Zhang Xiang, a heartbeat company: TapTap's road to the sea has no precedent to follow

21st Century Business Herald reporter Zhu Weijing intern Wu Feng reported from Shanghai

Editor's Note

Going to sea is undoubtedly the key direction for Chinese game manufacturers in 2022.

This voyage is not only the inevitable force of market competition and policies to force Chinese game practitioners, but also the echo of game practitioners to the era when content is king. It is the survival road under the version number crisis, and it is also the responsibility of Chinese game manufacturers to export excellent culture to the outside world.

So, how should we do a good job of "warming up" before setting sail? The Digital Entertainment Research Group of Nancai Compliance Technology Research Institute has long been concerned about the development of the game industry, and we hope to get experience, lessons or inspiration from the past, so we launched the "Pathfinding Game To the Sea" series of in-depth industry observation reports.

In this special report, from the two directions of industry observation and compliance advice, we will jointly explore how game companies should avoid risks in the process of going to sea, so as to maximize their benefits. What experiences are worth referencing to future generations? How should going to sea empower the industry as a whole?

In the tenth part of the series, we interviewed Zhang Xiang, senior vice president of Heartbeat Company, starting from the two directions of TapTap platform and self-developed games, to discuss the choice of business model in the process of going to sea, the cognition of self-developed games, how to serve small and medium-sized developers, and deal with black and gray production.

Upward competition encounters pressure from giants, and downward development faces traffic dilemmas. Going overseas is becoming an unavoidable hard battle for domestic game companies to compete in strength and resources.

In the 8 months before the online game version number was not issued, "going to sea" seems to have become the only choice for game companies to avoid risks, and major game manufacturers have written their own blueprints for going to sea into the 2021 annual financial report, and plan to invest more money and manpower in going to sea.

This includes Heartbeat Company. Heartbeat said in the financial report that in 2022, heartbeat plans to take the international market as an important growth direction while striving to provide better games and service experiences for domestic players. The focus is on taptap international editions and self-developed games.

Since its listing in 2019, Heartbeat has issued profit warnings twice, corresponding to the company's profit reduction in the whole year of 2020 and the first half of 2021, compared with the same period, and the main reason is the significant expansion of research and development expenditure.

Therefore, the "Flash Party" and "T3" that debuted overseas in the first quarter of 2022 are also considered by industry insiders to be the first "self-research + going to sea" report card.

With the industry's attention and curiosity, we chatted with Zhang Xiang, senior vice president of Heartbeat.

Platform out to sea

In addition to the game going to sea, in this round of going out to sea, China's game platforms have also begun to compete. One of the more high-profile platforms is TapTap International.

TapTap is a game platform launched by Heartbeat in April 2016. At the China Joy conference five years ago, Huang Yimeng, CEO of Heartbeat, officially announced that he would "establish a TapTap platform that is not intermodal and does not share with developers." Some people believe that in the market environment of "proportionality", this unique operating model is where the opportunity lies; There are also concerns about the feasibility and durability of this decision, whether it will be surrounded by similar competitors.

Zhang Xiang recalled to 21 reporters that the original intention of formulating "five years and zero share with developers" was not to link "evaluating the quality of a game" with "this game can bring income to the platform".

Five years later, the "zero share" business model has not changed, and this model has been copied to tapTap International. In March 2019, TapTap International Edition was officially launched. According to the 2021 annual results released by the company at the end of March this year, in the past year, TapTap Overseas Edition has achieved good results. According to the report, TapTap China's MAU (number of monthly active users) increased by 22.8% to 31.57 million, and the overseas version of MAU increased by 154.3% to 12.24 million, which is the first time that tapTap overseas version of MAU has exceeded the 10 million mark annually.

Zhang Xiang believes that Chinese game manufacturers and platforms going to sea are like opening and selling supermarkets and goods overseas, "having experienced full competition in China, when breaking through overseas markets, products are competitive." ”

However, he also admitted that because the third-party platform of Chinese games has no past experience to follow, "so many times it is a matter of crossing the river by feeling the stones, and there are many processes of paying tuition fees in the middle." ”

This tuition includes "just texting may cost the company poor." He introduced that in 2021, when TapTap International Entered the Southeast Asian market with "Sausage Party", it was taught a lesson in local localization operations because of the SMS tariffs of different operators.

