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The development of the mobile Internet and the optimization and upgrading of smart terminal functions have enabled the mobile game industry in the cultural industry to continuously release market vitality under the steady growth of the mainland economy and the active guidance of policies, and has grown into a market entity with a scale of 100 billion yuan.
In the stable development, mobile games gradually break the single category of entertainment carriers and continuously expand more value extensions.
With its material, economic, spiritual and cultural characteristics, it has gradually become a window for people to socialize, cultural experience and creative expression in the addition of scientific and technological development, and intersect with more and more people.
Under the background of the slowdown in mainland population growth and the fading dividend of mobile game users, the mobile game market tends to be saturated after rapid development, and in the environment of stock competition, it is urgent to change from the "high-speed growth stage" to the "high-quality development stage".
In the new era, how to fit the national development strategy, meet the increasing aesthetic threshold of users, resolve the contradictions highlighted in the past, increase market share and revenue share in the two-way rush of science and technology and humanities, and then achieve the unity of economic and social benefits is a new test for any game manufacturer.
The current status of the marketing strategy of the mobile game "Honor of Kings"
1. Channel strategy is both internal and external
Compared with physical products, the delivery channels of mobile game products are relatively direct, and hardware manufacturers' app stores, third-party app stores and mobile game vertical channels are the distribution channels of mobile games in mainland China. As the industry develops, the power pattern of delivery channels is constantly changing.
In the 2015 public beta of "Honor of Kings", as a product of Tencent, its natural advantage is that it has an application layout of almost all categories.
Due to the large number of mobile phone hardware manufacturers at that time, the hardware manufacturers' app stores were not too standardized, and the third-party app stores belonged to the mainstream status.
At that time, the important channel for the release of "Honor of Kings" was Tencent's own app store App Treasure, which also gave feedback on game problems, data monitoring, retrieval and other help.
However, due to the relatively single function of the app store and the strong purpose of users, in order to make the game have a better download volume, a number of Tencent's software have made corresponding channel promotion for the game.
In April 2016, QQ Music launched the "Road of Kings Music Companion" activity; In June of the same year, QQ Browser launched activities such as "Everywhere You Are Playing", all of which were directly provided with one-click downloads in the software, turning into a game delivery channel to drive user downloads.
With the power of its own channels, the game also actively acts on mobile game vertical channels. In the era of computer games, online game portals gather a large number of players and exert a huge influence on the game market.
Game manufacturers cooperate with game websites such as Jiuyou Network and 17173 to release content related to "Honor of Kings" with a one-click download address, and exclusive privilege packages are given away in the form of cooperative websites, so as to achieve accurate delivery to specific target groups.
Nowadays, with the stability of the smartphone market pattern, the distribution channels represented by mobile phone hardware manufacturers' app stores have absolute industry discourse.
In 2014, some domestic mainstream mobile phone manufacturers established a "hardcore alliance", which stipulates that the channel share of mobile game products by the app stores of mobile phone manufacturers in the alliance is 5:5.
Compared with the international 3:7 sharing convention, the share ratio of the domestic Android market app store is much higher than the international practice.
Therefore, with the development of the mobile Internet, Tencent is also constantly exploring new game distribution channels to optimize the delivery structure of "Honor of Kings" today, with the diversification of user information acquisition channels.
On the one hand, it relies on emerging mobile game vertical channels for delivery, such as TapTap, a mobile game sharing community with zero share; On the other hand, in conjunction with super apps with high user traffic, such as Weibo, B station, etc., you can download them by searching for relevant game content on the platform.
So far, a multi-channel layout has been formed with hardware manufacturers' app stores as the main external channels, supplemented by emerging mobile game vertical channels, and internal channel application treasure as the bottom guarantee.
2. Publicity strategy is linked up and down
In terms of publicity, the online and offline linkage has increased the promotion of "Honor of Kings". In terms of online promotion, top celebrities are invited as game spokespersons, and then the exposure of the game is increased through hype to attract people's attention.
The game also focuses on interacting with celebrities, creating hot topics by announcing celebrities' common heroes and favoring game careers on online platforms;
He also increased its popularity by inviting female stars to play the role of female heroes in the game, and tried to promote the game by producing reality TV variety shows, licensing online dramas, etc.
In terms of offline promotion, in addition to placing physical advertisements in places with large foot traffic such as subways, shopping malls, and elevators in the early days, the game also connects users through offline activities.
It has cooperated with Wanda Plaza to carry out many canyon open day activities to obtain more exposure in places with a high flow of people.
At the same time, through offline promotion of games in the form of cross-industry cooperation, it has carried out offline linkage with fast-moving brands such as McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, and has also brought customer traffic to offline catering in benefits such as preferential packages for game fans.
At the same time, it also makes fast food restaurants become the offline publicity portal of the game within a specific time, and through this cross-industry cooperation, the offline publicity effect is doubled with half the effort.
