Author: Oda Issei, title picture from: Visual China
Recently, it has been reported by local media that minors have recharged the mobile game "Egg Boy Party" with large amounts. On the short video platform, the clips of some bloggers emotionally accusing mobile game companies also have great traffic and popularity.
Not surprisingly, just looking at the payee, you can find that it is the Lou Zi who is stabbed by the channel.
In August ~ September 2023, the Guangdong Consumer Council and the Shanghai Municipal Consumer Protection Commission, which have complained about game consumption, have successively pointed out the anti-addiction loopholes in mobile game channel servers, and suggested canceling the one-click login game function of mobile phone accounts. Unexpectedly, half a year has passed, this loophole has not been plugged, and the storm of "Egg Boy Party" has become even greater. Regarding the tangled contradictions of the channel service, I have popularized science in the "mobile game "channel service", bumping into the bear child head-on" published by Tiger Sniff, and I will not repeat it.
As far as the program is concerned, NetEase is a little aggrieved this time. After being named and educated by the local government, NetEase certainly did not dare to slack off on the issue of the protection of minors in "Egg Boy Party", and made an official response from statement to action at the end of last year. According to an article by the Shanghai Securities Daily, NetEase added cruise and face recognition to Xiaomi, Huawei and other channel servers in December last year, and detected the identity of minors during suspicious periods and payment links.
Judging by recent news, the effectiveness of these tactics is questionable. For example, in the short video that has become a hot spot on Douyin, "Egg Boy Party" pulled the channel provider Huawei out and advanced and retreated together, but Huawei couldn't do anything about it.
Players who are more familiar with the protection system for minors in Chinese mobile games should be able to reminisce: how do you think there is still something missing? That's right, what is missing is the most important first step to prevent addiction, the second real-name authentication in the registration process.
The channel service has been changed, but not completely
In "Mobile Game "Channel Service", Crashing into the Bear Kid Head-on", I briefly described how the channel service broke through the current uninsured system.
The core logic of the current anti-addiction regulations can be summarized as follows:
1. Verify that the account itself is a minor (registration and verification);
2. Verify whether the player playing through the account and in front of the screen is a minor (login, payment, modification information authentication, cruise authentication, that is, big data sampling);
3. Repeatedly, repeatedly, and continuously verified to avoid the information being changed by the player once and for all (the verification information is updated repeatedly, not once and for all).
To put it simply, real-name authentication at the time of registration, real-name authentication after login, real-name authentication at the time of payment, and modification of real-name authentication information are of course also required for real-name authentication - this is the practice of compliant games, and it is also a relatively successful means of protecting minors so far.
According to the "2022 Progress Report on the Protection of Minors in China's Game Industry" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association, two years after the implementation of the new mobile game regulations, more than 75% of minors play games within 3 hours per week, the overall consumption level of underage game users is at a low level, and more than 86% of parents are satisfied with the implementation of the new regulations.
In the "Chinese Young Players" report released by Niko Consulting, an overseas third-party organization, their conclusions are not much different from domestic observations: due to the impact of the new anti-addiction regulations in 2021, the number of underage gamers (6~17 years old) in China has decreased by 39.2 million, and the number of underage gamers has decreased by 77% of their weekly game time. In September last year, Xinhuanet directly affirmed the uninsured cause of China's mobile games at the title level:
Who would have thought that the new balance that lasted for two years after the "830 New Deal" was destroyed by the channel service loophole.
Mobile game channel servers generally use the method of directly pulling the real-name identity of the owner to meet the requirements of the real-name system of the game. In daily life, in order to use mobile phones for convenience, parents have real-name names in the app store in most cases, which leads to the closed-loop logic of mobile game authentication, which is simplified to the logic of "mobile phone in hand, I have identity". Because of this, NetEase hurriedly added cruise and face recognition to the channel service, trying to plug the "hole" of the channel service.
Have you found anything wrong? Why only add leftovers for cruising and face recognition, registration and authentication, and secondary authentication?
It's blocked, but it's not all blocked. The logic cannot be closed-loop identity authentication, which is almost equal to the system sampling, and it is difficult to estimate how many "fish have slipped through the net".
