21st Century Business Herald Reporter Bai Yang Beijing Report
If you want to name the hottest gaming track of the year, it must be party games.
In January of this year, NetEase's "Egg Party" suddenly became popular, officially opening the curtain on domestic party games. According to NetEase's 2022 financial report, "Egg Party" became the game with the highest number of daily active users in NetEase gaming history at that time. And in the following year, "Egg Party" remained popular. In September, NetEase announced that the monthly active users of "Egg Party" had reached 100 million in August, and in December, NetEase announced that its registered users had exceeded 500 million.
In January of this year, Tencent's first family reunion game "Yuanmeng Star" passed the approval of the National Press and Publication Administration and obtained a version number. Subsequently, the game was officially launched on December 15th and topped the iOS free leaderboard in just 90 minutes of opening, entering the top 2 best-selling list.
As two leading companies in the gaming industry, the successive entry of NetEase and Tencent means that competition in the party gaming industry will further intensify. At the same time, despite the existence of "Egg Party" in the market, "Yuanmeng Star" still achieved good market performance, which further indicates that party games have huge market potential and are still a blue ocean track.
At the previous booking press conference, Tencent made bold statements, stating that "the first phase of the game ecosystem incentive investment for" Yuanmeng Star "is 1.4 billion yuan, and the long-term investment is not capped." This has added fuel to the already hot party game market. Undoubtedly, with the addition of Tencent, the party gaming industry will become even more lively, and in the context of intensified competition, the quality of party gaming products will continue to improve, injecting new vitality into the gaming industry that is just starting to recover.
How does "Yuanmeng Star" break through the party game market?
Before its rise in China, party games were first popular in overseas markets. Since 2016, multiple phenomenon level party games have emerged in the overseas market, with typical representatives including "Human Defeat", "Among Us", "Sugar Bean Man", and so on. Among them, the monthly active user base of the space werewolf killing game Among Us once exceeded 500 million.
During this year's Spring Festival, a party game called "Goose and Duck Kill" caught the attention of Chinese people and quickly became popular, setting a record of 700000 simultaneous online users on the Steam platform more than a year after its launch. However, these early adopters were party games on consoles and PCs, and before this year, there had been no phenomenon level products in the mobile game market, which also left a blank market for the explosion of party mobile games.
In the overseas market, party games have undergone several iterations and have developed mature gameplay including Space Werewolf Kill, Candy Bean Man, Mild MOBA, Mild Chicken Eating, Decryption and Challenge. But in China, especially when transitioning from PC games to mobile games, domestic game manufacturers have created more new possibilities for party games through content innovation.
For example, "Egg Party" has strengthened its social and competitive attributes on the basis of "Sugar Bean Man", while "Yuanmeng Star" has added more gameplay elements and Tencent's expertise in pan entertainment social interaction mechanism on the basis of obtaining the legitimate authorization of "Sugar Bean Man" and "Human Defeat", making the game content more full.
It is understood that thanks to the accumulation of previous products, there are many experienced R&D teams within the Tianmei Studio group in the leisure, racing, shooting and other categories, all of whom have provided support for "Yuanmeng Star".
So the gameplay design of "Yuanmeng Star" fully leverages the development strengths of the Tianmei Studio group. The main gameplay includes unique levels and maps such as waterways, ice, weightless space, and Jiangnan Water Town. In the secondary gameplay, "Yuanmeng Star" has added various unique gameplay features such as Breakout Fantasy Island, Charge Sports, Extreme Racing, and Hide and Seek. This includes multiple game categories such as tactical competition, FPS, and racing.
Party games are essentially casual games that focus on relaxation and happiness. Their gameplay design requires both low entry barriers and smooth experiences, as well as high quality and strong replayability. In the current party games on the market, "Yuanmeng Star" has achieved breakthroughs in terms of getting started, fluency, gameplay quality, and other dimensions, which is also one of the core factors for its rapid market opening and attracting many players.
At the same time, "Yuanmeng Star" utilizes Tencent's advantages in film and music entertainment resources, and incorporates Tencent Video and QQ Music functional components into the game's home system with a platform based approach, creating a small metaverse that integrates multiple online entertainment methods. Players can not only team up to experience various gameplay, but also make plans to follow dramas, fans, listen to music, and exchange ideas and feelings in real time in "Yuanmeng Star", greatly expanding the boundaries of party games.
In addition, channel capability is another key factor in determining the upper limit of party games. In a research report released this year by CITIC Securities, it was pointed out that party games are essentially light multiplayer competitive games, and due to their low threshold and characteristics of viral dissemination, they are prone to the emergence of phenomenon level large DAU games.
