“Going to the sea” – has become a new label for Netease.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Hands on the game” (ID: sykong_com) , author Ben, Torres.
“Going to the sea” – has become a new label for Netease.
In 2018, due to the domestic version number, the game release was blocked, the competition in the game market became more intense and saturated, and the dilemma of the demographic dividend of the game industry faced by China’s economic development made the “going out” become A number of domestic game manufacturers have to choose a new direction of development.
As the “new” Netease in the tide of the sea, its CEO Ding Lei said after the release of Q3 last year that the overseas game revenue contribution exceeded 10% of the game’s net income for the first time. At the same time, NetEase’s game revenue of Q2 reached 11.433 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.6%, and it has broken 10 billion for five consecutive quarters. It can be seen that the game revenue continues to grow, and Netease has been inseparable from the sea as the operational strategy in the past two years.
According to the recent release of “Q2 Japanese mobile game market data and domestic games to Japan” released by SensorTower, “Wild Action” has attracted more than US$117 million during the period, ranking 4th in the Japanese mobile game revenue list. Continue to reelect the domestic mobile game revenue champion.
The income of “Fifth Personality” has almost doubled compared with Q1. The newly listed “After Tomorrow” has the same excellent results. The two games are ranked 8th and 15th; plus “The Three Kingdoms” (“The Land” On the shore of the Japanese version, Netease’s four products squeezed into the top 20 revenue.
In the download of Top20, Netease is undoubtedly the biggest winner. There are 4 products in the Top20, including “Cyber Hunter” and “After tomorrow”, which are listed as single and second, and “Wild Action” and “No. Five Personality won the sixth and thirteenth.
It can be seen that the establishment of the status of Netease’s head-to-head manufacturers is not due to the development of the European, American or Korean market, but its success in the Japanese market.
In fact, Netease started early in the exploration of the Japanese market. At the beginning of 2017, the “Yin Yang Shi” that fired all over China was first launched in Japan, and it started the first shot of NetEase’s trip to Japan.
After the game went live, it quickly won the first place in the Japanese iOS game free list, and then it won the iOS & Google Play Japan best-selling list Top 5 for two consecutive months. The early success of “Yin Yang Shi” also laid a good foundation for NetEase in the Japanese market.
Afterwards, Netease’s “Wildness Action”, “Fifth Personality” and “After Tomorrow” and other games have been launched in Japan, and they continue to accumulate experience in the market. Among them, “Wild Action” has become the explosion of the Japanese game market.
In 2018, the global income of this tactical competitive mobile game reached 456 million US dollars (equivalent to 3.156 billion yuan), the Japanese market accounted for nearly 80%, ranking fourth in the best-selling iOS games in Japan in 2018. It also became the single product with the highest income in the Japanese market in the domestic mobile game last year.
Like Netease CFO Yang Zhaoxuan said in the earnings conference call last year: At present, Netease’s overseas revenue mainly comes from its business in Japan. So in many overseas markets, why did Netease focus on the Japanese market as a strategic focus?
First, why did Netease stare at the Japanese market during the tide?
This is closely related to the scale of the Japanese mobile game market. According to the “Japan Mobile Game Market Research Report” released by gamma data, the Japanese market has been ranked as the second largest mobile game market in the world from 2015 to 2018. For four consecutive years, the game revenue exceeds that of the United States, second only to the Chinese market. This is still based on the premise that the number of gamers and downloads in Japan are much lower than the US market.
One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is the retention rate of Japanese game users. According to Liftoff and Adjust, “Japan Mobile Application Interaction Report – 2018 User Acquisition Trends and Benchmarks” shows that Japanese users have high application retention rates. The global average retention rate is 3%.
In all applications, the game-based application has the highest retention rate. Japanese players retain 30% retention on the first day after installing the game application, and still maintain a 9% retention rate on the 30th day, which is significantly higher than other country.
Another important reason is that the per-capita consumption of Japanese mobile game users is higher than that of other countries. In 2018, the per-capita spending of Japanese mobile game users reached US$171, which is more than five times that of Chinese game users. Player preference for RPG mobile games is inseparable.
According to AppAnnie’s 2018 Japanese mobile game revenue list, there are as many as four RPG mobile games on the list, and the top four have three RPG mobile games. As we all know, RPG mobile games have the characteristics of high immersion and many purchases of goods.Home recharge is more natural. Therefore, the Japanese market has a unique advantage in terms of time and money invested by players.
It is worth mentioning that Japanese female players are emerging and playing an increasingly important role. Liftoff’s “2018 Mobile Game User Acquisition Trends and Benchmarks”, based on survey data, analyzed the 15 million APP users in Japan from June 2017 to the end of May 2018.
