At the end of the year, it is time for the game industry to practice the link: the annual meeting, the show prize, the award ceremony.
Both the media and the channel are making the list of the most popular and hottest games this year. However, the list is basically not suspenseful, think about it and know that it will be "A Thought Runaway", "League of Legends Mobile Game", "Harry Potter: Magic Awakening", "Battle of the Golden Shovel" and other big hit new games.
But on Weibo, it is a different style of painting.
The definition of the most popular is simple: users like it enough. In Weibo's view, professionals can measure technical components, and flowing water can prove product data, but only likes and word of mouth are priceless, and they come from the real feelings of users. Nowadays, almost everyone has one or two games on their phones, so at the end of the year, it's up to users to decide who is the "most popular."
Therefore, most of the top players in the Weibo Game Awards are veteran games in long-term operation. As short as three years, as long as five years, this is the obvious difference between the Weibo Game Awards and other awards - whether the product is this year's, whether it is the best flow, these are not important, what is important is how many users like them? The teahouse found this difference, which may make Weibo more suitable for the "industry environment" of the current "version".
What is the current "version" environment?
A few days ago, the annual industry report released by the Game Working Committee showed that although the actual sales revenue of China's game market increased in 2021, the growth rate shrank by nearly 15%; the scale of Chinese game users reached 666 million people, the lowest increase in eight years, only 0.22% year-on-year. According to the publisher of the report, this is the price that the market must pay for further regulation.
From the perspective of the entire industry, it has been four months since the last edition number was issued, which has affected the progress of new products in the short term. Although the rumors of the resumption of approval during the period have never stopped, the pessimism has not spread, and the industry has reached a consensus on the issuance of version numbers, that is, it will only become more and more stringent. In this context, every project that can get the version number and smoothly go online is worthy of being taken seriously by the manufacturer.
The cost of game development is also rolling in the track, rising rapidly, and the salary package of top talents and the development cycle of large projects are rising. Gamma data report shows that in 2021, talent competition is more concentrated in large enterprises, and it is not uncommon to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on research and development. Over the past four years, companies in game-related positions such as programming, art, planning and operation have seen their salaries rise by about 30%. The agency expects competition to spread to small and medium-sized enterprises. The launch of new concepts such as cloud games and meta-universes has not only increased the scale of investment, but also increased a lot of risks.
At the same time, user thresholds have kept climbing after wave after wave of washing. Shoddily made quick money games still exist, but the flow of water is not as good as before. Brokerage research reports show that the game industry has entered the era of product king from traffic king, and the age of game users has brought about changes in demand and changes in quality requirements. The essence of the game industry is the creative content industry, and innovation and technology are eternal requirements. This is also the key to the rapid rise of small companies such as Mihayou and Lilith.
However, from the current point of view, even if it is a first-line manufacturer, it may not be able to guarantee that there will be a new product that can be played every year. Therefore, how to extend the product life cycle and make the daily life of the flowing water more stable has become a more important matter. In fact, if we look at the financial reports of various listed game companies, we will find that the products that contribute most of the profits to the company are basically three or five years, or even longer. Long-term operation is no longer just a verbal official cliché, nor is it the privilege of a few high-quality games, it has become a must for everyone to seriously consider.
Weibo is one of the must-haves.
According to Weibo's three quarterly reports this year, the number of monthly active users of Weibo in September 2021 was 573 million, an increase of 12.1% compared with the same period last year. The average number of daily active users was 248 million, and the year-on-year increase also reached 10.7%. According to Weibo's 2020 user development report, the post-90s and post-00s account for 78% of the large-market users, and these 78% of users' attention to hot spots is mainly focused on pan-entertainment content such as film and television, games, animation, and animation. This coincides greatly with the portraits of large-cap gamers.
This part of Weibo is not limited to game tags, and their composition is more complex and diversified, and it is intersecting with the other 46 verticals of Weibo. This means that not only will game users pay attention to other content, but a non-game user will also have access to game content. Weibo has the most "generalized" game users, and it is also the most accessible place for the general public to access the game.
Because of this, it becomes easy to judge whether a game breaks the circle – whether it can become a hot topic of discussion.
"Moore Manor" is a work of the SNS era, and before the mobile game was launched, it made a large-scale warm-up on Weibo. Finally, with the launch of the game, the players successfully accumulated feelings for many years and were released through the topic discussion on Weibo, setting off a wave of nostalgia. "Moore Manor" finally appeared on Weibo more than 40 hot searches, dozens of related topics, the total number of readers exceeded 4 billion, with 620,000 super talk users.
If "Moore Manor" relies on feelings and socialization, then this year's biggest hit "Harry Potter: Magical Awakening" is based on more stylized art and the top IP of "Harry Potter".
Not only will game fans pay attention, book fans, film and television fans, and even due to the overlap between the launch time and the opening of Universal Studios, there are also amusement park fans who notice Harry Potter: Magical Awakening. This made the game a national topic for a while, and the total number of topics read in just 3 days on the line exceeded 2.5 billion (now close to 10 billion), and more than a dozen hot searches. The scope of the discussion extends far beyond the game itself. On Weibo platforms, content builds relationships with users, reflecting what it's like to actually play games, not just a pile of technical words.
