Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Farms, mahjong, Xiaoxiangle, and landlords. More than a decade ago, Tencent's "micro-innovation" thoroughly sent the likes of Lianzhong and the school into history. Now e-commerce platforms have also sent part of Tencent into history, and the rest can only be advertised on WeChat Mini Programs.

In 2018, e-commerce focused their attention on Mini Game for the first time in history. In May of that year, Duoduo Orchard was online. Then in 2019, Taobao Life was officially established and launched in June of that year. Today, Taobao Paradise in Taobao App is full of Tencent-started products: hot Lianxiao, Baba Farm, Sichuan mahjong, fighting landlords and other games.

Even if the style of play has not changed much, after transformation, these classic casual games are being reinvented and become "time killers" again. For example, the props that Happy Xiaoxiele needs to obtain through value-added services can now be achieved through store browsing, buying goods, and Taobao gold coin exchange, and the game has been transformed into a marketing tool.

When talking about e-commerce gaming and marketing in the end, Chen Li (a pseudonym), the head of a game studio, did not immediately answer. It was not until the end of the communication that he gave his own answer:

"for e-commerce, in the final analysis, the game is to promote exchanges; for our game studio, it is still an out-and-out game, but the customer has changed from the user to the brand and platform."

Since Ali began to introduce games in the Dachu venue in 2019, both cats and dogs have taken this opportunity to transform e-commerce's functional ecology of "buy as you see, buy as you go". At the same time, Ali even got his hands on the meta-universe.

At the Singles 11 Gala just past, Ali CTO Cheng Li has four prospects for the future, and the third one involves the future e-commerce form, which he believes will be "immersive". Of all the immersive means, games are the most feasible.

After three years, marketing gamification is no longer simply a time-killing weapon for e-commerce, it has also become a comprehensive tool for brand private operation, exposure, and even immersive experience. Mini Game, which used to look like the role of fragmented time collection, is now accelerating its evolution.

For marketers, this is new; for games, it is tantamount to self-redemption.

Games with e-commerce in 2017, some visionaries in the game field found that there is a lot of room for integration between games and marketing.

That year, Hangzhou Zhiyu, a gaming company, received orders from McDonald's and KFC through acquaintances to make H5-based Mini Game for the two ordering sessions to make it more fun for users to order. Chen Xing, founder and CEO of Hangzhou Zhiyu, now recalls the cooperation as if yesterday, "the brand customers could not find the development team, the development team could not find the brand customers, and it is still the case today."

In comparison, Moses Technology on the same track is much luckier.

At the end of 2019, Moses Technology's private gamification program won the first place in the Taobao developer Innovation Competition, which attracted the attention of several Alibaba executives.

Pan Xin, VP of Moses Technology, told Photon Planet that they had noticed a broad overlap between games and marketing, but when they sat down with several Alibaba executives, the communication was not smooth because of the different discourse system. Fortunately, both sides saw something in common between games and e-commerce, and eventually there was more cooperation.

Since 2019, whether it is 618 or double 11, whether cats and dogs fight or shake quickly, despite the great differences between the platforms, Mini Game has been introduced to improve the transaction ecology. Nowadays, no one can deny that gamification improves the efficiency of private domain operations, increases user retention, and provides more fields for brand exposure, especially when the recommended search mechanism reaches its peak.

As e-commerce and brands begin to pay attention to games, the cycle law of the game industry also forces related companies to consider transformation.

Photon Planet attended the China IGS Digital Expo in late August and learned from the exhibition that many small and medium-sized studios are looking for transformation, some of which are committed to going out to sea, while others are turning into advertising suppliers.

A game icon studio from Xi'an told us that since the beginning of this year, they have started to outsource some advertising because the industry as a whole is not as expected. Another local game studio in Chengdu, in cooperation with local literary creators, is trying to turn Mini Game into an IP.

"the game industry is like broad-leaved plants, and large studios are tree trunks; our small and medium-sized studios are leaves. As soon as we enter Qiuda studio, we have backers, but we fall one after another and eventually become green manure." The boss of one of the Chengdu game studios believes that the risk of going out to sea is very high, and the safest way is to find the advertising market to increase.

When online advertising and games enter the cold winter at the same time, it is inevitable to keep warm together, coupled with the fact that they can complement each other to produce an effect of 1: 1 > 2. Since 2019, the marketing gaming market has grown rapidly.

