19 mini-games attracted 5.2 billion overseas revenue，Who will be the next person to eat crabs?
There have been several waves of Chinese mobile games going global. First, the domestic mobile market was dominated by the leading manufacturers, and some small and medium-sized teams were forced to move overseas. Later, the growth rate of the domestic market slowed down, and more and more teams moved overseas.
After experiencing the explosion of mini-games in 2023, there is now another wave of mini-games going overseas in China (mainly in the form of mini-games from mainland China being converted into APPs and launched overseas). According to GameNews, it is an active choice based on the consensus of “looking for increments”.
Be the next person to eat crabs
- If there is any track in the gaming industry that will still maintain rapid growth in 2024, the overseas expansion of small games is one of them. Industry insiders have previously revealed that the download and revenue growth rate of H1 mini-games overseas will exceed 500% in 2024, which can be said to be quite astonishing.
- Take for example the income that everyone is most concerned about. IAP (in-app purchase) mini-games account for 70%. Since the end of last year, products have continued to be ranked at the top of the SensorTower overseas list. What impressed me most was that in the TOP30 overseas revenue growth list in December 2023, three mini-games, “Legend of the Mushroom Brave”, “Gandalf Wakes Up” and “The Little Monster Asked”, suddenly appeared.
- The most powerful one is “Legend of the Mushroom Brave”. It cooperated with TikTok for Business and used TikTok, which covers a wide range of users, as the main promotion position. With the help of the platform, it achieved rapid growth in revenue, and even reached the top three in the overseas revenue list, ranking “Honkai: Star Rail” and ” PUBG Mobile” and “Call of Duty Mobile” have all squeezed off the list.
- IAA (advertising-paid) mini-games, which account for 30%, also performed well in the first half of this year. It is reported that the revenue has nearly doubled.
- At present, the entire market of Chinese mobile games going overseas is calming down, and the crazy popularity of small games overseas is enough to make everyone realize that this is a new opportunity to go overseas. Combined with SensorTower, Game News separately calculated the overseas revenue (revenue outside mainland China) of 19 popular mini-games in the first half of 2024 and all time.Most of these 19 small games have been released overseas since the second half of 2023. So far, their total overseas revenue has exceeded 5.2 billion yuan, and the total number of dual-end downloads on iOS and Google Play has exceeded 75 million. If only the data for the first half of 2024 are counted, the total overseas revenue of the above-mentioned small games is 3.7 billion yuan, and the number of dual-end downloads is more than 40 million.
- Among them, manufacturers such as 4399, Sanqi Interactive Entertainment, Dameng Longtu, and Haoteng Jiake have all found their second growth curve through small game overseas.
- 4399 is definitely the most profitable. Its “Legend of the Mushroom Warrior” is the biggest dark horse in overseas expansion in the first half of this year. Its domestic version is called “Adventure Battle” and has entered the top 10 best-selling mini-games on WeChat since July last year. After being verified in the mainland market, 4399 will push it overseas. “Legend of the Mushroom Warrior” was first launched in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in November last year, and immediately topped the iOS best-selling list in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It was then launched in South Korea and Japan, and its revenue reached another level. What’s even more surprising is that in March It has also achieved success in entering the European and American markets. So far, the US market has contributed 240 million yuan in revenue.
- 4399 has accumulated a lot of experience in the Chinese, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Japanese and Korean markets. In the past few years, it has been trying to open up the European and American markets. Unexpectedly, it was finally achieved through small games. “Legend of the Mushroom” has attracted more than 3.2 billion yuan in overseas revenue, which can be said to be far ahead, and has also directly raised the company to the 4th place in data.ai’s overseas revenue list of Chinese manufacturers.After enjoying the benefits, these manufacturers took advantage of the situation to launch other small game products overseas and attracted more entrants.
- For example, Jiujiu Interactive, which has been in the top 10 best-selling mini-games list for almost half a year, has promoted mini-games such as “Bailian Heroes” and “Illusion Ninja” overseas this year. A few months ago, Tuyou also launched the traditional Chinese version of the mini-game “Second God: Awakening of Light”, “Prince Transformation”, in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The latter has generated 16 million yuan in revenue in less than 3 months. Another listed company, Mingchen Health, has increased its investment in small games since last year, and now its “Geometry Kingdom” has become a member of the army of small games going global. In addition, Game News also learned that major companies such as Tencent and Lilith are also paying attention to the overseas track of small games.
Go to a less windy track
In fact, the rise of mini-games overseas is a natural thing. If you often observe the domestic small game market, you will find that most of the market share has been divided up by a few fixed products, and there are fewer and fewer dark horses. There are still hundreds of thousands of small game developers in the country, and new products are emerging every day. In contrast, the overseas expansion of small games is still in its early and rapid development stage, and it is not yet so popular.
