Maybe it's the last outlet
The opportunity point of this year's WeChat mini game may be in the IAA.
Just today (April 24), the 2024 WeChat IAA Mini Game Open Class was held at the Wuhan Optics Valley Kaiyue Hotel. In less than ten minutes after the start of the check-in, the audience was already full, and its popularity can be seen.
In this open class, the key support direction of the WeChat mini game platform in the near future was also elaborated - IAA mini game. We also observe the changes of this year's WeChat IAA Mini Game from three perspectives: IAA development opportunities, IAA user analysis, and platform policy support. Maybe take the last train of the mini-game, right here.
Is there still a chance to enter the IAA now?
In the first quarter of 2024, the daily active users of Mini Games increased by 20% year-on-year, the monthly active users of IAA Mini Games increased by 500 million, advertisers increased by 35% year-on-year, and the traffic owner increased by 15%. With the continuous growth of IAA Mini Games, it is expected that the total commercial volume of IAA Mini Games will exceed 10 billion in 24 years.
Behind this prosperity is the influx of developers. According to the official statistics of WeChat Mini Games, in 2023, the number of Mini Game developers will increase from 300,000 to 400,000, of which more than 8 of the 100,000 new Mini Game developers will become small and medium-sized teams with less than 30 people, most of which will come from IAA's new additions.
So, where are the opportunities for small teams to enter the IAA?
According to Li Qing, a lecturer of the WeChat mini game team, "games are a creative industry, and creativity is particularly important to products. In the process of efficient communication and execution, it is easy for small teams to generate creative inspiration, and it is easier to let them land."
The second is to use your strengths to express your creativity. The creativity that can be recognized by users is not necessarily limited to gameplay, it may also be social, IP, and so on. It's important to express what your team does best in the product.
In this regard, Li Qing gave an example: "There is such a team in Beijing, they are only about 3 or 4 people, and their core personnel have more than ten years of experience in the game industry, so they have made a more hardcore card IAA game. Although the size of the users is small, they are very enthusiastic about the game, and in the past 24 years, the game has been able to generate about 100,000 ads per day."
Even non-game teams can be successful, Li Qing went on to share, "There is a team that has never made a game, and in 23 years they tried to create their own work on IAA for the first time, because there are more women in the team, so they tried to make a product that girls like, and integrated some local characteristics of Changsha's culture, and finally got a simulation game "Animal Night Market" with a strong sense of life."
In these popular cases, it is not difficult for us to find that "creativity" is inseparable.
As for where the creativity comes from, Li Qing also shared the experience of the WeChat mini game team, "Good ideas come from life, and adding more 'fireworks' to the mini game will make it easier for the whole work to attract users." For example, in the "find the difference" game, add an original storyline with a hot topic, and the elements in the puzzle game become the player's favorite elements of daily life, etc.
Of course, creativity alone is not enough, how to transform creativity into competitive products is also an important part of the continuous excavation and exploration of WeChat Mini Games, which has been realized around "lowering the threshold of R&D and production", "giving full play to the advantages of WeChat connection", "improving the efficiency of business returns", and "improving basic security capabilities" to solve the pain points of developers.
According to the interview with the competition, since the second half of last year, in terms of business, capacity and other policy support, the WeChat mini game platform has begun to tilt in the direction of IAA. For example, in terms of commercial sharing conditions, the WeChat Mini Game platform has adopted a 1:9 sharing policy for IAA games in advertising scenarios a long time ago, and the WeChat Mini Game team will continue these policies to more scenarios in the future.
In addition, from the perspective of infrastructure capabilities, the WeChat Mini Game Platform will also release more infrastructure manpower for IAA in scenarios such as WeChat video diversion. to help IAA products develop better.
Of course, the part that is easy to ignore is the security check content including anti-addiction, including anti-plug-in, UGC and so on. This kind of ability is not experienced for the IAA developer team, and it is difficult to invest a lot of resources in this part, which happens to be what the WeChat Mini Games team has been doing.
In the IAA category, match-3 is still a giant, but it pays more attention to the sense of coolness and life
Blindly entering the IAA is not a wise choice, and it can only be targeted after understanding the category and user behavior.
According to the WeChat Mini Game team, at present, in the IAA Mini Game, the average user time has reached 60min, and the active seven retention can reach 60%, and there are obvious differences in the category preferences of users of different ages and genders.
Among them, young female users prefer products represented by puzzle solving and finding faults, young and middle-aged female users prefer simulated management, and of course, match-3 covers all age groups and is a popular category that women of all ages like very much. Male users prefer IO and action shooter games, while older male gamers prefer strategy and simulation games, while older male users have a soft spot for quiz games.
If we look at it from another angle, we may be able to perceive the evolution of user preferences more comprehensively from the macro trend of game design changes.