Chen Xing, founder of Hangzhou Zhiyu, told Photon Planet that the company is currently undertaking customized games for brands, including Mini Game for chain coffee brands and milk tea brands. This kind of customers have a wide range of needs, such as brand mentality, private domain operation, promotion and repurchase, for which the team provides corresponding solutions.

"in my humble opinion, the elimination class is essential oil, covering the whole age group and all scenes. For those customers who have real scenes, then simulation games will be more suitable." Chen Xing believes that based on the real scene, users will have a good experience, and it will produce longer-term value if membership points, physical exchange, dolls and mascots are introduced.

"however, most of the customers are still in the wait-and-see stage, most of them are still charged according to the project development, and have not yet touched the operational level."

With the support of Ali, Moses Technology has become a leader in this new track, and three cash paths have been formed in the business model.

Pan Xin mentioned that the first cooperation model of Moses Technology is based on the SaaS / PaaS platform, providing dozens of standardized Mini Game, such as Xiaoxiaole, stormbird, tree planting, etc., customers can quickly launch for a certain fee. The second is case-wide cooperation, which provides a full range of gaming solutions for the personalized needs of the platform or brand, such as Xiaomei Courtyard, a simulated business game launched on the second floor of Taobao in May this year.

"the third kind we are validating and practicing for a long time, mainly for platform attribute customers who consume high frequency and give priority to consumer experience, such as complex or Laifei." The above-mentioned people mentioned that they will carry out in-depth co-creation cooperation in the way of whole case + operation, "help them to do gamification operation, do content output and operation, and precipitate core user assets", so as to integrate games, content, and products.

Moses can have a wealth of cooperation models, in fact, it comes from its own large-scale ability, it is understood that they have cooperated with 150 + complex projects; it is expected that in the next 3-5 months, the cooperative coverage of national 600 + complex projects and dozens of 5A-level scenic spots will be realized, affecting nearly 100 million users.

Note: the picture shows the schematic diagram of a product called "Mojing Space" by Moses Technology, which already has the color of "digital human + virtual space". This brand-new model is a supplement to the payment by project. Moses Technology is actively practicing the way of deep co-creation and profit sharing to seek longer-term cooperation.

The three results of cats and dogs: "the needs of some customers are very simple. Change the skin for Ali's game." A game studio told Photon Planet that since last year, Mini Game has been used between platforms to improve the duration of user use, even blowing the wind.

Many giants bid against Ali, and Ali's own mobile ecology has become a complete marketing game. Needless to say, Alipay launched "Ant Manor" (including Magic Ocean) and "Ant New Village", and also got through "Baba Farm" with Taobao at the same time, "Box Horse App", Amap App online "Xiao de Orchard".

Pan Xin mentioned that Moses Technology as a third-party service provider of Alibaba Ecology, many systems of gamification needs will be docked with it, such as Cainiao. Photon Planet noted that the number of Mini Game online is second only to Taobao, with a "leisure and entertainment" section on the personal page, plus three Mini Game types of "package DreamWorks", "Green Home" and "Sauce points" on the front page, a total of seven.

When the outside world generally pays attention to Ali's intervention in meta-universe, in fact, the most obvious action of the platform is to build game scenes.

A more typical is "Taobao Life", when the basic elements such as pinching face, changing clothes, checkers and so on are built, they unlock the society through interaction, and unlock the community on-line "Taobao Home". In the second half of this year, 3D "Future City" was launched to replace the original 2D "Taobao Home". The embryonic form of its e-commerce meta-universe is close to Baidu Xiyang and Ying Universe.

A person close to Alibaba Game Marketing said that although Mini Game is presented as a marketing tool, the business is not placed in Alimama's marketing system. Instead, a separate business unit has been set up within Taobao, which "attaches great importance internally".

Putting it in the e-commerce sector is objectively conducive to internal coordination. For example, in the second half of this year, Tate shifted its focus from the supply side to the demand side and began to launch Mini Game or gamification functions on a large scale in order to increase the number of monthly active users.

For example, engraving "millions of golden radishes" of "synthetic Big Watermelon", "Duck giving Red envelopes" of "Xiaomei Courtyard", and "extra fun" of all kinds of lightweight games, these games either set up red packet rewards, or provide exposure fields for products, or stimulate customers to obtain and promote life, even higher than pinduoduo.