However, it can still be estimated how much impact it will have on the channel server of "Egg Boy Party":
公众号:QuestMobile
According to QuestMobile's "2024 Mobile Game Industry and Key Demographics Insight Report", 79.6% of downloads of "Egg Boy Party" come from various mobile app stores. We removed the iOS directly operated by the official service side, and the download of the domestic Android mobile phone channel service exposed also reached 75.6%, of which Huawei, OPPO, and vivo had a greater impact, with a share of or close to 20%. These are really not some numbers that make people laugh.
Of the 7 games listed by QuestMobile, only "Honor of Kings" is an official server even if it is downloaded in the mobile app store. For the other 6 games, each Android mobile channel corresponds to a separate channel server. It can be seen that the channel service problem involves more than one game, and more than one mobile phone channel.
Therefore, last year's channel service-related reforms have turned into a new round of public opinion bitter fruit today.
Whose cheese did the second certification move?
Let's start with a one-sided conclusion: the channel side should bear a lot of responsibility for the problem that the channel service is difficult to fill the loopholes.
First of all, let's take a look at "Egg Boy Party", that is, NetEase itself, whether it has the will and behavior to prevent addiction.
In fact, there is little room for controversy in the answer, and NetEase is reluctant and unlikely to work against the new rules. In the official uniform of "Egg Boy Party", we can see that the authentication of registration, login and other links is very clear, secondary authentication, face recognition, etc., social protection, content protection, parent information, care platform and other additions are also in full bloom. From the perspective of products, NetEase has done a very standard job, which is no different from the anti-addiction measures of other large-scale games.
In other words, NetEase subjectively does not have the motivation and performance to not do it if the mobile game is not insured and is very troublesome and tired, and the existing anti-addiction products do not involve huge costs in copying channel servers - in contrast, setting up a refund team for minors specifically for channel services is more expensive and troublesome, and it will be more passive in public opinion.
NetEase's official statement is also clear. In the article "It is difficult for minors to recharge the "egg boy party" refund, NetEase "dumps" OPPO and Guangdong Heyta", the relevant person in charge of NetEase told the reporter of Future.com that the responsibility for the one-click login problem of mobile games mainly lies with the mobile phone manufacturer. "The entire mobile phone user account system is in the mobile phone manufacturer, and the situation of mobile phone 'one-click login' games mostly occurs in 'channel service', and games that belong to 'channel service' can be logged in with one-click authorization through mobile phone ID (mobile phone account). ”
Compared with NetEase, the delay of the channel service itself can be seen from the changes in the past six months. These changes have hardly changed at the level of uninsured products, and NetEase and "Egg Boy Party" have once again been pushed to the forefront of public opinion.
The real trouble may still lie in reaching an agreement with the channel service and perfectly implementing the uninsured measures of the official service. Why?
I think the main reasons are the following.
First, we must strictly guard against user information.
The reason why it is convenient to play games on channel servers is that mobile phone accounts (mobile phone mall accounts, which are highly bound to mobile phone numbers) are real-name high-value information, which is a valuable asset for mobile phone companies, and it is unlikely to be easily connected with the outside world (such as game companies). What's more, the business itself is also responsible for user information.
And this demand is somewhat contradictory to the relevant regulations on uninsured mobile games. In the case of data opening up and repeated verification of user identity in multiple links, this information is still protected, and this information is not shared by channel services (Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi) and official servers (NetEase), the product and technology departments may have a way to solve it, but it is not as fast as half a year. What's more, who will promote this matter is a process of pulling and prevaricating.
For channel services, giving the mobile mall account to NetEase is basically equivalent to giving the game account to NetEase, and this kind of risk and loss is not something that can be borne by opening your mouth.
Second, there really is a cow in the channel service.
Everyone has heard the joke "because I really have a cow", and it is also a well-known thing that the game industry makes money. But many people may not have an idea of how profitable the gaming channel is.
Let's first take a look at iOS, the originator of the play channel, the 30% Apple tax makes everyone love and hate, so how much money does Apple make from mobile games with this 30%? These numbers are no secret. According to NewZoo analysis, Apple's game revenue reached $15.3 billion in 2021, ranking third in the world's listed company game revenue rankings.
