On September 7, 2021, many escort apps such as Fawn Play, Hello Voice, Bixin, Coco Xili, Miya, and Yipai were taken down indefinitely. Up to now, these companion apps are still in a state of inability to download.
Prior to this, the accompanying play industry has been continuously exposed to lax supervision, including the registration review of minor users, the platform inducing minors to participate in accompanying play, and negative news such as pornography and rubbing edge balls.
After the industry encountered strong supervision, the escort industry has no longer the grand situation of the previous tens of billions of markets, and the industry now seems to have lost its voice. What is the battered playmaking industry doing now? What linkage effects have been brought about? Is the market so chaotic?
With these problems, gyro e-sports chatted with the accompanying play platform, accompanying play practitioners, and accompanying APP users.
What is the status quo of the accompanying play industry that has been removed from the shelves in batches
With the obvious growth rate of e-sports game users, the needs of "skill improvement" and "socialization" around e-sports game players have begun to be discovered and mined, which also constitutes the source of the "user group" and the direction of "market development" in the play industry. And as players' willingness to pay tends to be obvious, the fragmented game sparring in the past has also rapidly integrated into the platform. The play industry was once interpreted as the fourth track in the e-sports industry in addition to games, live broadcasts, and events.
However, in the process of obtaining dividends for some accompanying platforms, the development direction trend is gradually deformed. In August last year, People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency successively exposed illegal services such as pornography and naked chat on some accompaniment platforms. Although the platform side quickly made a "rectification" response after being named and criticized. However, the batch removal of the accompanying platform also proves that the supervision of the platform itself is not in place, and even repeatedly prohibited.
After the batch removal of the accompanying play platform, the current situation of this industry has become the focus of our attention. Through the multi-party dialogue of the accompaniment platform, sparring trainers, and à la carte users, we have a relatively clear understanding of the current situation of the accompanying play industry.
Where did the user base released by the removal platform go?
The person in charge of the dot open black told gyro e-sports, "The development potential of the accompanying play industry is huge, but the entire industry shows a state of barbaric growth and lacks relevant industry standards." Among them, there are some platforms under the guise of accompanying play, providing illegal projects such as sleep-up, fraud, edge wiping, etc., making the industry gradually deformed. ”
When talking about whether the order volume of the platform has been affected after the strong supervision of the play industry, many platforms said that because they have a strict review mechanism, the rectification of the play industry has not affected the order volume. There are also platforms like "Dot Open Black" that the platform does not provide game accompaniment services in the form of "orders", but more with voice chat rooms as the entry point, and the revenue method is mainly for users to pay for the value-added services they choose in the community, gift exchange and other forms.
According to the author's observation, this form is quite popular in the market, and many play platforms have adopted the form of "gifts" instead of the game play service in the form of "order". However, for users, the operation process is relatively cumbersome, and the final accompanying experience is no different.
The rectification of the accompanying play industry has not affected the revenue of the existing accompanying play platform. However, these user groups released by the removed platform do not seem to have brought a significant increase in the order volume of the existing companion platform.
According to a survey of gyro esports, as many as 79.3% of users said that they had never clicked on a play after the commonly used companion platform was removed. Only 10% of users choose to experience the companion service on other platforms.
(In the "Other" option, mostly blank answers)
The reason for this situation, gyro e-sports analysis, is largely because accompanying play is still a "hunting" experience and service in the eyes of e-sports users. In the survey of gyro esports, it seems to confirm this point.
The data shows that 41.3% of e-sports users who "have not experienced playing" and "only clicked once" accounted for 41.3%, while less than 18% of users who experienced the escort service multiple times.
In addition, in the question of "why do you play with you", "finding the opposite sex to meet social needs" has become the first choice of most e-sports users, accounting for 75.9%, while the proportion of game points is only 17.2%.
(In the "Other" option, "Want to experience playing" is the most frequent answer.)
