A casual game that has been online for nearly a year has unknowingly broken the record for daily active users of NetEase’s products ……In January this year, the hottest product on the game market was finally no longer the old faces “King’s Glory” and “Original God”, but NetEase’s casual game “Egg Boy Party”. Recently, the game, which has been online for almost a year, has continued to grow in popularity, with both downloads and revenue continuing to “soar”.
The excellent performance of the game has led to constant praise from NetEase CEO Ding Lei. In a recent earnings call, Ding Lei said that he would invest more in R&D and operations to make the game a long-term service, and that the “long-term” was at least 10 years.
Egg Boy Party breaks NetEase record.
“Egg Boy Party has seen strong revenue and user growth in the market, becoming NetEase’s highest-ever game in terms of daily active users.” In its recent announcement of its fourth quarter and full year 2022 results, NetEase disclosed the running status of its game Egg Boy Party.
Based on the good performance, Ding Lei “confidently” said that the company’s flagship products and new products launched in 2022 were well received. In particular, Ding pointed out that “Egg Boy Party” has made a major breakthrough in the casual game sector and is a great addition to the company’s product matrix.
Egg Boy Party is a casual competitive handheld game launched by NetEase in May 2022. In the game, players can transform into egg boys and challenge various levels. When the game was first launched last year, it was not very popular, but since August last year, the game has been gaining popularity, and since the end of last year, it has been “soaring”.
According to SensorTower, “Egg Boy Party” was the most downloaded game on the Apple App Store in December last year and January this year.
According to the recently released Top Games Chart for January 2023 by SevenMarkets, “Egg Boy Party” not only edged out “King of Glory” and “Original God” to become the top downloader, but also made it to the top five in the revenue chart, ranking significantly higher. According to Seven Mac’s estimates, the game’s revenue from the iPhone channel alone reached US$22.6 million in the last month.
During the recent earnings call, Ding Lei said in response to analysts’ questions that Egg Boy Party is a very successful casual game in the family-friendly genre for NetEase. In the past few months, the overall results of “Egg Boy Party” have been very impressive.
In response to analysts’ concerns that some of NetEase’s products were experiencing a rapid decline in sales, Ding Lei said he believed the problem would not happen in the future. “We won’t make the same mistakes we made before. We very much hope that this game will bring users an enjoyable family experience, and we will invest more in R&D and operations to do a good job of serving the game for the long term in the future. I think the long term here is at least 10 years, for example we have been working on Fantasy West for 20 years. I have full confidence in Egg Boy Party.”
A game brought to life by live streaming and short videos.
As a product released nearly a year ago, why did Egg Boy Party suddenly explode at the end of last year? The industry generally believes that this is inextricably linked to the product’s out-of-the-loop presence on short-video platforms and B-site.
On the ShakeYin platform, the official account of “NetEase Egg Boy Party” has as many as 2.5 million fans, and among the more than 400 short videos released, many of them have more than 500,000 likes.
In addition to the official game, a large number of anchors have also taken it upon themselves to live stream the game and edit second-gen videos on the Jitterbug platform, boosting the game’s popularity and attracting a large number of new users.
On B-site, the official account of the game “Egg Boy Party” also has nearly 1.4 million followers. A large number of game videos edited and released by the official and users themselves have attracted many fans to watch, with some videos receiving over 3 million plays.
Especially during this year’s Spring Festival, the game’s officials launched special activities on the platform to attract anchors and fans to participate. During the Spring Festival, the number of submissions about the game on B-site rose sharply, and the number of video plays also increased sharply, and its diversion effect should not be underestimated.
According to Seven Wheat data, “Egg Boy Party” continued to gain momentum from the previous month and was the top of the list. In addition to the social attributes of the game itself, which can easily generate topics and spread the effect, it also launched a series of marketing activities on short and long video platforms in January, attracting a large wave of new players to “get on board” through live streaming, hot content and other in-depth linkage with the game.
The entertainment experience of casual games such as “Goat a Goat” and “Egg Boy Party” is closer to that of short-form video platforms such as Jitterbit, i.e. light casual entertainment. Users mainly spend their time, focus is relatively low, and do not need too much input. As a result, they are able to catch fire through platforms such as short videos.
“Casual games rely on buying very little volume, they are more price sensitive and prefer to attract more user recommendations and positive reviews through the entertainment attributes of the game itself to make the game explode. Their marketing approach is a better fit with short video platforms,” Shi said.
Egg Boy Party is not the only game that has caught fire through live streaming and short video platforms. In January this year, a casual strategy game “Goose and Duck Kill” was fast out of the loop thanks to a number of live broadcasters, and “Goose and Duck Kill” was once the hottest game on the live streaming platform.
During this year’s Spring Festival, a love simulation game “Pick Love” also exploded on the short video platform. According to a report by Youtuber.com, the game’s sales in January were about the sum of sales in the past few years.
Industry insiders: unattainable
The role of short-form video platforms in game distribution is becoming more and more prominent, and the importance game makers attach to this channel is further increasing. In the past, game makers’ investment in short-form video platforms was mostly limited to buying volume. However, nowadays, manufacturers are increasingly involved in the operation of short video and live streaming platforms themselves.
Take Mihayou’s popular game ProtoGod for example, in addition to buying a lot of volume, game officials have been recruiting anchors and attracting users to contribute ProtoGod videos through incentives in the past. The anchors are rewarded with different prizes for a certain amount of time spent live streaming the game.
Many listed companies have also been well versed in short video and live streaming operations. For example, NetEase’s game “Fantasy Westward Journey” and Jibi’s game “The Way” have both recruited anchors to live stream the game several times before. A number of Kaiying Network’s “Legend” game-related ShakeYin accounts have been live-streaming for a long time, with more than 2 million followers.
A game maker whose products have always been big volume buyers, voluntarily scaled back its buy spending in August last year and instead invested more budget in brand marketing and effect-based daimler marketing. Instead of buying more volume, the game significantly drove downloads to a full-year peak.
In traditional game distribution, volume buying occupies an important position. Can it be applied to all games without relying on volume buying but only on short video and live streaming platform marketing?
Light casual games may be successful through this model as they are a better fit with the short video platform user base, but medium and heavy games are difficult.
“The purpose, focus, time and money invested by medium and heavy game players are all very different from casual game players. The user attributes of medium and heavy gamers and short video platforms are to some extent in conflict, and it is difficult to incubate on short video platforms, and the effect of attracting traffic is also much harder than light ones.” Shi Jiangang said.
Game products bursting onto the scene through short video platforms can be unattainable. The most fundamental thing is that the game itself should be fun, so that users can spontaneously spread. If the game is not of good quality or topical, it is still difficult to attract users.