However, there is no game channel service in iOS, and the games downloaded in the Apple store are all official servers, although there is an Apple tax problem, there is no "anti-addiction vulnerability". In imitation of the old iOS thing, there is not only an "Android tax" in China, but also other problems caused by the Android tax - the mobile games downloaded in the domestic Android app store are all channel services. Huawei, vivo and other hardcore alliance members draw up to 50% of the channel fee in the game, how much revenue will it bring?
Someone has already figured it out. The well-known video account "Xiao A Xuecai" once sorted out and analyzed: In 2022, the actual sales revenue of China's mobile game market will be 193.058 billion yuan, and Huawei's share of mobile games may reach 20.3 billion yuan. Of course, it is not possible to default to Huawei mobile phone users to play all Huawei channel services, and there are discounts on popular games, so this number must be on the high side.
20.3 billion yuan, even if it is discounted to 10 billion yuan, what is the concept? According to Huawei's official release, Huawei's net profit in 2022 will be 35.6 billion. The communications industry often says that Huawei does not make money making mobile phones, I am afraid that they do not understand the story of channel sharing.
Third, the channel service is not directly under pressure.
To put it bluntly, although there is no R&D cost for channel sharing, no cycle risk, but there is no pressure from public opinion; although parents and the government are crazy about naming channel services, news and short videos, but how much of these pressures are borne by "Egg Boy Party" and NetEase, and how much can convey and influence channels such as Huawei and Xiaomi, I am afraid everyone knows.
Let's put it bluntly: it is obvious that game companies and channels make money together, but in the face of public pressure, the channels are invisible in the public eye.
All in all, in fact, the most resistant channel service is not uninsured, and they have no incentive to work against minors or relevant departments. But the protection of the cake by the channel service is obvious, when you use your mobile phone, there will often be an "unofficial prompt" when installing the non-channel app, many people may not realize that the game is also like this:
Not to mention deliberate targeting, channel apps are strictly guarded against official apps, and they are by no means limited to the field of games
Of course, game companies don't have a good face for channels, for example, NetEase boss Ding Lei once directly sprayed China's Android "50%", "the most expensive in the world", and "unhealthy ecology". Then, it feels really difficult to expect NetEase and the channel to work together to solve the complex problems brought about by public opinion.
After watching it in the past six months, the protection of minors in "Egg Boy Party" has really fallen into the dilemma of "three monks have no water to drink".
Channel service crisis, what future?
How to solve the matter of channel service, NetEase can't figure it out at present, and others can't figure it out. In terms of the development of the mainland's uninsured business over the years, there are at least two possibilities that do not exist:
First, no matter what, that's it.
Strictly speaking, this may not be non-existent, provided that the popularity of "Egg Boy Party" itself decreases...... This seems unrealistic at the moment. Therefore, parents and relevant departments will not relax for a day.
Second, if you don't want to lose your cattle and don't want the official service to invade, the channel has built itself without a full set of measures.
What are you kidding, do you know how many games a channel has? Compared with the anti-addiction system that game companies have been tossing for almost ten years, this cost is really sky-high. And don't want to fish in troubled waters, only catch typical games to do;To put it bluntly,As soon as this opening is opened,Whether it's a game company or a relevant department,You can see that the channel has this ability,So ......
Therefore, it is calculated that whether it is "Egg Boy Party" or channel service, there is a high probability of escalating public opinion in the future. I have to say that this is a very regrettable thing, there is a kind of premonition that China has worked hard for so many years, and finally improved, and the game company was put in a cage by Party A again. The entire gaming industry should not want to see this happen.
But sometimes tragedy, even if it is predictable, cannot be solved. In case the whole game is deflated in the end, the channel server, which accounts for 75.6%, will be deflated, and finally it will be overturned and restarted, and the proportion of iOS and official servers will increase...... For NetEase, this is a short-term severe pain in exchange for a survivable future. And the apple next door that didn't make a lot of money lay down and won.
Don't really come this far. Regardless of whether the game company or the channel, we still have to take the responsibility, for the sake of China's children, but also for ourselves, you say.
This content is the author's independent view and does not represent the position of Tiger Sniff. May not be reproduced without permission, please contact [email protected] for authorization
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