"Compared with the technical level of the game, the game opens black chat to meet social needs is the main reason for playing with the point." If it is a game, I will definitely not order a female accompaniment to play. The user with the screen name "Dust" said, "The point of playing with the game is more out of curiosity, but the temporary social interaction of the play makes the communication between the two sides often more awkward, and it is difficult to continue to pay for the desire to buy services." ”
"A Gray", who is an order user and a playmaker, told the author, "The experience of playing with the play is often deeply related to the price, because there is no entry threshold, and the level of the playmaster is uneven." Female playmates with higher order prices are often trained by the guild, which is more professional and more active. In addition to the game content, there is no other topic exchange of the playwright, it is difficult for the boss to continue to pay, can only take a one-time order. ”
Monthly income of tens of thousands of playmasters
On the other hand, the removal of the head play platform has made a large number of more players to be employed in the market. After a conversation with multiple playmates, Gyro Esports learns the true income of the profession.
Xiao Nan (pseudonym), who is still studying at university, was previously a sparring partner in the Glory Division of the King of the Bixin Platform, and because the platform was removed, he jumped to the "Moon Dog" platform.
When talking about the income of the group of playmates, she said, "Because it is not the reason for full-time play, the income is not high, and the maximum monthly income can only reach about 3,000, and the average monthly income is only about 2,000." "I placed an order with Xiaonan on a weekday afternoon, and she told me that this was the first order she received today.
"There has been a slight decline in income after moving to the new platform, which has a lot to do with the fact that I am not full-time. But the number of consulted clients has indeed dropped significantly. XiaoNan continued to add, "It is not the money earned by playing with the game, and it is difficult to achieve the monthly income of 20,000 advertised online by playing with the game alone." ”
It sounds strange that you earn money from playing with your partner, which sounds strange. With this question in mind, the author consulted Ah Ash, who played full-time.
Ash is a male playmaker who provides a technical accompaniment to the new game "Forever Doom", mainly responsible for taking the boss to score points.
"The technical accompaniment does not earn a lot, and the monthly income can be maintained at about 4,000, because of the reasons for the removal of the heart, there is no new source of customers now." From Monday to Friday, the income may be about a hundred, a little more on the weekend, four or five hundred, but it is too tired to earn five hundred, and you need to take orders for more than 12 hours. Ash said, "On the weekend, there will be a boss who packs the day and stays, four hundred yuan to play for ten hours, and if you want high income, you need to take the order after the package and then take other orders." ”
It can be seen that if you want to get a high income through game sparring, on the one hand, you need stable customer resources, and on the other hand, you need high-intensity work of more than 10 hours a day. It is not easy to achieve high income by playing games alone.
Xiaonan said, "Compared with male sparring partners, female sparring partners have greater advantages. Establishing emotional connections around the "social needs" of users, developing multiple high-quality customers with consumption potential, and achieving high income through 'brushing gifts' and 'storing and recharging' are the main ways to achieve high income, and private transactions can bypass the platform. ”
In addition, the chat room of the accompaniment platform is also an important way for the accompanimentist to achieve high income. It is said to be a play companion, but it is more in line with the identity of the anchor of the live broadcast platform, and it is also through different program forms to guide users to brush gifts.
Although the main body of the accompanying play industry is built on games, the development focus of the platform does aim at gimmicks such as "emotional communication", "online blind date" and "virtual love". This also leads to the lack of clear boundaries and strict supervision of the industry, resulting in chaos such as pornography and naked chat, resulting in the development direction of the play industry becoming more and more deformed.
From the tens of billions of markets to the batch removal of strong supervision, the escort industry has revealed many problems under the crazy expansion. Looking back at the ups and downs of the play industry is not our goal. In addition to finding the problems existing in the industry, what else is worth observing, and what areas have been affected by the ups and downs of the play industry? Can the play industry only rely on the edge ball to expand the market scale? These issues are worth exploring in depth.
