A gold coin battle between game publishers, e-sports anchors and millions of Indian daily active users.

The author of this article, Madhav Chanchani, original title Money game: The growing biz of PUBG and its star players

Summary of Points:

  • 10 million players online “eat chicken”: assembling different genders, languages, ages, regional players, India’s “Jesus Survival” daily active users have reached 10-15 million. The wave of “eat chicken” swept through and led new developments in the cultural and social fields.

  • “Jesus Survival” into a wealthy weapon: “Eating Chicken” live broadcast in India has a scale, Youtube and Amazon’s e-sports live platform Twitch wolf smoke. Platform traffic has become limited, and fans’ “super-message” rewards on YouTube still account for the majority of game anchor revenue.

In early August of this year, when Aaditya Sawant, a popular YouTube anchor with 4800,000 fans, lived, the big escaping game “Jesus Survival”, a fan madly sent a message to invite him to team up. Within two hours via YouTube’s “Super Messages” (Note: Super Chats, a YouTube anchor, fan interaction, highlighting, The user’s message is highlighted in the live chat, and the duration of the suspension depends on the amount of the payment. The function is to reward the anchor for more than 6,000 rupees (nearly 600 RMB).

23-year-old Aaditya is one of India’s most popular “Jesus Survival” players, and the game nickname is Dynamo. His live commentary area is overwhelmed by team requests every day, and he chooses to politely refuse every time. Aaditya has been broadcasting all kinds of games since 2010, but it has not been popular until the past few years through the live mobile version of “Jesus Survival”. He replied: “I can only provide you with a custom room ID and password, so that you can join the game and distribute the camp like everyone else. Otherwise it will be unfair, everyone will want to hire me as a teammate.” p>

Another fan rewarded Aaditya with a 10,000 rupee (nearly a thousand renminbi) through the “Super Message”, which reached the maximum single-day reward limit allowed by YouTube. Aaditya broadcasts nearly three hours a day and gets 1.8-2 million rupees (about 1800-2000 RMB)) fans reward . He will fight for the last moment on the battlefield of “Jesus Survival” and win the fans’ cheers.

The “eat chicken” frenzy swept through India, and the rupee players contributed revenue

This is the live broadcast industry derived from Jedi Survival. It is estimated that the number of active users of the “Jesus Survival” in the Indian market has reached 10-15 million, and the number of active users per month has reached 30-40 million. This survival game has become a global and well-known cultural phenomenon. From the mother who complained that his son’s eyes are stuck on the screen of the mobile phone to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they are talking about the mystery of “big luck, eating chicken tonight”. Indian cricketers M.S Dhoni and Yuzvendra Chahal were also photographed in the Indian team when they boarded a flight to the UK to participate in the cricket World Cup.

“Jesus Survival” was once banned and censored for its addictive effects and adverse effects on the player’s mental health. Despite many concerns, its popularity continues to soar. Players spend huge sums of money to dress up their characters, buy accessories, and even bet in the same group privately.

Last month, Jedi Survival launched the latest season of luxury passes, ranging from 800 rupees to more than 3,000 rupees (about 80-300 renminbi). According to relevant industry sources, “Jesus Survival” has accumulated more than 500 million rupees (about 50 million yuan) in less than a week. After purchasing a pass, players can upgrade their game rankings and get skin and series themes to dress up their weapons, gear, and characters. Under the blessing of pass sales, China’s Internet giant Tencent’s “Jesus Survival” is expected to attract Rs 2–3 billion (about 2-3 billion RMB) in India. Tencent is an influential investor in the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem and plans to earn more than Rs. 7 billion (approximately RMB 700 million) in annual revenue from India through the sale of gaming merchandise.

Across the gender, language, age, region, the whole country “eat chicken”

“Jesus Survival” is popular all over India, has become a must-have item for friends to connect with each other, the daily living room activities of many families. The “Gat Chicken” game has a wide audience and is a collection of players of different genders, languages, ages and regions.

For example, 21-year-old Paridhi Khullar from Indore. She is engaged in online marketing of movies and various events during the day, and at night she is transformed into a player, in Jedi.On the virtual island of Survival, we compete for resources and weapons, and fight to become the last survivor. She and Aaditya will broadcast their own gameplay. She said: “YouTube’s ‘super-message’ reward has helped me a lot, and the money I earned from the live broadcast is really rare.”

Paridhi can earn about 50,000 rupees (about 5,000 RMB) in one month by live broadcast, and about 80% of them come from live broadcasts by fans through the “Super Message” function, others from brands such as OnePlus. sponsor. YouTube tends to draw 30% of the revenue from the anchor.