From the perspective of gameplay, "strong brain power, strong decompression" has become the general direction of today's IAA gameplay design, among which the puzzle products represented by "strong brain power" have not only emerged a large number of related products in the past two years, but also achieved good results. This kind of game not only has unique creativity, but also has begun to gradually explore the operation content and tap the explosive power and vitality of product commercialization.
In the "strong decompression" type of products, users are pursuing more and more "coolness" of the game, so how to achieve simple operations in the cluttered interface, accumulate players' emotions and release them at one time is also the focus of this type of game design.
Judging from the current IAA mini games, many traditional gameplay products have tried to "live", integrating life elements such as supermarkets, barbecue stalls, containers, and gardens, and have achieved good results. Regarding this point, Xue Feidan, a WeChat mini game team, said, "We believe that in this direction, there is a lot of room for innovation in new products."
The third point is that the expression pays more attention to emotional value, which is mainly manifested in the story part of the IAA mini-game. In the past, the plot of the mini game focused on simplicity and straightforwardness, but now users prefer the plot story with twists and turns or even full of suspense, and pursue the immersion and substitution of the story. This also means that players are becoming more and more demanding in terms of the art and story of the product, but in turn, they can also get more long-term value.
In terms of the behavior path of users to reach the game, it also tends to be diversified. Among them, 35% of users experience products through friend sharing, and their representative products include "Sheep a Sheep", "Catch a Big Goose", etc., the main characteristics of this way are low cost and high value, and another 25% of users experience through active search, such products are mostly IP products, such as "Subway Surfers" and so on.
At present, the largest way to get traffic is advertising, and this is no exception in IAA products, where 40% of players are still pulled through ads.
However, it is undeniable that relying on the WeChat social platform, it is indeed more advantageous for WeChat mini games to reach users in the first two.
The ability to share posters is fully open, the video account may be a new growth point for IAA, and the incentive policy and optimization upgrade will further promote the development of IAA
Of course, the development of the platform and policies are also links that cannot be ignored. With the help of WeChat's unique ecosystem, making good use of sharing has become a key point in the development of WeChat Mini Games, and platform support content such as video accounts, advertising incentive policies, and optimization upgrades will also directly benefit IAA developers.
Huang Mingxing, a lecturer of WeChat open class, said that through the research and analysis of Mini Game users, the platform found that users who start Mini Games from sessions have several characteristics: the average time of the game is long, there are many active users, and the next day retention rate is high, which shows that session sharing is a high-quality active scene.
In this regard, the WeChat Mini Game team has launched a new sharing carrier on the basis of the original Mini Game card sharing, and added the ability to share posters.
Compared with the original card, the poster has several advantages: first, it can provide a larger display area, display more and richer content, make it easier for users to understand the game content, and promote interaction. At the same time, the poster also provides a quick and direct entrance to the mini game, so that users can quickly launch the game after understanding the content. Third, it can also make it more convenient to display users' DIY content, such as sharing achievements based on player identity, showing off props, etc., so that the shared content is more exclusive.
It is worth mentioning that in terms of acquisition, Shi Kaizhong, a lecturer of WeChat open class, said: In 2024, the live broadcast of the video account will become an important growth method for IAA mini games, and in just one quarter, we have observed the rapid growth of IAA live broadcast views, and the high-quality live broadcast room can exceed 10w field views.
In terms of advertising sharing, as long as the game accumulates 3k user >, developers can access components to obtain monetization revenue, and developers get 50% of the settlement share. In the near term, earnings settlement efficiency will be shortened, from 33 days to 13 days. At the same time, if the game is advertised, you can also enjoy the traffic main incentive policy.
For registered users who are active for ≥ 5 minutes from Tencent Ads, an additional 40% of the advertising bonus will be awarded for the 30-day turnover, and an additional 10% will be awarded for the 31-90 day turnover. This year, on this basis, the WeChat Mini Game team has also implemented an incentive policy for users who jump to external applications. Through these incentives, the platform hopes to pay more attention to the long-term in IAA games and let users stay. As long as you can create better game content and impress users to retain it in the long run, you will get more incentive benefits.
In addition, WeChat Ads has also made service upgrades to the Preferred Plan. In terms of product selection, we will continue to encourage high-quality products, and strengthen cooperation with creative gameplay games with an ROI of 1.4 on the 30th, and long-term operational games with an ROI of 0.9 on the 30th and 10% retention on the 14th. At the same time, it supports generation testing services for potential new games, accelerates the verification of game ROI, and so on.
Overall, under the dual role of trends and policies, this year's IAA track may really be the last outlet for mini games. In this last window, WeChat Mini Games provide everyone with the possibility to turn ideas into value through multi-dimensional ways to enhance product competitiveness.