Text|DataEye Research Institute
In the past two days, DataEye participated in the annual meeting of the game industry and found that in the game growth trend forum, the venue of Douyin mini games was surrounded by water, and people lined up in the aisle.
This means that the attention of Douyin mini games is increasing in the industry.
It's the end of the year, and it's time to talk about Douyin mini-games.
What about the data, what is the potential, what are the challenges, and does it work?
At the end of this year, Alipay, Meituan, and YouTube have entered the game as platforms, and the bottom layer of product competition in the industry - platform competition has emerged. What will be the impact on the industry next year?
Today, DataEye Research Institute uses the Douyin Mini Game platform to talk about the current development trend of Mini Games.
1. Douyin adds more games: How is the Douyin mini game?
(1) Domestic growth, overseas decline, mini games have become a high-speed growth point
At the "2023 Game Growth Trend Forum", Mr. Zhang Yijun, first vice chairman of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association, director and member of the Game Working Committee, believes that the development and growth rate of the game industry in mainland China has slowed down, and has entered a period of coexistence of pressure and opportunity.
In terms of pressure, it is increasingly difficult to go overseas to attract gold. In 2023, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets will be US$16.366 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 5.65%. It is worth noting that this data has declined again after 2022, which means that going overseas is no longer a blue ocean market, and domestic game manufacturers need to tap new growth points.
In terms of opportunities, domestic mobile game revenue reached a new high. In 2023, the actual sales revenue of the mainland mobile game market will be 226.860 billion yuan, an increase of 33.802 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.51%, setting a new record. The number of game users increased by 0.61% year-on-year, also hitting a new high.
There are various reasons for the year-on-year growth of revenue and record highs, among which the rapid rise of the mini game track this year is one of the driving forces. At the forum, Mr. Wang Xiangbin, founder and CEO of DataEye, shared that it is predicted that the market size of mini games is expected to reach 30.4 billion in 2023 and is expected to exceed 50 billion by 2025.
The rapid development of mini games has brought more vitality and has become the strongest growth point in the game industry. On the one hand, mini games have the advantages of more accurate distribution, higher user conversion rate, lower R&D costs, and stronger applicability to scenarios.
(2) What is the current status of the development of Douyin Mini Games?
The data obtained by DataEye is:
1. Douyin Mini Game has more than 400 million monthly active users. In the past two years, especially in 2023, the growth rate of Douyin Mini Games will exceed 150%, and the monthly active users of Douyin Mini Games will exceed 400 million. In addition, the data shows that the user structure of Douyin Mini Games is diverse, with 50% of office workers aged 24-40 and 30% over 40, 50% of the population in first- and second-tier cities, and a ratio of 6:4 to men.
2. The daily consumption of Douyin mini game marketing increased by 83%. In the past six months, the daily consumption has increased by 83% year-on-year, of which the number of products in investment has increased by more than 3 times, and the number of activated users has increased by more than 40 times. In response to marketing issues, some data show that the marketing volume of mini games and apps is shrinking. At present, the proportion of mini games is about 30%, and the proportion is expected to increase further in 2024, rising to 35%.
In addition, in terms of products, huge engine data shows that with the entry of major head mini game developers into Douyin mini games, game products have developed from mild casual to medium and heavy categories. Typical RPG categories, such as RPG, will account for 42% of consumption from 33% in 2022 to 2023.
From the perspective of gameplay, most Douyin mini games show the characteristics of light casual, such as "Save This Pig" and "Sheep is a Sheep".
However, the wind direction is changing, and some cards, idle players, SLGs and even some heavier categories have begun to enter the TOP list of Douyin mini games, and the marketing consumption is higher, such as "Three Kingdoms Brothers", "Bull's Eye", "Seeking the Way" and so on. This means that user needs have changed from singularity to diversification, and they have spent more time playing mini-games.
On the whole, Douyin Mini Games have shown a good growth trend in terms of user scale and commercial scale. In terms of game products, the proportion of light casual products is still high, but moderate products with strong gameplay have emerged.
Compared with other mini game platforms, this growth rate is stable, but the pattern changes rapidly, and there is no obvious head solidification, so there is more space and potential.
2. Underlying logic, potential and challenges
(1) Challenge problems
Judging from the data, Douyin mini games are changing rapidly. DataEye Research Institute believes that game manufacturers will face some challenges in the process of exploring Douyin mini games.
The first is the problem of user revisit (i.e., product retention). Mini games have a high user churn rate and poor retention performance, which in turn affects the life cycle of the product. For Mini Game developers and platforms, how to improve the ability of users to revisit has become very crucial, which is related to the long-term operation ability of the product and the attraction of entrants. Among them, the entrance of Douyin mini games is different from other platforms, and user Xi needs to be continuously cultivated and educated.