Looking back now, the price of SMS in Southeast Asian countries is abundant and frugal, and one range is 0.03-0.75 yuan. However, even in the same international SMS platform, the charging standard for sending to each country is different, for example, sending international SMS messages to Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam may require 0.2-0.75 yuan a piece, but sending international SMS to Brunei and Thailand may only cost 3-4 cents.

"At the beginning, we followed the domestic experience to do SMS verification and login, and then found that the local operator environment is very complex, and various infrastructure services are not as comprehensive as in China, resulting in very expensive spending on SMS." However, he quickly made adjustments locally, replacing mobile phone text messages with email verification first. Until the local familiar with the user habits, find a local reliable supplier, only slowly suppress the tariff.

Unlike large manufacturers, they will spend a long time doing research before entering a new market. Zhang Xiang believes that going to sea is still a relatively natural process for the heartbeat, and it is timely adjustment in practice, "Once the direction is set, we will quickly start." ”

Developer Services

The diversification of the game market requires a large number of active small and medium-sized developers to output high-quality games.

Outside of the app store, TapTap International plays the role of the game community, establishing a mechanism for effective dialogue between developers and real and active gamers, establishing real connections between core players and developers, proactively feedback optimization suggestions, and helping developers spread within the community.

So, how will the fledgling TapTap International Edition serve these small and medium-sized developers?

The "2021 Game Going To Sea Safety Report" released by the overseas service agency "Sail out to sea" mentioned that 78% of the game manufacturers who participated in the survey of the report have encountered game plug-ins or piracy problems in the past year. The highest frequency of attacks overseas for overseas enterprise games occurs on a weekly and quarterly basis, respectively, at 16% and 21%, respectively, while only 13% of game companies suffer an average attack once a year.

Zhang Xiang introduced that at present, some Chinese game manufacturers that have gone to sea are struggling to fight against security threats. Since 2018, the Taiwanese small hacking organization ACCN alone has attacked more than 20 games on TapTap, and it is basically a product on the hot list. After attacking related games, hacking organizations such as ACCN will send extortion emails through channels such as QQ, and manufacturers who are unwilling to pay the "ransom" will suffer greater losses, such as server permissions being paralyzed.

He said bluntly that at present, the prevention and tracking costs of overseas game plug-in black production are large, and under the temptation of high returns, in addition to traditional DDoS and other network security risks, black production teams such as plug-in production and sales are constantly "mutated". For example, in the overseas release, game manufacturers more encounter offline hanging, some of their well-designed specific programs, can use a considerable number of computer hosts to simulate the normal game client, to the game server side to send and receive packets of the process, this plug-in is more hidden, but also more difficult to obtain evidence.

Due to geographical restrictions and differences in judicial procedures, the crackdown on cross-border plug-in studios is more difficult and will consume more time, money and energy. "TapTap, as a platform, in 2021, together with mihayou, Lilith, Paper, Eagle Horn and other game manufacturers, jointly initiated the establishment of the anti-black and gray industry alliance, and the work is guided by the procuratorial system, hoping to provide anti-black and gray production assistance for small and medium-sized developers through the alliance." He said.

In addition, according to the introduction of heartbeat, TapTap International Edition has also launched some technical achievements of domestic developer services and made global service adaptations. Through a series of functions of TDS (TapTap Developer Services), it provides a perfect developer background to help developers complete a series of work such as game release, community operation, and data query.

Zhang Yijun, first vice chairman of the China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association and chairman of the Game Working Committee of the China Audio-Digital Association, pointed out at the 2021 ChinaJoy Conference that in addition to security threats such as plug-ins and cracked versions, the main variable in the current global development of domestic games is that the cost of buying in overseas markets is increasing, the risk of infringement and compliance has risen, and international trade barriers are also strengthening.

The regulations of different countries on topics such as copyright management, protection of minors, privacy protection, and data ownership have also greatly increased the compliance costs of small and medium-sized developers. Zhang Xiang introduced that TapTap International Edition is also exploring cooperation with some third-party partners to provide developers with operable solutions.

Self-researched out to sea

In the exciting planning of the sea layout, in addition to the tapTap international version, another important role is the self-developed game.

In 2010, during the page game period, It took 6 months to develop the web game "Heroes of Heaven and Earth". In 2021, eleven years later, its self-developed Sausage Party has become the first game on the TapTap platform to exceed 100 million downloads.