But it is worth noting that Weibo is not a game distribution channel, so it is not a traditional promotion of new ways to play. Weibo is a social platform, and the topics and hot searches above are not created out of nothing and forcibly created. As a social platform, Weibo provides more space for manufacturers and players, players and players, players and passers-by, and a "relationship" to build.
This relationship is built through a package of solutions. Although hard coverage can lead to more direct and widespread exposure, only content-oriented operations can truly influence user decisions. It requires game manufacturers to really invest energy and thought on Weibo, to see what users care about and discuss, and to communicate sincerely with users, rather than unilaterally issuing announcements.
In the past one or two years, this kind of "communication" has become more and more advanced in project planning, and even become one of the bases for project establishment. Because the sooner you communicate with real users, the sooner you can test the user's love for the subject matter, the art, and the gameplay. Like Lingyoufang's "Guardian of the Stars" last year, it released a series of materials on Weibo early to test the market reaction, and finally Weibo fans exceeded 8,000 before setting up the project.
Games like "Yin Yang Division" and "Glory of Kings" that have been in operation for five or six years can almost be said to have grown together with Weibo. Because as these games gradually grow from a product to an IP, their relationship with Weibo will become more close - a large number of film and television drama adaptations, ACGN content linkage, celebrity endorsements, peripheral products, theme songs, etc., these "non-game content" has accumulated user advantages on Weibo for many years. Like this year's King of Glory IP TV series "You Are My Glory", it has created 32 topics and 760 million views on Weibo, and recently participated in the #TV Series Awards with more than 37 billion views.
So on the other hand, for Weibo, the proportion of game content is also increasing and more important. Weibo CEO Wang Gaofei once said that in the past year, Weibo has increased its investment in games, and games in the third quarter have become the largest vertical after news and entertainment.
Whether it is a new project launched by a manufacturer or a long-term operation of an existing project, Weibo Games will participate in it, thus establishing a long-term and stable cooperative relationship with the manufacturer.
Weibo game operations will begin to intervene in the early stages of the project, and even communicate with the docking operators at the project establishment stage. In terms of specific cooperation, Weibo will give a rating to the project, which not only considers the gameplay of the game, but also examines multiple dimensions such as user expectations, word of mouth, and topic degree. Games with good reservations and reputation will be rated S. S-class projects will have special one-on-one PM docking related event planning, content operations, etc., "Moore Manor" mobile game, "Harry Potter: Magic Awakening", "Battle of the Golden Shovel" and "League of Legends Mobile Game" are all S-class games launched this year.
However, whether it is an S-level project or not, PM will do marketing integration for product characteristics, purchase volume, publicity rhythm, etc. Through KOL cooperation, gift package activities, super talk card issuance, large carousels, lottery, topic tasks and other means, let users ferment organic traffic, let products and users have in-depth interaction and build alliances.
It is worth mentioning that Weibo has begun to do node activities, game reservations, and game welfare centers this year, and obviously intends to further strengthen the "relationship strength" between manufacturers and users.
First of all, Weibo will take the initiative to launch activities such as the New Year Market, the Spring Day Hunting Season, and the Summer Day Tour At important nodes in each quarter. Their role is like Steam's spring sale and summer sale, and they work together with more than 100 game manufacturers to create festivals. Through a large number of in-game and internal and external welfare resources, to form a degree of topic discussion, as well as a sense of tangible user participation, from promoting the production and consumption of more game content. And the creation of festivals is conducive to implanting cognition, which can create a better environment for game discussion.
Secondly, Weibo has added an appointment function. The appointment feature itself is not unusual, but it shows Weibo's attitude towards the strong operation of the game. After making an appointment, Weibo or the project party can wake up the target user at different stages to ensure the activity of the interaction and the accuracy of the delivery, which belongs to the very strong user tag. And with an appointment, there may be downloads in the future.
Finally, Weibo launched the game welfare center, lottery to send resources, do daily tasks, which is basically the design that most channels will have. However, the goal of Weibo is not to download and convert and launch games, but to make a living content ecology. In a strong guidance way, it more directly improves the opportunity for manufacturers to be concerned and discussed on the Weibo platform, and to associate more relevant KOLs, blue V and yellow V, and user stickiness under various topics.
Through the above actions, it is not difficult to find that Weibo has assumed more roles and identities in game operation, and the exploration and digging of game operation has come to a new stage. In fact, Weibo gradually integrated games, e-sports, anime and reading last year according to its own development to form the ACGN business unit. Its purpose is to expand the number of users of the corresponding business on Weibo, open up the increasingly wide range of IP content circulation scenarios on Weibo, and enrich content output. At the same time, Weibo has opened up resources in different vertical fields to help manufacturers out of the circle in more cross-border linkage.
Obviously, games and e-sports channels will play a pivotal role in the content ecology of the Weibo platform, and in the future, for game products, I think Weibo will also become an indispensable part of the track.