The second is the diversification of marketing capabilities. Mini game products are mainly marketed through effect advertising, but the single marketing ability will limit the development of mini game products. Therefore, it is more necessary for developers and platforms to expand their marketing capabilities to achieve diversified customer acquisition, which can not only reach a wider range of users, but also effectively reduce marketing costs. Douyin Mini Game has more diversified marketing methods, including buying and placing native ads, influencer videos (small handles and small windmill components), live broadcasts (Pac-Man components), private domain positions, etc., which will test the ability of entering manufacturers to be higher and more comprehensive.
The third is the influence of the underlying logic. Regarding Douyin mini games, there has always been a discussion of the underlying logic in the industry: other platforms are social scenes, distracted, and easy to be contested, while Douyin is an entertainment scene, and the main purpose is to experience content through videos. As a result, many people will deduce that Douyin Mini Games compete with video brushing, so it may be challenging for manufacturers to make Douyin Mini Games.
Regarding the debate on this underlying logic, DataEye Research Institute judged that businesses such as live streaming, local life, and supermarket e-commerce can also be established on Douyin, and the same is true for mini games. Because of Douyin's current DAU and operating hours, users have gradually regarded it as an entrance to entertainment, shopping, and even informatics Xi.
Douyin is an entertainment-based scene, and mini games can often achieve extraordinary performance in line with the pan-entertainment attributes at the level of topic selection and project establishment. For example, casual puzzle gameplay, funny and strange entertainment themes, or easy to make content if there is IP, such as "Sheep is a Sheep".
(2) Potential opportunities
Talk about the challenge. From the perspective of the Douyin mini game platform, what are the potential opportunities?
1. Material level: The short conversion link of mini game products is an absolute advantage, and in terms of creative content, it is more necessary to be original or authorized to create a second based on the real content of the game, so as to ensure the authenticity of the content and avoid the situation that the material is inconsistent with the actual game content. Therefore, creative materials need to pay more attention to the three-stage creative rule, which is eye-catching in the first 3-5 seconds, presents the gameplay & selling point in the middle, and highlights the download-free trial at the end, so as to realize the process of guiding interaction and promoting conversion.
2. Reaching users: The Douyin Mini Game Platform has developed an "alienation card", which allows developers to recall users and insert them into the user's information flow to reach users.
On the one hand, content marketing can effectively reduce the operating costs of developers, improve operational efficiency, and continue to acquire volume; on the other hand, high-quality content can expand the circle through natural traffic, and influencer content can provide developers with massive material supply, and through influencer videos, it can effectively improve the recall rate of converted people.
4. In terms of position management, Douyin encourages developers to build enterprise account accounts and build the product's own private domain traffic pool, so as to realize the traffic management of the three dimensions of the mini game mall, public domain and private domain, maximize the reach of core players, and ensure the user retention performance of the product in subsequent operations. In addition, the platform encourages developers to use private domain operation tools, such as group chats and private messages, to form hierarchical operations and screen high-value users.
3. Douyin broke out, Meituan, Alipay, and YouTube entered the game, and the mini game started a platform war?
Not only Douyin, in the past two months, Meituan, Alipay, and YouTube have entered the mini game - the Internet platform has actively improved the platform/traffic capacity, which has become a landmark and milestone new phenomenon in the mini game industry, which is worthy of further interpretation.
From the current attitude of each platform towards Mini Games, they all start from the perspective of improving their own content ecology, and regard Mini Games as a link and a piece of the puzzle to improve the content of the platform and enrich the functional matrix. This will inevitably lead to the fact that in 2024, Mini Games will move towards multiple platforms, multiple ecosystems, and multiple camps, and the differences between the ecosystems of each platform are huge, far greater than the differences between different channel ports of APP. According to the observation of DataEye Research Institute, the platform ecological battle in the mini game industry is divided into four levels:
1. Competition in the platform's traffic ecology, user Xi, and usage scenarios;
2. Platform tool level: what technical tool support does the platform have for the acquisition of mini games, such as delivery tool technology and talent marketing components;
3. Auxiliary support level: The platform goes deep into the project R&D and testing of mini games, and data empowerment and collaborative R&D are directly ended to a certain extent;
4. At the level of policy support, such as advertising rebates and reward systems, I will not repeat them.
The most critical of the four levels is user Xi and operation entrance. It determines whether users can easily and easily find and revisit the Mini Game, which in turn determines the retention rate (i.e., the return visit of the product) and the payment situation. On the whole, although there is no limit to traffic, the platform capability forms a barrier.
Write at the end
In addition to making products in 2024, in terms of publishing strategy, mini game practitioners should be more refined and targeted to do mini game operations on different platforms - "channel strategy/platform selection strategy" will gradually appear in mini games. On the contrary, in terms of product themes, gameplay, and functions, it is necessary to adapt and adjust them according to different channels/platforms.
A platform with a complete ecosystem, mature links, and large potential space will become a must-have for the industry. In fact, the current situation of domestic mini game platform battles is not very obvious, and other platforms and head platforms have not yet had the strength to fight. However, for developers who are about to enter the game, seizing the current opportunity is the best choice for the business of mini games.
In 2024, when there is no volume on the domestic APP side and even the overseas game APP, the mini game industry is expected to further break the ceiling!