For a long time, when it comes to the hot Japanese women to mobile games, most people tend to have the impression of "Disney Twisted Wonderland" like a music game, or an idol cultivation game such as "Idol Dream Festival Music" with musical elements. However, GameLook found that COCONE, a Japanese company for young female users and specializing in dress-up and social products, is the real ceiling for local women to the market.
It can be seen that most of COCONE's games are social games with rich dressing elements, and the company further describes them as "CCP" game categories, namely Character, Coordinating, and Play. In GameLook's view, COMPARED TO A PURELY FEMALE GAME, CCP GAMES ARE MORE LIKE A SOCIAL GAMIFICATION APPLICATION FOR FEMALE USERS.
Cocone products focus on the CCP concept
In contrast, it is almost impossible to see similar successful products in the Chinese market, but this design has won the favor of many Japanese female players. It is understood that COCONE's revenue has continued to rise since the release of its first product "Pokecolo" in 2011, and then since 2016, it has successively launched a series of stylized products of the same type, and the flow has continued to show a steady growth trend.
According to the information disclosed on the company's official website, the monthly active users of COCONE's products exceed 1.5 million, compared with Cygames's "Horse Racing Lady" in Japan, the peak MAU is also about 2 million, which shows the high popularity of COCONE's products in Japan. According to third-party data estimates, in February 2022, COCONE's monthly turnover was nearly 70 million yuan, and basically from the Japanese market, while the company's monthly revenue in September 2021 peaked at nearly 100 million yuan.
Cocone President Chiryusuke
Cocone founder /president Chiryusuke (president is Yosuke Tomita), is actually a veteran Internet person in Japan and South Korea, in 2000 he participated in the founding of the Korean game company NHN Japan (Hangame) and served as CEO, after leaving NHN Japan in 2008, he founded Cocone, and then in 2019, he acquired the Hangame Japan team and established Cocone Fukuoka. With 920 employees by the end of 2021 and offices in Tokyo, Fukuoka, and even Shanghai in 2017, Cocone is rare in Japan considering that Cocone is not a Japanese publicly traded company.
Perhaps because Cocone has many loyal female users in Japan, in 2016, Cocone even fully owned Cocone Education Co., Ltd., opened a kindergarten in Tokyo, practiced the concept of caring for women and children, and brought the latest technology to the field of kindergartens.
Cocone's Mirai Kindergarten wants to practice the combination of advanced technology and education
Back to the game business, in GameLook's view, behind the eye-catching achievements, COCONE can be said to be a well-deserved "Japanese female social game overlord".
Deadbeat CCP game, borrowing "clothes" to burst into Metavalse
Strictly speaking, a closer look at COCONE's products is indeed very easy to grasp some commonalities: Q Meng art style avatars, and the female community that focuses on dress-up play. In this regard, COCONE Chairman Yosuke Tomita explained in an interview that the reason why the company is stuck in this kind of CCP game is actually related to the layout of Metavalse.
In his view, the increasing popularity of the concept of the metaverse reflects the rising status of the digital world. As the digital world becomes an important part of the real world, and people can't live without "food, clothing, shelter and transportation", then virtual "clothing" will undoubtedly be another way to Metaverse.
In other words, the reason why COCONE insists on taking prop exchange and dress-up as the main body and launches a unique dress-up play is to let players feel "this prop is cute", "want to live in such a world", "want to dress up like this", and gradually cut into Metavalse.
Interestingly, although the gameplay is relatively mild, THE LIFE CYCLE OF COCONE'S PRODUCTS IS GENERALLY LONG, AND IT HAS PRECIPITATED A LARGE NUMBER OF LOYAL FEMALE USERS. In particular, the first game "Pokecolo" has been online for more than 10 years, with more than 20 million players having experienced the product and 95% of them are women.
As CEO Yosuke Tomita said, "In the future, the digital world may be where people gather, and we are preparing for it." Although we only have these CPP games at the moment, when the tide of the digital world comes, we want to be the representative of The Japanese Metavalse. ”
To achieve this ultimate goal, COCONE also insists on experimenting with different themes in social products, and stylization is another notable feature of CPP games. It can be seen that the company's head products have their own unique style: or Q version of SD dolls, Disney dolls, or picture book-style cartoon pets.
Taking it a step further, what stylized games has COCONE launched?
1. Ten years of enduring, monthly flow of 30 million Pokecolo
Intuitively, COCONE's highest-paid mobile game is still "Home Flower Dan" - "Pokecolo" that has been online for more than a decade. It is speculated that the monthly revenue of the product is currently stable at about 30 million yuan, and the peak revenue of 50 million yuan reached in September 2021.