Problems with the mobile game Honor of Kings
1. The user experience is not good, and the game environment needs to be cleaned and controlled
"Honor of Kings" has a convenient and perfect interaction system, good communication of users can make the game more fluent, but malicious communication will greatly affect the user's emotions and pollute the overall environment of the game, and even lead to hang-ups and intentional interference with the game.
Due to the weak in-game punishment in Honor of Kings, this also puts some players who abide by the game order at a greater disadvantage, and over time will gradually deteriorate the original good game environment.
However, the competing game "League of Legends Mobile Game", which was ported from the computer to the mobile phone with a similar gameplay as "Honor of Kings", carried out strict game environment rectification work after the public test.
Compared with the weak punishment of "Honor of Kings", "League of Legends Mobile Game" has strict punishment for negative game behavior, which has played a good role in restraining it.
The proportion of in-game reputation users increased from 60% to 74%, and the rate of illegal speech decreased by 23% month-on-month, creating a high-quality game environment and improving the quality of player matches.
It has advanced to the seventh place in the mobile game revenue ranking of China's App Store in the effective optimization, and the catching up trend is obvious.
"Honor of Kings" has not yet properly solved the frequent occurrence of negative players "rotten" and other phenomena, and the entire game environment is continuing to decline, which is not conducive to the game's reputation and long-term operation, and also leaves opportunities and flaws for the surpassing of other games.
At the same time, criminals have also targeted the game platform "Honor of Kings" to carry out fraudulent activities, and carry out targeted fraud activities against players in the form of disguised staff and event organizers to send winning information to players.
Especially with the implementation of the new regulations on juvenile addiction, minors have also become new fraud targets, many minors because of the game criminals shouting through the lobby, to lift the addiction system and other ways to induce and fraud, because the amount is small, so it is more difficult to control, and the fraud means have a certain degree of reproducibility.
2. The sense of responsibility is lacking, and the construction of juvenile anti-addiction system needs to be strengthened
Minors' addiction to games has always been a problem that the state and society have paid more attention to, and one of the main sources of negative public opinion in "Honor of Kings" also has this.
Minors with poor self-discipline are prone to excessive gaming behavior, which affects normal learning
Xi life even produces a series of social problems.
In August 2021, the central media published an article entitled "'Spiritual Opium' Grew into an Industry of Hundreds of Billions", in which "Glory of Kings" was named for failing in the protection of minors.
In September of the same year, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the Notice on Further Strictly Managing and Effectively Preventing Minors from Indulging in Online Games.
However, after the "Notice" came into effect, the face recognition verification function was bypassed by some minors, and it was revealed that the system detected that the elderly were playing games in "Glory of Kings" at three o'clock in the morning, and the facial recognition system was repeatedly judged to be the person and other news events.
It also reflects that there are still loopholes in the construction of anti-addiction related systems for juvenile games, which need to be further strengthened. It is also the responsibility and obligation of every game manufacturer to do a good job in the systematic verification of juvenile addiction prevention work, ensure the implementation of policies, and establish a game barrier for minors.
Suggestions for optimizing the marketing strategy of the mobile game "Honor of Kings"
1. Consolidate overseas markets and pay attention to circle linkage
For enterprises, user acquisition is the basic condition and primary link for the future development of products, with the maturity of the mainland mobile game industry, mobile game products on the market are also emerging one after another, and market competition is becoming more and more fierce, and its core is the competition for users.
In the context of the peak of mobile game users in mainland China, how enterprises can continuously optimize user acquisition methods, increase the increase of game users, and attract more users to target products in game operations is of great importance.
2. Optimize the game experience and protect minors
Users are attracted to the game in different ways, and how to let users have a good impression of the game in the initial experience and be activated as active users is also a problem that enterprises need to think about.
Especially now, players have access to a wide variety of games at almost no cost, and therefore more discerning.
This also requires enterprises to be user-centric in the operation of games, constantly meet user needs, give users a good game experience, continue to polish and optimize activation methods suitable for current users, and strive to transform into effective users and improve the multi-dimensional competitiveness of products.
But at the same time, enterprises also need to actively implement the requirements put forward by the state to prevent minors from indulging in games, and erect a health barrier for minors.
3. Strengthen value leadership and grow together with users
At present, the mobile game market is full of products, enterprises want to retain users and improve user stickiness, need to improve and optimize user retention efficiency in a more effective way, so that users can recognize the game in their hearts. Users are smart and perceptive, and also have temperature.
As a game product focusing on new culture and creativity, manufacturers also need to inject the correct values and emotions into the game products compiled with code in the context of the times, so that the game can gain user recognition and resonance, and aggregate users with high-quality products as a link.
Games have always existed in human activities, and with the progress of science and technology and civilization continue to evolve, mobile games, as an important form of expression of games at this stage, are also constantly expanding their boundaries in the evolution, gradually constructing super digital scenes with wide connections, and thus carrying more possibilities.
In the new stage of development, enterprises also need to change the existing development model of flat burden, and respond more to concerns about social benefits while obtaining economic benefits.
In the changes in the environment and fierce market competition, the economic value and social value of mobile games will be promoted simultaneously, and the benign development of mobile game operations will be realized.
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