According to the report, the number of female players in Japan is increasing year by year, and the female player’s CPI index is higher than that of male players. At the same time, the female player’s mobile game rate is higher than that of males, and they may purchase in-game. Sex is 79% higher than men. From the women of the music element to the success of the mobile game “Idol Dream Festival” in Japan, we can also see the huge potential of Japanese female players in the market.
According to Newzoo statistics, the total revenue of the Japanese game market in 2018 is estimated to reach 19.2 billion US dollars, accounting for 14% of the global market share, of which mobile games total revenue of 11.06 billion US dollars, has exceeded half of the Japanese game market. It is foreseeable that the future of mobile games will continue to be the strongest driving force for the expansion of the overall game market in Japan, and the potential contained therein is enormous.
But the Japanese mobile game market has huge business opportunities and potential, it is also called “game desert island” by overseas game practitioners.
Second, behind the “game desert island” is the “exclusiveness” of history and culture
The origin of the title of “game desert island” is not due to the backwardness of the Japanese game industry. On the contrary, the game industry in Japan is extremely developed, and it has nurtured more of Nintendo, Capcom, and Korome.A well-known game company.
But since Japan has always been an island country, its land is narrow and narrow, resources are scarce, and earthquake typhoon and tsunami epidemics occur frequently, forming a strong sense of crisis, and the closed-door country of the Edo era shogunate and the current family groupism have led to Japan has always been a country with a strong “exclusiveness”, which naturally includes the game market.
“Jesus Survival” Daily Service Announcement
For example, the “GTA5”, which was popular all over the world, was cold in the Japanese market. Some netizens in China praised that if the whole world is a Japanese player, the “GTA” series has no chance of being born. In the past two years, the popular “Jesus Survival”, in Japan, even because of the insufficient number of server players, led to the official announcement of the closure of the Japanese service.
In the choice of mobile games, Japanese players are generally more inclined to local production, if it is a well-known IP adaptation of the mobile game is better. According to AppAnnie, in the TOP200 of Japan’s iOS bestseller list in 2018, Japanese mobile games are almost monopolized, and nearly 80% of the list is local games.
Because of the development of the Japanese game industry, Japanese players have extremely high requirements for game quality, which greatly improves the entry barrier for overseas games to enter Japan.
At the same time, Japanese players don’t like stress. They see the game as a means of relaxation and leisure. They don’t want to be too intense to increase their pressure. Therefore, the mobile games in Japan are mainly based on PVE, and PVP mobile games are extremely rare.
But after “Yin and Yang”, Netease has succeeded in the Japanese market with the mobile game of “Popular Action” and “Fifth Personality”, which is the main PVP game. How does it do this? ?
Three, new categories, IP linkage and community operations are the secrets of Netease’s “street” in the Japanese market
In the author’s opinion, Netease, such as Wilderness Action and Fifth Personality, choose games that go out to sea. Their own game types and content are absolutely novel relative to the Japanese market.
For example, “Wild Action” is different from the mainstream tactical competitive mobile game on the market. Its style is enough for two yuan, and it has been linked with Japanese anime IP for many times, which makes it have a strong animation attribute. The game of realism has always been unloved by young Japanese players. The tactical competitive mobile game of the second-generation anime style will be moderately reduced during the game, reducing the frustration of the player’s failure and not increasing the pressure.
And the game launched a lot of skin, dress up, weapon painting and even pinch face, some Japanese players have already regarded it as a second-yuan dress-up mobile game, which is also the origin of the title of “Wild Warm”. Such an anime style plus dressup integration tactical competitive mobile game, in the Japanese game market at that time is unique.
And “Fifth Personality” belongs to the asymmetric PVP game mobile game. Even in the Japanese end-game market, there are only a few models such as “Dawn Killing Machine”, which is extremely rare. Therefore, after it was launched in Japan, it was absolutely new to Japanese mobile game players. Netease also put a video on the game with the “Dawn Killer” maker on Twitter to make a profit.
In addition to the relatively novel theme and content of the game, NetEase is deeply rooted in the Japanese market after the game is launched. Unlike other domestic manufacturers’ localization strategies, Netease is more unique. It is also more thorough. For example, “Wild Action” invited the “Great Escape” film writer Shen Jijian as the chief plot advisor of the game day service, responsible for constructing the game world view, more in line with the preferences of Japanese players.
In September last year, “Wild Action” launched the map “Tokyo Battle”, which was highly restored to the well-known areas of Tokyo such as Shibuya, Ginza, Akihabara, etc., and was well received by Japanese players. The thoroughness of the process.
At the same time, Netease also actively promotes the game of sea and the well-known Japanese IP linkage. In August last year, “Wild Action” first joined the “Giant Attack” to increase the “Giant Mode” and “Three-dimensional Device”, and at the end of last year and this year, it was followed by “pops and pipi beautiful daily”, “King of Emperor 98” And a number of well-known Japanese IPs such as “EVA” have been linked, attracting a large number of IP fans to become new players.