The "accompanying play" at different stages has affected what
As a derivative industry of the downstream of e-sports, there are different degrees of correlation between the escort industry and games, live broadcasting, and e-sports events.
The first is the live broadcast platform, in the accompanying platform around the game anchor brand exposure cooperation, the game anchor linkage "female accompaniment play" to produce program effects. While draining the flow of the accompanying platform, the platform and the anchor have also gained new heat. This phenomenon once became the most vocal form of program for live audiences.
In addition, the live broadcast platform is also an important participant in the accompanying event. In 2019, tentacles, Huya, Douyu and other live broadcast platforms have successively laid out the accompanying play business, and the live broadcast platform uses its own e-sports attributes to convert many small and medium-sized anchors in the platform into sparring, which is easy to increase the user payment rate, aiming to solve the problem of the single revenue method of the live broadcast platform through this layout of the accompanying business.
Secondly, the accompanying play platform has also been trying to deepen cooperation with e-sports clubs. There are two types of cooperation between the play platform and the club: first, the accompaniment platform commercializes the sponsorship of the club, and the club honors the corresponding rights and interests; second, cooperates with the club's youth training system to send youth players to the team through the platform.
Taking the Bixin platform as an example, through sponsoring clubs such as the League of Legends LPL League and the King of Glory KPL League, it has obtained the rights and interests of the team's uniform logo, youth training selection cooperation, holding linkage activities, and social media publicity. At the same time, the gimmick of the stationing of well-known e-sports players such as The Shy has indeed brought good user traffic to the platform.
Reviewing the youth training selection activities held by the cooperative club on the accompanying platform, it does provide some e-sports players with the opportunity to qualify for team trial training and enter the club's youth training team.
But that's not much. Through past exchanges with clubs, Gyro E-sports learned that e-sports clubs themselves already have a clear player selection mechanism and youth training recruitment methods, and the youth training selection cooperation carried out with the accompanying platform is more than part of the rights and interests of sponsors.
For the e-sports industry, the accompanying play industry, which is estimated to have a market size of 14 billion, has a certain development prospect, which has a certain role in helping the breadth and scale of the entire e-sports industry.
However, the e-sports industry, which takes traditional sports as the development benchmark, now not only has a huge user base and industrial scale, but also plays an important role in promoting the development of sports, cultural development and digital cultural and creative development, which requires the e-sports industry to assume more social responsibilities and develop under the premise of formalization.
Just like the changes and adjustments made by the e-sports industry in response to the "anti-addiction policy" some time ago. Although it has had a great impact on the talent training of the e-sports industry, in the long run, under the norms, it is more conducive to the long-term development of the e-sports industry.
At present, the accompanying play industry that is wandering in the gray area, whether it is for live broadcast platforms, or the e-sports industry and e-sports clubs, is more harmful than beneficial.
Due to the demand for traffic competition, the demand for copyright in e-sports events has gradually increased, but there are still soft pornography and pornography in order to differentiate the content of the platform. During the S11 and TI10 events in 2021, the self-created programs of the head live broadcast platform appeared to involve sexual innuendo, soft pornography and other content, which was criticized by public opinion. And from the live broadcast platform on a hot search, or the merger case was called to stop.
(Live events held by the live broadcasting platform during the event have been discussed due to suspected vulgarity)
The impact of the fall of the escort industry on the live broadcast field may be the failure to explore new businesses. However, for live broadcasting platforms that have been repeatedly named by regulatory authorities, the layout of the accompanying industry with illegal services such as pornography and naked chat is tantamount to adding fuel to the basic business development of live broadcasting platforms.
The accompanying play industry around the "social needs" of e-sports users has always wanted to deepen the connection with the e-sports industry, but at present, the accompanying play industry actually brings more commercial support for e-sports, including player transportation, re-employment of retired players, etc., and cannot be said to have constituted a complete upstream and downstream relationship.