For example, in the foreign market, "Among Us" and "Goose and Duck Kill" are both produced by a team of four people, while "Human Defeat" is produced by one person. These games were discovered by game anchors and became popular, which quickly spread through social networks.
The same is true of Egg Boy Party, which was launched in May last year, but has been tepid. By the end of 2022, Egg Boy Party has unlocked the traffic code by virtue of its large-scale launch in Tiktok, gradually forming a social fission. Subsequently, on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, "Egg Boy Party" received a second round of dissemination, which further propelled it to break through the circle.
In this regard, Tencent has a natural advantage in achieving big DAU games due to its two major social platforms, QQ and WeChat. In addition, the social attributes of acquaintances on QQ and WeChat are in line with the positioning of party games and family gatherings, which gives "Yuanmeng Star" an unparalleled channel advantage compared to other products.
Moreover, while receiving support from both QQ and WeChat platforms, "Yuanmeng Star" is also making efforts on other content platforms. Before the launch of the product, Yuanmeng Star has announced that it has entered into cooperative relations with nine content platforms, including Station B, Tiktok, Douyu, Kwai, Weibo and Xiaohongshu, and will invest 300 million yuan to jointly launch the first phase of the "Xingmeng Partners" content ecological incentive plan. From the perspective of effectiveness, "Yuanmeng Star" has consistently ranked first on the iOS free leaderboard since its launch, surpassing "Egg Party" which launched large-scale advertising and welfare activities during the same period.
The party track continues to expand
Regarding the market size of party games, CITIC Securities analyzed that according to Gamma data, leisure games have reached 80% of internet users in 2021, totaling approximately 837 million. On this basis, after roughly subtracting about 130 million mobile game users aged 14 to 24 who have deep penetration, all the remaining 710 million users who participate in social activities are the target group of party games.
So, party games have a huge market space in China, and there is no saying that "due to the existence of Egg Party, the development space of Yuanmeng Star is limited". However, the strong confrontation between Tencent and NetEase will raise the entry threshold for the entire track. In the future, only higher quality products can go further in this track.
From an industry perspective, this will be a benign competition, and players will become the ultimate beneficiaries. Because competition is the strongest driving force, it will drive various manufacturers to continuously innovate and improve in content, gameplay, and game quality.
Of course, for party games, in addition to the manufacturer's own innovation capabilities, UGC creation is also an important part of continuously enhancing player participation enthusiasm and enhancing product content richness.
For this reason, "Yuanmeng Star" has previously announced that it will invest 1 billion yuan in the first phase of UGC creation incentives for game maps. And unlike other editors with more restrictions, "Meta Star" opens up more permissions for creators. For example, creators can achieve true "customization" in "Yuanmeng Star". They can choose weapon types, set initial health points, set team competition/melee modes, and even use the points rules of shooting UGC maps to create various innovative gameplay.
In addition, with the support of UE engine features and new special effects, the visual performance of UGC has also been significantly improved. For example, in the Star World editor, creators can create details such as ripples, waterfalls, splashes, and birds. At the same time, with the help of the Particle Effects Editor, creators can also create more interesting homemade special effects, such as tails, fireworks, explosions, etc.
By opening up more capabilities, "Yuanmeng Star" has given UGC more possibilities for creation, which will directly drive the continuous expansion of the entire track. CITIC Securities pointed out that party games are a natural carrier of AI+UGC, and also make UGC creation more conducive to social chain sharing.
On the one hand, the different forms of maps in party games directly determine the player's gaming experience, while the AI+UGC map creation function reduces the player's creation threshold, greatly improving the richness and playability of the game. On the other hand, players have a stronger willingness to share their created maps and levels, which is conducive to the game's social fission.
So, the addition of "Yuanmeng Star" not only provides new opportunities for players who are interested in participating in UGC creation, but also brings greater imagination space to the party game track, allowing party games to rapidly move towards platformization that integrates multiple online social entertainment methods.
Various signs indicate that "Yuanmeng Star" is also expected to rewrite the current market landscape. According to analysis by CITIC Securities, in the current party game arena, "Yuanmeng Star" is expected to accelerate its expansion due to Tencent's advantage in the number of social product users.
For example, in 2017, when there were already multiple "chicken eating" games on the market, Tencent was authorized to release the Chinese version of "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" and announced a joint production with PUBG to produce the official mobile game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds". In the future, Tencent will take advantage of its advantages in esports, social media, and other areas to catch up. The current market situation faced by "Yuanmeng Star" is similar to that of "PlayerUnknown", which also has legitimate licensing and social advantages. Therefore, "Yuanmeng Star" may also rely on Tencent resources to repeat the changes in the "chicken eating" game landscape.