As the "second oldest in 10,000 years" in the domestic game circle, NetEase's current life can be regarded as comfortable, even if it is not said to be a "spring breeze proud". Thanks to the phenomenal performance of "Egg Boy Party", Tencent's "game + social" moat seems to be replicated by NetEase. In order to make "Egg Boy Party" as evergreen as "Glory of Kings" next door, NetEase is also taking precautions.
A few days ago, "Egg Boy Party" launched an initiative to all players, practicing the concept of rational recharge and healthy games, and launched a series of measures to limit player consumption, covering all players, including adults.
According to NetEase, all users of "Egg Boy Party" will receive a rational consumption reminder before recharging again after the cumulative recharge exceeds 198 yuan in a single day, and will be forced to face recognition if they recharge again after the cumulative recharge exceeds 328 yuan in a single day. For some Android channels (OPPO, vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi) that are not connected to payment face recognition, users will not be able to recharge more after reaching the consumption limit in the same cycle.
In fact, "Egg Boy Party" is a typical free-to-play game, and player recharge is obviously NetEase's purpose. Since the "Journey" set off a wave of free online games, in the past ten years, domestic game manufacturers have almost become practitioners of human behavior, in how to let users spend more time on the game can be said to be tireless in research, for how to let users secrete dopamine can be described as a number of treasures, such as "the first charge to give a gift", "newcomer login to send ten consecutive draws" such words, I believe many friends are no stranger.
So why did NetEase suddenly choose to do the opposite this time and began to "treat money like dung"?
In the eyes of many industry insiders, this may be due to the peculiarity of party games like Egg Boy Party, which does not emphasize gameplay after all. Compared with MMORPG, the depth of development of party games is almost non-existent, and compared with MOBA/FPS games, there is less emphasis on competitiveness, party games are characterized by "light competition" and "family carnival", and the gameplay is simple, almost no threshold to get started, but it has excellent interactivity. A clear trend between party games and the popular genres of the past is that the competitive confrontation attribute has been stripped away and given way to the entertainment carnival attribute.
The quality of party games obviously doesn't make the core gamer cold, on the contrary, the success of this type of game is that it attracts a large number of light users and even non-players. In addition, NetEase has also added UGC elements to the party game, and "Egg Boy Party" has gathered more than 10 million map creators and produced more than 100 million maps, realizing the self-update and iteration of game content with the help of players. Even the map creator of "Egg Boy Party" sued Tencent Games for plagiarism, and it also appeared on the hot search list of social platforms some time ago.
All of this has made "Egg Boy Party" successfully attract a large number of underage users. "As long as one child in a class plays "Egg Boy", the whole class will play together in the end", this is the original words of a parent in an interview with relevant media. Just imagine, if you're a minor, how could a game like Egg Boy Party, which has a certain amount of gameplay and plenty of social currency, not be favored in the extremely limited time of play each week.
According to the age composition of "Egg Boy Party" players measured by QuestMobile, the proportion of "post-00s" is 27.7%, and the proportion of "post-90s" is 35.51%, and players over 50 years old are high (everyone who knows). This is why Ma Huateng talked about "Yuan Dream Star" at the beginning of this year, and said, ""Yuan Dream Star" is not only a game for Tencent, but also has a social component, which itself is our base camp, and we must go all out." ”
And NetEase CEO Ding Lei is also optimistic about the future of "Egg Boy Party", and has stated that he will concentrate his strength and resources to make it a long-term product with a 20-year life cycle.
The reason why both Tencent and NetEase are at the helm of party games is actually very simple, because how the two giants live in the "next decade" may be the success or failure of party games. At the beginning, Tencent used social networking to cultivate games, but now NetEase has reversed the road from games to social networking, and the emergence of the concept of "egg pairing" has proved that teenagers are socializing in "Egg Boy Party". Once it occupies the minds of young users, game manufacturers also have a huge group of potential paying users.
More importantly, game products such as "Egg Boy Party" still have the possibility of long-term operation. The reason why Tencent Games has been able to occupy the throne of the world's largest game manufacturer for a long time is obviously due to the contribution of "Honor of Kings" and "Peace Elite".
Previously, some overseas media sorted out the 2023 mobile game revenue list based on the relevant data released by AppMagic, among which "Honor of Kings" once again became the world's most profitable iOS and Android mobile games, followed by "PUBG Mobile", that is, the overseas version of "Peace Elite", these two games together contributed $2.62 billion in revenue.
For any game manufacturer, having a popular mobile game like "Honor of Kings" that can operate for a long time is enough to ensure that they can sit back and relax for a long time. At this point in time, "Honor of Kings", which was launched at the end of 2015, has been in operation for eight years, and even "Peace Elite", which was released in the spring of 2018, has been in operation for six years, and it is obvious that both have entered the second half of their life cycles. At this time, "Egg Boy Party" relied on its launch to achieve a cumulative number of registered users exceeding 500 million and achieving more than 40 million DAUs in two years, which naturally made NetEase see the possibility of reproducing "Glory of Kings".
If a game wants to achieve longevity, in addition to the gameplay itself, compliance is undoubtedly also a key point, after all, in the process of "Honor of Kings" becoming popular, it was accused of "historical nihilism hidden in the game". However, due to the large number of student users, the fact that such players usually have no concept of money, and the fact that mobile payments are not cash transactions nowadays, it is easy to get out of place. Once the topic of minors "spending a lot of money" in the game breaks out, it is easier to attract the attention of public opinion.
In addition, in October 2019, the National Press and Publication Administration issued the "Notice on Preventing Minors from Becoming Addicted to Online Games", which clearly required "regulating the provision of paid services to minors". According to the relevant requirements, users over the age of 8 but under the age of 16 shall not recharge more than RMB 50 at a time and RMB 200 per month for users over the age of 16 and under the age of 18 for the game payment services provided by online game enterprises, and the single recharge amount shall not exceed RMB 100 for users over the age of 16 but under the age of 18, and the cumulative amount of recharge per month shall not exceed RMB 400.
Therefore, in the eyes of many people, NetEase's restriction on the recharge of all users of "Egg Boy Party" this time may be to avoid making a "big news", and then ensure that this game can become an evergreen tree in the mobile game circle like "Glory of Kings".