Hi everyone, this is Dr. X.
NetEase's 2022 financial report was recently announced, and this year's boss Ding is still making a lot of money, but the main force of revenue has emerged a new face.
This game not only beat "Genshin" in this year's Spring Festival and jumped to the third place in the game list, but also kicked "Honor of Kings" off the free list before, occupying the top spot for a month and a half. This dark horse is NetEase's casual mobile game - "Egg Boy Party".
Who would have thought that this round egg boy could become a new pillar of NetEase, and even make Boss Ding boast that "it will become the next dream westward journey"? Let's take a look at the game's plan today.
Spring Festival income ranking, "Egg Boy Party" beats "Genshin"
Key point 1: Learn from "Jelly Guys", but can "die" "Jelly Guys"
As a new NetEase work that was tested on all platforms on February 6, 2021 and publicly tested on May 27, 2022, "Egg Party" received some attention when it was first launched.
Because its core of the game is very similar to "Fall Guys", it mainly focuses on the gameplay mode that allows players to compete with other players in random levels through simple operations and eliminate each other to determine victory, so it was not optimistic in the early days of "Egg Party". After all, the first "Fall Guys" to eat crabs is still alive, and it is not the turn of "Egg Party" to come later.
"Egg Party" "Good Bumper Test"
However, the first pioneer to eat crabs will always encounter various difficulties and obstacles on the road, and the development team and agents of "Fall Guys" are completely unprepared for the game to explode. With the influx of a large number of players, problems such as plugins, server downtime, frequent bugs, and slow gameplay updates have also emerged, and the game explosion has finally become short-lived.
"Jelly Guys"
In addition, casual games such as "Fall Guys" mainly rely on friends Amway and platform UGC proliferation to attract players, plus as a PC game, "Fall Guys" needs the assistance of scientific Internet access to maintain a smoother playing experience.
This makes that if there is a person in the black team who retreats due to unsupported equipment, frequent disconnection, tired of playing, etc., it basically leads to the entire team being AFK, and gamers expand rapidly and contract equally rapidly.
The "Fall Guys" production team expressed surprise at the game's explosion
It is precisely with the lessons of the predecessors that "Egg Party" has been optimized and avoided the above problems during the testing period and after its launch. Not only that, less than a month after the public beta of "Egg Boy Party", "Jelly Guys" was announced as free, which is really "Li Ghost meets Li Kui".
Therefore, NetEase can be said to be Taoguang Yanghui, willing to endure the low tide for half a year, until "Fall Guys" gradually fades out of the field of vision of Chinese players, and then concentrates on highlighting its own advantages and changing the dynasty in one fell swoop.
Fall Guys is free on all platforms
Compared with "Jelly Guys" on PC, the most obvious advantage of "Egg Party" as a mobile game is that it has low equipment requirements and is easier to accept players; At the same time, even if the domestic server is potato, it is much better than scientifically surfing the Internet to connect to overseas servers, not to mention that a large part of the target users may not even understand how to use acceleration in overseas games; In addition, the backhand launch can always make more content in the gameplay mode, which naturally has an advantage.
Egg Party co-op
In addition, the common features of such games are that the style is easy to be accepted by players, the gameplay is simple and the threshold is low, the social foundation is conducive to diffusion marketing, the theme is open and inclusive, etc., which are naturally not ignored by NetEase, it can be said that in every advantage, NetEase has accurately grasped how to maximize its revenue. Let's analyze them one by one.
Key point two: double BUFF blessing, social fission comparable to Amway
Nowadays, any mobile game will not ignore the benefits that social network marketing can bring, and "Egg Party" as a casual mobile game naturally has advantages in this regard.
For example, if you call a friend into the pit "Glory of Kings", he/she may not understand his or her skills, and he or she will go shopping the whole time; Calling a friend to eat black chicken either adds "Voldemort" to this game, or it adds a courier.
But Egg Party has no barrier to entry, you just need to learn to move, jump, roll, and understand how to dodge obstacles and other players' obstacles, and try to reach the end.
