In this issue, we will focus on the “SLG Strategy Game” to go out and explain the opportunities and challenges behind the data.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “AppAnnie” (ID: appannie) author: Loris Zhang.
Starting from this issue, App Annie will combine the current domestic and international hotspots, update the important content and trends we have extracted from industry data from time to time, and deeply analyze the industry dynamics and the ever-changing mobile market. In this issue, we will focus on the “SLG Strategy Game” to go out to sea to explain the opportunities and challenges behind the data.
Strategy Game (hereinafter referred to as SLG) has always been one of the most popular game categories in China, and this advantage has become more prominent in the near future. In App Annie’s January-August 2019 global (excluding mainland China) Google Play strategy game revenue list of the top 50 games, as many as 33 from Chinese publishers, and this figure was only 27 in the same period last year. paragraph.
But in fact, the global SLG market has experienced a period of silence. With the decline in revenues of the two SLG’s pioneers, Game of War and Mobile Strike, the global SLG game market saw a decline in revenue and stagnant growth. In the following year, the COK-like strategy game of “Social + National War + Medieval War” maintained the stability of the market. However, since the second half of 2018, the SLG rotations of “vertical theme + fusion gameplay + quality production and distribution” produced by many Chinese manufacturers have broken the deadlock and pushed the global SLG market revenue to a new high.
Data Source: App Annie Intelligence, Trends in Mainstream SLG Games in Recent Years, iOS + Google Play Total
SLG Market Opportunities in Different Regions: Russia has a high premium preference in the Middle East and a large growth potential in the Japanese market
So, which markets do these rookie incomes come from? inIn the context of the various SLG companies going deep into the US market, can we tap into the blue ocean opportunities outside the US market? Let’s look at this set of data:
After analyzing the revenue data of the “Strategy Game” category in the iOS and Google Play app stores, we have filtered out 15 markets with the highest revenues of SLG games in the past 12 months, and we can get some interesting findings: /span>
For example, the United States and Japan are the highest overseas markets for SLG’s revenue, but in terms of SLG’s payment preferences, US users pay 20% of all category games for SLG games, compared to 12% for Japan. Only 10%; but this proportion is astonishing 35% and 55% in Russia and Saudi Arabia, which may be related to many SLG games in the context of “national warfare”, and players of fighting nationalities and Middle Eastern cultural backgrounds. The high preference is related.
From another perspective, if we use ARPD (revenue per download) to measure the ability of a single user to pay, then from the global market point of view, each SLG game download can get 4.5 dollars in revenue, which is the game’s overall category average. 4.4 times the level (SLG returns multiplier). In the focus on the regional market, the ARPD of the Japanese market SLG games is as high as US$23.5, but it is only 1.9 times that of the Japanese game category ARPD (4.4 times global average); in contrast, the overall SLG revenue market is closely followed by Germany. In the market, SLG’s ARPD is $7.2, but the SLG return multiplier is 4.7 times higher – which may mean that although Japanese users have a strong per-capita ability, they don’t have a special preference for SLG, while the German market has a slightly higher per-capita ability. Low, comparable to the US market, but more willing to pay for this category in SLG. In addition, ARPD (returns per download) is ideal for comparison with CPI (cost per download promotion), combined with other data such as promotion download ratios, to simply predict ROI values.
Finally, we can also use the revenue growth rate to assess the growth of SLG categories in various regions: global SLG revenue growth rate is 22% year-on-year, China’s iOS, Japan, Russia growth rate exceeds the global average, and is growing at a high rate; Taiwan, Australia, Saudi ArabiaOther regions showed a weak growth trend, with growth rates below 10%, of which Saudi Arabia was only 3%. This may be related to the long-term video, live broadcast, shopping and other applications of mobile Internet users in the Middle East market in recent years. The gradual rise of light entertainment forms may gradually make the SLG game’s slightly “hardcore” entertainment form gradually lose its appeal. force.
SLG users increase first and then decrease, but ARPU increases and overall revenue continues to grow
In order to further deepen the growth method of SLG games, we selected five representative Chinese SLGs to observe the cumulative income and monthly users’ changes in the global market in the past four months. (Game logo color changes from light to dark to show time changes), and found intriguing commonality:
Although the revenues of the five games have maintained steady growth (vertical axis), the size of the active users has basically gone through the process of increasing or decreasing first (the horizontal axis shown). Simply understand that the closer to the upper left corner of the matrix and the further away from the red line, the higher the ARPU value, and vice versa. We can see that most of the excellent SLG games have experienced a “wash user” process in which the user’s size grows first and then retire, but the ARPU value rises and the overall revenue continues to grow.
5 seagoing SLG games global active users and income changes
September 2018 – August 1919, iOS + Google Play Total
Why is there such a process of “washing users”?
Unlike games like ARPG and TPS, which give players instant feedback through short battles and actions, strategy games are one of the longest game types in the feedback cycle. Players need to make decisions in a variety of complex variables, sprinting, arranging, and continually consuming and accumulating resources (paying points) to the final victory. Such a long feedback cycle leads to a large percentage of users who are attracted by the promotion activities in the early stage of the game, but the retention rate and ARPU of the remaining loyal users will be significantly improved, thus driving the overall revenue of the game. increase.