In comparison, pinduoduo and JD.com, who were the first to play games, have a much smaller range of relative movements this year.

A studio that provides gamification solutions for pinduoduo told Photon Planet that pinduoduo's main game marketing is group buying or a knife, and the core idea is to stimulate users with interests and complete social fission and regular customers to promote life.

JD.com 's case is the most special. According to a person familiar with the matter, the background data of JD.com 's online game is not high, largely because its user base is mostly male, Mini Game is not to their taste, and they do not have time to play. "Men, prefer shooting, fighting, sports and other games, these games have high production costs, long cycles, and it is very difficult to land."

It is worth mentioning that in addition to the platform, many brands also pay attention to the value of game marketing.

A number of game studios with experience of cooperation have said that communicating with brands is the most difficult thing. "Beauty makeup, fast sales, sports industry has its own discourse system and management model, which is obviously different from the game and Internet industry."

A studio told Photon Planet that several of the customers they had contacted before, the boss, many middle-aged men, usually did not play games because the marketers recommended them to contact the products. "the first sentence above is that 5 million can't be done like a movie. After more than a month of negotiation, the plan was finalized, and in the end, the left one was not red enough and the right one had no sense of attack."

When asked if there was a quarrel, the studio director said aggrieved, "Party A's father has not paid the final payment, even if he is angry, the concubine really does not dare."

Another horse race: the game between customers and game manufacturers is worth noting that Ali has a team to do game marketing, but also outside the acquisition of a third party, the formation of some kind of "horse racing" mechanism.

Pan Xin of Moses Technology said that at present, the industry seems that the track is long enough and few players are involved, and this kind of horse racing mechanism is conducive to expanding the market. In fact, horse racing shows that Ali is still trying the marketing functions of different games.

Chen Xing of Hangzhou Zhiyu mentioned another detail, which also shows that games + e-commerce, or games + marketing is still an early market. At present, there is no clear price plan for a single solution, most of the game studios quote according to the development cycle and intensity, and most of the projects do not involve operation.

In the view of industry insiders, only when game companies begin to intervene in the operational level, the game will produce a longer tail value. Perhaps the case of Xiaomei courtyard, which is tailored and operated for the platform or brand, will be the next development trend.

Photon Planet learned that the game was launched for a month this year, because there were users sharing in Little Red Book, suddenly became popular, although Moses Technology did not disclose data, but from the market heat point of view, the number of users and activity should not be low. In order to build IP, Moses independently runs a Taobao store called Xiaomei original Department Store, which sells some of the surrounding IP.

The gaming industry, especially Mini Game, is now showing a winner-takes-all phenomenon, from jumping to synthesizing big watermelons to having a sheep this year, with huge traffic leading to a change in the format.

According to people familiar with the matter, the sheep became popular, which not only set a record, but also attracted the attention of many brands for fear of missing out on the phenomenal IP. "I made a joke with the team earlier, saying that if I could borrow IP, I would take it to a clothing brand to work with."

According to the above-mentioned person, most game teams do not have the ability of brand operation and publicity, such as the authorization and cooperation of IP after the explosion of sheep, which is the responsibility of Xiamen Thunder, the investor behind it.

At present, it seems that Moses Technology and Goat are only rare teams in the industry, and more teams are actually more similar to Hangzhou Zhiyu, which lack popularity and cannot receive brands, so they can only rely on contacts or outsource them to others. However, Chen Xing said that as long as word of mouth can be formed, there is still a chance to become bigger in the end.

On the one hand, there are game companies in the transition period, and on the other hand, more and more enterprises are trying to introduce games to deeply transform the rigid business ecology of the past.

"this year's multi-address orders, shopping cart expansion, Pailitao and other products make consumers feel less worried, more convenient and have more fun when shopping." From Dashan's summary of Singles'11, it is easy to find that Taobao has focused on the shopping experience.

In fact, not only Ali business ecology, pinduoduo tried to use the new game to change the embarrassment of "cutting N knife", JD.com tried to use the game to break the shackles of traffic. Even more non-e-commerce giants, such as Meituan, Douyin and some chain brands, are aware of the marketing value of the game.

It's just that they have created a more mysterious-sounding name, meta-universe, which is at best a rough version of the Sims.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: photon Planet (ID:TMTweb), written by Wu Xianzhi and edited by Wang Pan

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