Going overseas for small games is not as complicated as everyone imagines, and it may even be a way to determine success or failure at a lower cost and in a shorter time.
First of all, the general strategy for overseas expansion of small games is similar to that of traditional apps. It basically follows the three-step strategy of “choose a market, choose a theme, and choose a gameplay”, that is, select products for different markets, localize content, and match it with appropriate marketing Actions (in the form of buying volume, cooperating with celebrities or KOL, etc.).
Specifically, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, China, are usually the first stop for small games to go overseas. This is also the market that Chinese manufacturers are most familiar with. The market is not particularly large, but the per capita ARPU value is very high. It is reported that 27% of mini-games are on the shelves in Taiwan, China, accounting for the largest proportion. Movies such as “Legend of the Mushroom Warrior”, “Little Monster Asks” and “Prince Transformation” all started testing the water in the Taiwan market and achieved good results. The next stop is to gradually expand to the Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian markets based on the performance of the game, and then consider the European and American markets where localization is the most difficult and costly.
But in the end, it has to be combined with the theme and gameplay of the mini-game. Due to different user preferences, each market has its corresponding combination of popular themes + gameplay. Taking the Taiwanese market as an example, the current popular combination is “Oriental culture + unboxing/placement”. The local best-selling games “Little Monster Asks”, “Legend of the Mushroom Brave” and “Hero Hello Dog” are all “unboxing + placement” In terms of gameplay, although the latter two follow a cute style, they also add oriental elements such as Three Kingdoms generals into the game. According to reports, the combination of “urban + simulation management” may also have opportunities in the Taiwan market in the future.
In addition, regarding the direction and ideas for overseas product selection, the mainland’s small game market provides a steady stream of inspiration and case references.
Some gameplay methods have been verified by the mainland market. If they are pushed overseas, at least in the markets of China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia where cultural barriers are small, the probability of success will be higher. According to industry insiders, pan-RPG categories that have a sales volume of tens of millions in mainland China and integrate unboxing and other gameplay can be launched in multiple regions in multi-language versions; if you want to avoid popular overseas categories, it is also a priority to choose to go online in mainland China. The niche gameplay has been verified and then launched in areas with similar cultures.
As for the popular mini-games that are currently running overseas, whether they are launched overseas in the form of mini-programs converted into APPs, or directly launched on overseas mini-game platforms in the form of mini-programs, the only difference is that the carrier is different, and the essence is still “mid-to-severe games that are lightweight” ” or the logic of “light to heavy game”, its gameplay not only meets the user’s fragmented time needs, but is not too aggressive, and at the same time ensures a high level of activity in the game. This is basically in line with the current global trend of “moderate mobile gaming.”
Based on this, although the overseas expansion of small games has only emerged in the past year, relatively mature overseas social platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and X can still help manufacturers reach users.
Especially TikTok, which already has an advantage in the field of medium and light games, its platform tonality can be said to be inherently suitable for the release of small games.
- First, small games require many new users in the accumulation stage, and TikTok not only has a huge number of game users (including paying users), but also continues to grow. Users’ payment habits are becoming more stable and their payment capabilities are getting higher and higher. It is reported that the TOP10 markets with the highest growth include countries with huge demographic dividends such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil and Thailand, as well as mature game markets such as Japan, South Korea and the United States. Moreover, the audience of mini-games is mainly young players, and TikTok’s young user group accounts for a larger proportion.
- Secondly, TikTok game content exposure and number of topics are also growing. In the first half of this year alone, exposure increased by 50% year-on-year. Among them, content with light gameplay & elements is more popular on TikTok. Compared with content with heavy gameplay, the click-through rate and interaction rate can often be increased by 8% or 15%. Looking at the small games on the market, most of them adopt light gameplay, and even if they choose relatively heavy gameplay, they will be lightly modified.
- Moreover, TikTok for Business can help manufacturers that make small games go overseas to directly use these resources. Its programmatic mobile advertising platform Pangle is one of the fastest growing platforms in recent years, with traffic increasing by 300% in three years. Moreover, nearly 90% of the game traffic covered by Pangle is casual games, including hyper-casual, casual and moderately casual games with mixed monetization models, which means that Pangle can be adapted to different types of IAA games.
You know, small games themselves have more advantages in terms of recycling cycle, operating costs, and R&D expenditures. For example, in terms of payback cycle, the 90-day ROAS of a regular RPG is 90%, while mini-games can reach 120%. Nowadays, through TikTok for Business, the recycling is faster – the advertising recycling cycle is generally only 3-6 months, and even the fastest game recycling cycle only took 1 month.
According to GameNews, many small game teams have also seen overseas opportunities and want to try to get a share of the pie, but they are hesitant to take steps due to insufficient knowledge of the market and lack of mature marketing experience. Seeing this, those questions that have been bothering everyone for a long time may have answers.