Therefore, this type of game is also the most suitable for players who have not been exposed to the game to try it, further expanding the circle of potential users through social fission. With the double BUFF blessing of the epidemic and the holiday, "Egg Party" eats a wave of dividends, and it is reasonable to explode.
"Egg Party" breakthrough gameplay
On the other hand, the game's level maps and gameplay modes are also very diverse, and compared to "Fall Guys", "Egg Boy Party" adds more fun to the player's in-game interaction.
You can let the big guy hold you up the whole time to win, you can also lift others up and throw them out of the map, and there is a "soul egg mode" so that eliminated players can continue to make trouble on the field and fully enjoy the joy of mischief.
Egg Egg mode in Egg Party
This strong interactivity, combined with a variety of level maps, can trigger various chemical reactions when playing with family and friends. There are "Gate Boss" friends who don't want to win, and there are "touching" friendships where you jump I jump, and they may evolve from online hacking to offline PK, but anyway, the laughter gained by playing with friends in "Egg Party" is constant, which is the core of casual games.
Key point three: melting, can be integrated, all kinds of IP absorbed
In addition, the Q cute art style of "Egg Party" is very well received and has a wide range of extension possibilities.
Compared with "Fall Guys" who doesn't know which tendon is wrong and has to show the physiological skeleton of "Fall Guys", "Egg Boy Party" more accurately captures the potential of character appearance shaping and gives a wealth of choices.
Egg Party exterior flyer
Because the round body of the "egg boy" is highly malleable, no matter what type of appearance is put on the body, it will not violate it, and even has a different kind of cuteness, so NetEase can boldly tap the depth of payment in appearance.
The sociability of the game also binds appearance to social satisfaction, further stimulating appearance consumption.
Various looks and looks of Egg Party
Of course, "Egg Party" will not let go of "IP linkage", a very popular and cost-effective marketing strategy in the online game industry, "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf", "Defending Radishes", "Fifth Personality", "My Emperor Cat", "Red Bean" and other IPs have been included.
It can be seen that NetEase has also conducted a refined survey on the audience users of "Egg Party", grasping the post-90s, 00s, and 10 users, while consolidating the basic plate, it is constantly absorbing other IP audiences of the same age group.
"Egg Party" links a variety of IPs
Key point 4: Game level players to determine, use UGC to continue vitality
At the same time, NetEase also paid attention to the fact that one of the reasons for the rapid fading popularity of "Jelly Guys" is the slow update of the map, so "Egg Boy Party" continues to produce new maps, but also opens a creative workshop for players to make their own level maps.
In other words, it is to put the treasure of the game's subsequent vitality on the output of UGC. And reality did not disappoint NetEase, with a steady stream of player-made maps of various theme types, and a variety of gameplay.
Scenery, adventure, cooperation, fully automatic, and the pit daddy "old six" class full of pits that make your blood pressure soar, the emergence of various player-made maps can not only allow existing game users to continue to experience freshness and retain, but also spread on peripheral social platforms to further absorb potential users.
Egg Party is rich in player-made maps
The activity of the UGC ecosystem also feeds back to the game itself, and the production team will select the player's self-made map into the official mode, which on the one hand gives players positive feedback to encourage more self-made map output, and on the other hand, it also continues the game's playability and innovative vitality.
Although many games today intend to feed back the game through UGC output, not all games can achieve the desired effect. At this point, "Egg Party" gives full play to its advantages - the convenience of mobile games, the simple and easy to use editor, and the rich material content are aimed at female players and underage players of the main audience of the game, to lower the threshold of UGC content production.
The Level Editor UI for Egg Party is simple and easy to use
Outside the game, the wide dissemination of player-made content on social media platforms further motivates and stimulates players to create, and also attracts potential users to join the game for content production, so that the UGC ecology of "Egg Party" continues to develop positively.