The success story of a star anchor on millions of viewers on YouTube has spurred the development of the Indian game live channel. YouTube has launched 40 or 50 channels, including channels broadcast in regional dialects such as Telugu and Punjabi. In addition, there are also e-sports teams formed around these star players. They will participate in tournaments held in various parts of India. The winning prizes will be up to 5 million rupees (about 500,000 RMB). The latest mobile game version of the PUBG Mobile India Tour will have a prize pool of up to 15 million. Rupee (about 1.5 million yuan). The game did not choose to be held in a big city like Mumbai, Bangalore or Delhi. Instead, it was chosen in the small towns of Jaipur, Guwahati, Visakhapatnam and Pune. It is very popular throughout India.

The game publisher is the hot pusher

Manish Agarwal, CEO of Nazara Games, said: “Jesus Survival is like a music and comics, and it has become a popular culture among players of different gender , regions. Interestingly, many in-game purchases are from vanity.” He emphasized that “Jesus Survival” and other Indian game industries enjoy the same profitable scale and gambling game industry, such as fantasy sports games. Rummy cards are different.

In order to maintain the game’s popularity, Tencent, the publisher of Jedi Survival, has been the leader of the company and has allocated an annual budget of Rs. 750-750 crore (about RMB 50-75 million) for e-sports across India. And the “Jesus Survival” tournament, invite players to form a team to participate in the war. According to sources, Tencent’s marketing and server expenses are also high. However, they said that Tencent’s investments in India have not yet been profitable. According to data from market analyst firm Sensor Tower, the total global revenue of Jedi Survival in July was US$167 million, a year-on-year increase of 748%, which is shocking. Despite IndiaThe number of “Jesus Survival” game users can sit firmly in the top three, but the income is only ranked 11th.

According to the experts in the game market, only the games such as Candy Crush and Ludo have been used in the past. India’s previously profitable game companies rely on imaginary real-life fantasy sports games (such as Dream 11) and card-based games (such as RummyCircle and Teen Patti). “Jesus Survival” is more than just a video game. Its huge influence in India can promote the development of the entire Indian game industry and create a mature business model.

Sanjot Malhi works in venture capital firm Jingwei India, responsible for the consumer, media and gaming markets. He said: “Jesus Survival” has helped India’s hard-core mobile game market achieve exponential growth in terms of users, usage and liquidation. After the emergence of “Jesus Survival”, the Indian hardcore mobile game market has doubled 2-3 times. Players play more than an hour a day. We saw in India for the first time that in-app purchases of a game can generate considerable revenue. “Jesus Survival” does what others can’t do, is Indian games and e-sports. A weather vane in the future.”

“Eating Chicken” Tips:

  • Game Mode: “Jesus Survival” was originally a PC game when it was first launched. It was launched in March 2018 and is very popular in India. In this multiplayer game, hundreds of players will be put on an island to fight, and the last person will be the winner. “Jesus Survival” has also become a social way. A report shows that 46% of players use voice to discuss game strategies and exchange topics other than Jedi Survival.

  • Device Support: As a super-large game with 2GB of storage, the unprecedented success of Jedi Survival is compelling, other popular games like The micro-strategy eliminates the mobile game “Candy Crush” and the board game “Ludo Flying Chess” (Ludo) are less than 100MB. At present, “Jesus Survival” has also launched a streamlined version, which requires only 500MB of storage.

  • Profit strategy: Quitby Survival developer PUBG Corp. sells quarterly passes worth 800-3000 rupees (approximately 80-300 RMB). Players can upgrade their game rankings with a quarterly pass to personalize their characters;Star playersDuring the live game, you can get fans’ rewards through YouTube’s “Super Messages” feature; top players, such as Dynamo, Mortal (game nickname), etc. will also earn by participating in the league. Take an admission fee of hundreds of thousands of rupees; regular players can bet on the WhatsApp and Telegram groups. YouTube is trying to reach out to Tencent, the publisher of Jedi Survival, to compete with Amazon’s Twitch, the live e-sports platform for Live Adventures. Small companies are taking the opportunity to sell game accessories: Crystal Place and RPM Enterprises have sold thousands of “Jesus Survival” triggers and controls on e-commerce sites Flipkart and Amazon, all at 100-300 Rupee (about 10-30 RMB).

  • Milestone: India mobile game version of “Jesus Survival” downloads 71 ​​million; streamlined mobile game “Jesus Survival” launched last month to download 16.30 million; “Jesus Survival” in India total revenue 8.3 million US dollars; “Jesus Survival” India’s total income in the world (8.6 In the billions of dollars, the ratio is 1.5%.

Edit | Guo Chen@出海

图 | Oriental IC