In January this year, the dark game Torchlight: Infinity opened a closed beta in North America and received a lot of praise from core players. In February, the fighting game Flash Party was launched as a paid test and topped the Free List on the App Store in Japan for 12 days.

In March, the Android version of the "MOBA+ shooter" game "T3 Arena" was selected as the exclusive tapTap. Many overseas players have said on social networks that they would like to download the game on Google Play. But the official reply said that the Android version of the game is currently exclusive to TapTap International.

Two months later, the game was launched on iOS and hit the global charts on its first day. According to the data of the advertising and marketing platform Guangda App Intelligence Module, in May 2022, T3 Arena received more than 700,000 downloads on the App Store in less than 10 days. So far, it has entered the top 10 of the game free list in 92 countries and regions such as the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea.

"The game goes to sea, the results speak" is the consistent criterion for judging the game field. Therefore, although there are achievements in going to sea this year, it is inevitable that the heart will encounter some doubtful voices. "With the exception of Sausage Party, Heartbeat is a 'well-known' game company without a well-known game," some gamers and industry insiders joke about.

Zhang Xiang does not shy away from this, he believes that the attempts and performances of the heart in self-developed games over the years just prove the charm of the game as a content industry - whether a game is good or not, how the business performance is, it actually does not have particularly clear experience rules and product standards. But this uncertainty is also the key to encouraging many game industry practitioners to invest human, financial and enthusiastic.

On the cost side, the R&D cost of heartbeat accounts for more than half, and there are still a number of game projects under development. 2022 may be the year when the most concentrated self-developed games have emerged since the launch of Hong Kong in 2019. It is expected to be released in the third and fourth quarters of this year, including the strategic role-playing game "Sword of Suzuran" and the action role-playing game "Torchlight: Infinity". According to industry analysts, its style of American comics and phantom adventures is more in line with the preferences of North American and Japanese players.

In the 2021 annual report, Heartbeat said: "This year, TapTap aims to gain a foothold in Europe and the United States and build a global community serving high-quality player groups; Cooperate with more outstanding Chinese game developers to help them solve the promotion and operation problems of the global market. TapTap will also launch testing of overseas commercial advertising systems this year to help Chinese developers reduce user acquisition costs. ”

For North America, the main destination for going to sea, Zhang Xiang said bluntly, "Games are cultural and entertainment consumer goods, is the content industry, historical and current situation, the global cultural content industry North America as the commanding heights." If we have the ability to gain a foothold in North America, it proves that we may still have a good chance of success elsewhere in the world. ”

Recently, the restart of the version number has given major game manufacturers the confidence of the city, and the mobile game "Party Star" under the heartbeat is in the list of the first batch of version numbers. Will the resumption of approval of the domestic game market version number affect the layout plan of game manufacturers going overseas?

Zhang Xiang said that the resumption of domestic version numbers is a good thing for heartbeat. At the same time, Heartbeat will also serve the domestic market well and actively go to sea.

He believes that in terms of the category of mobile games alone, after more than ten years of development, the production process and distribution level of Chinese manufacturers have been in a leading position in the world, "from the perspective of game manufacturers' own pursuit of growth, going to sea is an inevitable choice." ”

Behind the good market performance of the game, it is inseparable from the support of relevant policies. On October 25, 2021, the Ministry of Commerce, the Central Propaganda Department and 17 other departments jointly issued the "Notice on Several Measures to Support the High-quality Development of National Cultural Export Bases", proposing to accelerate the development of new cultural enterprises, cultural formats, and cultural consumption models, and encourage excellent traditional cultural products, cultural and creative products, film and television dramas, games and other digital cultural products to go global.

In the next issue of the "Pathfinding Game To the Sea" interview, we will invite Tan Yanfeng, vice president of Sheng Qu Games, to discuss the ideas when choosing overseas IP, the key points to be paid attention to in the localization process, and the advantages and pain points of domestic games going to sea.

Producer: Digital Entertainment Research Group of Nancai Compliance Technology Research Institute

Planner: Cao Jinliang

Co-ordination: Zhu Weijing

Researchers: Zhu Weijing, Cai Shuyue, Wu Liyang

Authors of this issue: Zhu Weijing, Wu Feng (intern)

Design: Liao Yuanni

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