We can even see many player-made levels with ingenious ideas to reflect social issues and discuss values. For example, there are levels that reflect the abuse of stray animals, the resistance to school bullying, and even the melting of Arctic icebergs after global warming, these thought-provoking high-quality content gradually expand their influence through the spread of players among players, and it is this open UGC ecology that further enhances the social value of "Egg Party".
A variety of thought-provoking levels made by players
It can be said that "Egg Party" is the implementation of the more successful UGC feeding game at present, and I believe that this will also become a topic and reference for the operation team of many games in recent research.
In addition, "Egg Party" is not locked in the idea of "boys and girls rushing forward" and other breakthrough modes, and then added "who is the undercover egg", "rolling a line", "two people and one egg", which further maintains the freshness of players.
"Egg Boy Party" "Who is the Undercover Egg" gameplay
Key point five: marketing "bombardment" of social media platforms, NetEase's housekeeping skills
Q cute image as skin, low threshold gameplay as bone, coupled with the continuous influx of UGC blood, the vitality of "Egg Boy Party" is becoming more and more vigorous. On the basis of grasping the preferences of users, NetEase has also displayed its good skills, quickly occupied social media platforms, and carried out marketing diffusion that improves both quantity and quality.
On Little Red Book, the UGC content of "Egg Boy Party" is varied
Since the fifth season, commercialization, gameplay content, and UGC output have all been adjusted towards women, focusing on increasing DAU (number of daily active users) in November 2022, and starting on content platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu in December.
On the basis of consolidating the existing underage users, this series of measures has also given female users the opportunity and platform to express content, and output many thought-provoking discussion ideas on social issues. The continuous progress in this direction has opened more differences between the game "Egg Party" and "Fall Guys" and formed its own unique IP image.
Since the end of November, the ranking of "Egg Party" has hardly fallen
Game producer Kwan said in an interview that the production team's expectation for "Egg Party" is that the core gameplay threshold is low, in order to accommodate more types of players and gameplay dimensions, so as to support subsequent UGC creation, and gradually let the game program a UGC game editor.
"It's like Disneyland, you can play a thrilling roller coaster or opt for a casual carousel."
Build an amusement park with Egg Party
In order to achieve this goal, "Egg Party" also built an open map "Egg Boy Island" in the game as a player lobby, so that players can interact with each other. The island also has set up Ferris wheels, football stadiums, DJ booths and other entertainment facilities, and built-in NetEase cloud music, so that players can have a more immersive experience, and gradually derived a "egg boy social culture".
Ride the Ferris wheel in the Egg Party player lobby
Under the influence of such social culture, even if "Egg Party" does not have a union system, players still spontaneously form small groups, accompanied by small theaters, game records and other content around in-game social networking on social media platforms, which are further diffused externally and attract more users to join it.
Groups of players can have fun even in the lobby
According to the publishing team, the daily playback of the game on Douyin has reached more than 300 million; On Xiaohongshu, the growth rate of game content is also very obvious, from 40,000 notes in October to 120,000 today.
It can be seen that "Egg Party" has become a common topic that more and more young people are willing to share.
After-class summary:
As an established game company, NetEase has never lacked good seedlings to become a hit. However, in value-driven games, NetEase has gradually solidified the idea of distinguishing between Krypton and zero Krypton players, so that whether it is its own IP game "Fantasy Westward Journey", "Against the Water and Cold", "Onmyoji", or the influential external IP game "Harry Potter: Magical Awakening", "Diablo: Immortal", etc., it is difficult to escape the more solidified the operating player, it is difficult to pull new, and even all kinds of fate of high and low.
"Egg Party" has become a new pillar of NetEase
The explosion of "Egg Party" seems to point out a new way out for NetEase, through the high inclusiveness of casual games and the high degree of freedom of UGC, guiding players to continue the vitality of the game, and also gaining fame and fortune.
NetEase CEO Ding Lei even praised "Egg Party" as a "boutique game for family fun" in his 2022 financial report, and said that he would not do anything wrong before.
I hope that Boss Ding's statement will make us have more beautiful expectations for the future of "Egg Boy Party".