 10 out of 10 top-grossing cash games in the Chinese App Store are MMOs or projects that are very similar to them. And MMO ports on iOS or Android, such as Three Kingdoms or World of Warcraft, already have millions of users.
5. Disadvantages of the Chinese market
The Chinese mobile application market has a number of problems: fragmentation (there are more than 100 Android-stored devices alone) and piracy. As for the second, you can protect your content and revenues by tying identification of passwords and IAP payments to an external server. In any case, as Henry Fong advises, cooperation with a local publisher will help companies get rid of many of the problems they are likely to meet in the Chinese mobile gaming application market.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/150020/
All Articles