The “Five Personality” was linked to the same year as “The Itorun Erection Collection”. It added a lot of horror elements to the game and won the ninth place in the iOS bestseller list. NetEase is also like In this way, through continuous linkage with Japanese local IP, to continue to maintain the vitality and heat of the game.
Twitter online contest for Japanese female players
In the community operation of the players who go to the sea, NetEase also has one hand. On Twitter in Japan, “Wild Action” has a label “Wild Woman”, and there is a lot of content submission every day in this topic, most of which are recruiting and killing videos of teammates, as well as the line of players spontaneously organized. In the game, it looks like the ordinary player community.
However, this content comes from a group of most of the girls in their teens who have no experience with FPS games, are not influenced by the PC game culture, and just play a bunch of casual games on their mobile phones, and most of them are students. Netease’s success in the community operation of young female players has also driven Japanese male players to join Wilderness in order to play games with their sisters.
However, Netease is not satisfied with the success of the game line, Netease is trying to extend the sea game into a three-dimensional IP, to integrate into the offline life in Japan.
Fourth, to create a three-dimensional game IP, the Japanese market has become Netease’s “incubator”
In April of this year, NetEase cooperated with restaurants in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, and the two fifth-person personality cafés opened in succession. The food and drinks in the store were filled with the “Five Personality” elements, as well as beautiful games. Surrounding sales, attracting many “Five Personality” players and ordinary people to taste, has become a unique landscape on the streets of Japan.
At the same time, “Fifth Personality” will also launch a number of offline themed activities in Tokyo this year, such as the fifth personality, Only, and other people’s sales, etc., and in the Tokyo International Exhibition held in March, I also saw The figure of “The Fifth Personality”.
The Game of Wilderness is integrated into all aspects of Japanese life. In Tokyo, we can see that the game-specific vehicles modified by the players are trapped in the streets; even in the genre shop in Kabukicho In, we can also see its figure, many of the custom women’s personal profiles, have a hobby to play this game, in order to attract Japanese players as customers.
In addition, at the end of last year, “Wild Action” teamed up with Japanese fashion dress “Beams” to create an offline brand experience store in Shibuya N-Space in Japan. Players can not only buy IP-linked clothing in physical stores. You can also try a lot of different fashion experiences, for example, players can try on the in-game costumes through the AR in the store.
In Japanese comics, you can also see the chicken boom caused by Wilderness Action, which is also a reaction to real life in Japan. There are Japanese students responding: 80% of the boys in their grades are playing this game; in fact, as early as in Japan, 10 generations of women (10 girls under 20 years old) selected the popular things in the first half of 2018, ” The Wilderness Action took the top three with Tik Tok and Gongcha.
The Wilderness Action also officially announced the launch of the eSports competition in May due to its strong influence and player base in Japan. According to the information released by NetEase, the total prize pool of the eSports Contest will reach 25 million. The yen, the championship prize is up to 10 million yen.
After the announcement of the news, major Japanese media reported. Because of the game mode of the game 5V5, NetEase decided to start the first day of competition on May 5th, and even went to the office to sign the special anniversary of May 5th. It can be said that “Wilderness Action” has become a unique IP phenomenon in Japan.
Five, the operation mode of the industrial chain will become a new idea for Japan to go to the sea
Abandoning NetEase’s excellent self-research ability and reviewing its market strategy in Japan, it is not difficult to find a different strategy from the domestic manufacturers in the Japanese market. Netease aimed at the IP-linked RPG products in Japan’s mobile game market, many old products, more secondary games, more card games and other solidification features, and put the new category games into the Japanese market on a straightforward basis, bringing a novel experience to Japanese players. .
And NetEase has more domestic resources in Japan. It can be seen from the “Wild Action” and the well-known IP linkages such as “Attacking Giant” and “EVA”. At the same time, this also means that NetEase wants to link through IP. The Japanese market breakthrough strategy, with IP linkage to drive the game’s popularity and topicality, maintains the vitality of the game.
But Netease’s novel products and IP resources are inherent advantages. The operation of the game and the operation of the industry chain are its truly unique places. Netease’s products operate more frequently, using localized marketing methods, and constantly launching various online activities.And, most importantly, it is also good at seizing market opportunities and using them.
For example, in the Golden Week of Japan in May, “Wild Action” launched a series of operational activities around the topic of “Ling and Yuannian”. During the period, it repeatedly topped the list of Japanese iOS bestsellers, and the amount of gold absorbed was considerable. . Netease’s similar operations have been very common in the past. This high-frequency and targeted operation activities also ensure the retention rate of in-game players while absorbing gold.
At the same time, Netease is not satisfied with the simple IP linkage, it is trying to make its products into the popular IP in Japan. From various offline theme experience stores to game line power-off competitions, NetEase is using its way to extend its products into an IP industry chain, instead of just a separate game, which may be a domestic player in the future. New ideas for going out to sea.