For example, Funplus”Z Day: Hearts of Heroes” of the product has increased the monthly game duration from 4.5 hours to 20.5 hours, and its monthly average income has also increased 6 times. However, in the process of increasing the duration of the game, the scale of its users has also undergone the process of “washing” – the user’s scale first grows and then declines, and finally retains the core users who contribute continuous revenue growth.
5 seagoing SLG games global active users and users monthly game duration changes
September 2018-August 2019, iOS+Google Play Total
User Image Evolution and Lightweight Material + Channel Promotion Strategy in “Awakening of the World”
So, for SLG games, what are the characteristics of users before and after “washing”? How should we accurately find those players who have long-term retention and high fees? Let us take a look at the growth of Awakening in the US market:
We can use the “Trans-Affinity Affinity” indicator in the App Annie Intelligence platform to understand the evolution of the game types preferred by the “Awakening of the World” user: “Awakening of the World” (in October 2018), the player’s cross-moving affinity The three most comprehensive games (preference) and cross-application usage (using coincidence) are Sid Meier’s Civillization VI, Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle and Fallout Shelter, which reflects the country. Awakening’s worldview is uniquely appealing to niche hardcore players who like the “civilization” series of themes, puzzle games, and end-of-life series. At the same time, it is this part of the quality seed users who have supported the “Wanguo Awakening”. Follow-up spreads.
Data Source: App Annie, October 2018, US iOS Market
In June of this year, although the end-of-life theme such as “The Walking Dead: Our World” and “After Tomorrow” still has the preference of the players of “Awakening”, the player’s preference for “Awakening” has been In terms of gameplay, theme, and style, it is lightly concentrated. For example, the previous period of the fire, the main “light operation turn-based strategy” game “Auto Chess: Origin”, and the “Wanguo Awakening” user affinity reached an astonishing 46 times. This means that in June, this self-propelled chess game used penetration rate of 46% of the iOS users in the United States. At the same time, the placement of RPG “Tap Titans” and a number of super casual games into the top 10 players of the “Wan Guo awakening” game favorite.
Data Source: App Annie, June 2019, US iOS Market
Combined with App Annie’s “User Features” feature, we found that this evolution was accompanied by a shift in the age of the main player to 25 years old and the proportion of male and female users gradually balanced. Analysis here, we can probably outline the user characteristics of the highest stage ARPU value: the game of the end of life and the light casual game, mainly mature male users, but the proportion of female players is also increasing.
Continue using the same method, we can further look at other types of games that this part of the gamer prefers, such as the most commonly used social media, entertainment, shopping applications, etc., to more accurately depict the users of this part. portrait. This discovery is instructive for us to reach the high-pay potential players more effectively in terms of material production and channel selection.
There is still an example of “Awakening of the World”. From the material point of view, we found that the creatives used in the promotion are very diverse, not limited to the traditional SLG siege battle scene, but with different materials to show their character growth, construction, development (spring harvest), PvP Various light and emotional elements such as battles and teamwork. ThisThese elements are very similar to the Idle and Tycoon games in the casual games that users at the highest stage of the ARPU value we analyzed earlier, and are easier to absorb.
US iOS “Wanguo Awakening” part of the promotion material
In terms of promotion channels, in addition to traditional social and streaming promotion platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, we can also get some inspiration from the advertising space displayed by NetEase. According to App Annie, as of the end of August 2019, in the “Awesome Warrior” showcased the longest 10 ad slot games (games that can be realized through advertising), 2 are end-of-life survival themes, 4 Idle placement classes, 2 For the Battle class, the other two are Pixel Wind Action RPG and Tycoon. Interestingly, this is very similar to the type of user preference we found earlier in the “Awakening of the World”, and it also confirms that it is indeed commendable in terms of precision buying.
“Watching the Dawn”, the sound of the vibrato buys back to the country, and the sucking volume is sucking gold.
Finally, let us look back to the domestic market.
In August, the overseas market has been on the line for a year and a half of Last Shelter: Survival (overseas name: “The End of the Day”, the domestic name: “Watching the Dawn”) on App Annie’s China iOS game download and income list In the double-double, the number has risen to 22, which is both sucking and sucking gold. This dragon-killing zombie theme strategy tower defense game, through the crazy chattering volume, successfully returned to the domestic market and gained a firm foothold.
Data Source: App Annie, China iOS Game Downloads and Total Income List, August 2019
At the same time, the Chinese iOS market has also given a strong boost to its slightly weaker global market: According to App Annie statistics, “Watching Dawn” is only available in the Chinese market for 3 months, its iOS Single-ended revenue has reached the order of 10 million US dollars. Watching Dawn took a full seven months to reach this level of income across the entire dual-end platform for overseas markets (iOS + Google Play).
What are the characteristics of the core users of Watching the Dawn? What is special about its promotion model? If you are interested in understanding this article, you may wish to use the method we introduced earlier to make a simple re-discovery, perhaps to find some interesting findings.
Future App Annie will continue to follow the current hotspots, interpret the industry trends and opportunities behind the data, and use professional insights to help you better understand the current status and future of the regions and industries in the mobile environment.
编 | 云晞@出海