In general, the play industry now needs to examine itself more, slow down the pace of development and turn back to solve the negative impact of the previous barbaric growth. Only by normalizing the industry can the industry truly realize its value and empower e-sports events, clubs, live broadcasts and other levels.
Building core competitiveness may be the way out for the play industry
Finally, when it comes to the future development of the play industry, all platforms are optimistic. The person in charge of the platform who did not open the black said, "The game still has certain development potential in the future, but the premise is to achieve two points: standardized development and improve the comprehensive quality of practitioners." ”
Accompanying the play platform needs to adhere to the "green" development path and severely crack down on illegal acts such as pornography, gambling, and fraud. This not only requires a high degree of self-awareness of each platform, but also requires the relevant departments to issue a series of policies and regulations to strengthen the supervision of relevant "gray areas".
Practitioners should improve their own quality. Here we should not only pay attention to the improvement of the level of the game, but also improve the communication skills, cultural accomplishment, service quality and comprehensive quality of all aspects, to provide users with better service. In this regard, the state has also introduced skill identification projects such as e-sports trainers to improve the overall quality of industry services.
It is inevitable that the play industry will take the green road, but the expectation of the play platform for practitioners to "improve their comprehensive quality" has a certain conflict with the group of playmakers. For now, the escorts in the market are still in the state of "part-time".
Although there is no detailed data to show, it can be roughly understood in the exchange with the play platform and the playmaker, because the platform is removed in batches, a large number of playgirls in the market have entered the middle and lower reaches of the play platform. Secondly, there are a large number of playmates who give up this profession.
This also shows that although game companionship became an officially recognized official profession in September 2020, in the eyes of most practitioners, sparring is not yet a profession that can be relied on for a long time.
Xiaonan said, "The income of the playmate is not fixed, only a few people who achieve high income, and the playwright also needs to maintain a good competitive state." At the same time, the 'social needs' around the opposite sex often breed some problems, and the removal of the accompanying platform is the uncertainty of the profession of the playmate. ”
For the play industry, it is not only necessary to consider how the industry standardizes its development and how to solve the employment anxiety of the play practitioners, but also the problem that the play industry needs to think about.
But there is no shortage of new possibilities. With the continuous improvement of the normative requirements of the play industry, the professional requirements for practitioners will naturally become higher and higher. In the case of increasing the threshold for practitioners, it will not only realize the industry's expectations for the improvement of the professionalism of practitioners, but also promote the transformation of practitioners to professionalism to a certain extent, as well as the long-term development of careers, so that practitioners and platforms can achieve a win-win situation.
Secondly, the accompanying play around "social needs" does not necessarily have to rely on the form of "edge ball" to gain market share.
As mentioned above, the two major user needs of the play industry are "technology improvement" and "social needs". Around the point of "technology improvement", the accompanying play industry needs to do real professional guidance, based on different games and business types, to create a more vertical segmentation of e-sports sparring business, to create the core competitiveness of the industry, and then promote the continuous improvement of the value of e-sports sparring.
At the same time, the accompanying play industry is generated as a derivative of e-sports, and there are still more untapped market areas in the case of the e-sports industry. It is difficult to guide users to pay in the form of "soft pornography" and other curiosity gimmicks. The development direction of the accompanying play industry should be a "benign social" around the black experience of games and e-sports users.
The intervention of the regulatory authorities is to stop the disorderly development of the industry and help build a healthy social play industry ecology.
In addition, as a downstream derivative industry of e-sports, the accompanying play industry needs to think more about the empowerment of the e-sports industry. For the play industry, by continuously cultivating player resources to be transported to the e-sports industry, as well as undertaking the reemployment of retired players, it will deepen the relationship between the industry and e-sports, truly empower the e-sports industry from the bottom up, and build a complete upstream and downstream relationship of the industry.
Nowadays, the barbaric growth of the play industry has pressed the pause button, and the rectified play industry, if it can build a benign social environment and continue to empower e-sports to create its own core competitiveness, it will naturally get multi-faceted support and usher in new development opportunities.