Ten years of bright performance has also made developers more optimistic about this product. COCONE believes that Pokecolo can continue to grow, and will even grow many times. "At the moment, we are achieving less than 10% of our target." Yosuke Tomita once said in an interview.
It's hard not to wonder what kind of game Pokecolo, which has captivated Japanese female players for 11 years, is a game.
Visually, the avatar in the game is obviously close to the Japanese cartoon style SD doll, which is more acceptable to most female users. On this basis, the game provides more than 30,000 props to help players design their own images and planets according to their preferences. Not only that, but the official will put on the shelves of new items every week and launch a new "charm test" activity, giving players the opportunity to try different styles of dressing.
Of course, social networking is another focus of COCONE's games, and Pokecolo is also an active virtual community. Players can visit each other's planets, chat and greet each other, help each other irrigate crops, give away other people's own fruits, or make delicious dishes with friends, take a bath in the game, and achieve a good life that is not lost to reality.
2. Page game IP mobile game, nearly 15 million monthly circulation of Livly Island
In contrast, another "Livly Island", which has only been online for less than a year, has also achieved good performance. The game has received 300,000 downloads in its first month, and as of February 2022, the cumulative number of downloads has reached 1 million, and the current monthly turnover is expected to be around 15 million yuan, second only to Pokecolo.
Unlike the former, which is completely original, Livly Island was actually born out of the social game of pet cultivation launched in 2003 with more than one million registered users, and this popular IP was not launched by COCONE until June last year. Today, players can continue to breed livy, an alchemical creature that eats insects and expels gems on the familiar pet island.
Specifically, Livly in the game changes the coat color by eating the feed worm, which becomes the player's favorite color. At the same time feeding Livly's excreted gem poop, it can also be used to shop in stores.
In addition to being free to nurture Livly, players can also dress up their avatar Hom as they please, or decorate the island where Livly and Hom live with their favorite props. Players can wear clothes of the same color as Livly or with Homestead items.
It is worth mentioning that watering the trees on the island can produce fruit, which can be used to make a transformation drug that turns into various kinds of Livly. However, players need to go to the Store to draw trees in order to redeem them for fruit. In contrast, the fastest way to do this is to help friends with special trees irrigate and collect fruits every day, a design that undoubtedly amplifies the social element of the game.
3. Disney IP bonus, warm and healing Disney My Little Doll
In addition to the first two games, it was followed by another Disney My Little Doll(ディズニー マイリトルドール)。 This is also an IP product developed by COCONE in cooperation with Disney in August 2016, and the current monthly turnover is expected to be about 7 million yuan, and the peak revenue in September last year exceeded 10 million.
As the game's name suggests, this is clearly a Disney-themed healing style dress up game. It can be seen that Disney classic characters, such as Mickey, Donald Duck, Winnie the Pooh and Snow White, have become small Q version dolls. While players are free to dress up the room, they can also play with their favorite Disney dolls and DIY rooms to create their own Disney world.
Interestingly, the Disney characters in the game are not the original image, but are designed with q cuteness. COCONE undoubtedly shows another way of using IP, that is, in addition to the gourd painting scoop, the Japanese company has successfully improved the IP image for a second time, and even created a successful online community game.
Communalization – women moving in a new direction towards the game
Not only the Japanese market, but also Europe and the United States have similar popular games, and the user scale is significantly larger - Toca Life: World, a game aggregation platform with UGC elements for children aged 6-12. The game had a whopping 47 million monthly active users in Q3 2021 and even won last year's App Store's App of the Year award.
In fact, the core gameplay of Toca Life: World is similar to Pokecolo: players can decorate their own style houses with furniture, go to different places, and meet different people. The game also added a face pinch function to fully customize your favorite avatar.
But from the perspective of the entire product matrix, COCONE has undoubtedly achieved the ceiling of the Japanese market segment. This is even more curious, why is there almost no similar female game born in the country?
As we all know, at present, most of the domestic women's games focus on love and court themes, and there are very few community-based products. In the end, it may stem from regulatory issues, which make it difficult for such products to obtain version numbers. But GameLook believes that the bigger factor is that the paper-folding defines the standard for women to play in China, and few developers can get rid of the shackles and successfully innovate.
In other words, COCONE's success means that community is another powerful direction for women to move towards the track. The only domestic opponent may be QQ Space, but it has not become an independent army. Therefore, in the absence of similar products, this type is actually more worthy of manufacturers to try.
This is not impossible, in GameLook's view, the popularity of games such as Harry Potter: Magic Awakening has proved the favor of domestic female users for strong social products. Then, female players who love socialization are very likely to be enthusiastic about community-based products, but the premise is still to ensure that the fun and stylized characteristics of the genre are obvious.
····· End ·····
GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
Global vision / depth is material