2022 game going to sea practical release strategy

2020 In, the martial law was tightened again ,7 month 1 Apple will strictly check the version number , The game going to sea has become a new track that developers want to try . With the edition number is a scarce resource , The assistance application cycle is also very long , Online games will take about half a year , If it is a casual game, you may miss the life cycle , So going to sea has become a better choice .

from App Annie Of 2019 The annual report can be seen , The current situation will change from three years ago . in 、 beautiful 、 Japan is the three largest markets , The European market is next , Next is Korea 、 Southeast Asia . Emerging markets mainly include the following regions , South America is mainly Brazil , The Middle East is the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia , India is also unique .

Indonesia 、 India 、 Brazil is a typical emerging market , But in terms of user payment , These are not on the list . At present, China, the United States, Japan and South Korea 、 Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan 、 Southeast Asia 、 European users are growing slowly , The platform side hopes that there will be more new products in emerging markets . But for game developers , It is not recommended to choose this kind of market first .

For these emerging markets , Users' demand for smart phones , First, tools , Not games , For example, cheetah 、 Headlines have received dividends . Emerging markets need the basic tools of mobile phones , Such as virus detection 、 News aggregation . In addition, mobile payment has not been fully popularized in these areas , It still has a great impact on mobile games .

The first step for developers to go to sea , Is to choose which country and region , The languages and preferences of these countries and regions are different . The order of Chinese games going to sea is probably Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan , Then southeast Asia , Then there will be Europe and the United States , Japan and South Korea are viewed separately , See whether resources support , The Japanese and Korean markets also need to be promoted offline .

These markets have spread , Then there are emerging markets , Like the Middle East 、 Russia 、 India and Brazil , Basically, it's like this . Now compared to 2013 The biggest change in , Is the rise of leisure games , At that time, in addition to chess and cards 、 Spinach is SLG game , Leisure games have increased a lot in the past year or two . Casual games are popular because of the promotion of video advertising revenue model , Let leisure games have more cash means .

Two 、 Three elements of business games
The issuance of the sea market , Overseas channels are not as complicated as domestic , It still depends on the game itself , First of all, whether the game sucks ; second , The liquidity of this product 、ARPU Is the value and payment depth enough ; The third is to retain , Second stay 、7 How can we optimize it .

If these three points can reach two, it is already a product that can be tested and launched , A product that can achieve one may be a little difficult to release , But there will also be opportunities .
Three steps are needed for buying test , Rely on data , Learn to avoid perceptual knowledge . At present, the overseas distribution starts from the game project 、 There are strict test steps from R & D to online . First, after the project is approved , Start testing subjects , After having a general idea, you can pass the overseas purchase test , It mainly measures whether it can absorb . Make some corresponding advertising materials according to the theme , Game name , Then launch , In fact, there is no actual game , Simply put, after the advertising material goes online , Whether the unit price of getting customers will be very low . Specific data are different for different game types , Developers need to study deeply ,SLG Game purchases are 10 A few dollars , If the purchase amount of this material is only a few dollars , Then it will succeed .

For example, long Chuang Yuedong found that zombie themes are particularly popular in Europe and America , After passing the first test, you can develop . If the data fails , Re project and test .

The second step , In the research and development stage, first do a game of more than ten minutes Demo edition , Then go to the advertising alliance to buy , After the guidance is to see the retention , measuring 7 Tiankan second stay 7 leave , Compare according to different types . There is no problem with the data in this step , The game can start the overall research and development . If the data has not been , Then redevelop , In this way, the product can be prevented from light death to the greatest extent .

The third step , Game development is complete , Start testing payment data , Also go to the advertising alliance to buy .Google Play and Facebook Together, there are a large number of users , So it is very friendly to developers , Buying volume won't lose too much money . Commercial products depend on input and output , Independent games should express an idea , The first is a work of Art . But most games are commercial products , Need to feed the company and team , So these test steps are very important .

3、 ... and 、 Issue three board axe
Platform recommendation
Webcast
Buy quantity ,facebook,google、tiktok, Incentive video .
At present, there is no particularly novel way to distribute the game to the sea . There are two platforms overseas Google Play And apple , The first axe , Try to get platform recommendation . For example, innovative play , New functions and tools of the platform are used ,Google And apple have made the recommendation mechanism more and more transparent , If the game is really good , There is a great chance of being recommended ,Google It's easier , They have small business teams in China that can communicate . Don't trust the recommendation promised by the third party , It's simply because they know more about Apple's audit rules , They will have a preliminary judgment on the game , They will only accept your order if they think your game is expected to be recommended .

The second axe , Is to use the popular webmaster's recommendation , Mainly Youtube and Facebook, There are two kinds of anchor promotion , One is free and free . Pure free depends on the game itself 、 Novel and fun , Those who charge also need to communicate , He will not easily recommend games that are not fun . There are still some overseas MCN Institutions , Developers can contact , If the game is excellent, you will get free recommendation , The cost of communication is relatively high , Overseas time difference is also a limitation , Finding a reliable third party may be a better model .

The third is overseas buying , Mainly Facebook and Google Two platforms , also Unity、Applovin Exciting video . Incentive video is the cheapest way to get users , The quality is also the worst .Facebook It's more like headlines , The lifting speed is relatively fast , The background operation is simple , But the quantity is limited .

Wang Jialun talked about ,Google It is more like Tencent in China , The background is complex, and the volume will be a little slower , But the overall number of users will be larger . There will be a corresponding natural amount of search overseas , Not as high as before , But it's OK . A developer has 100 products overseas , Completely rely on natural quantity advertising to realize , Good grades .

Four 、 Overseas publishers
It is suggested that developers go to sea for the first time , It's better to find an overseas publisher , It is more convenient to find a domestic company . There are several domestic game companies in every country that have done very well . Basically, no company can cover all countries ,FunPlus、 Lilith is also strong enough to cover Europe and the United States 、 More regions in Southeast Asia .

Strong companies in all regions are different , The corresponding laws and regulations are different everywhere . The main country in Southeast Asia is Thailand , Vietnam is a relatively unique country , Relatively closed , Vietnam has begun to implement the version number policy . At present, Netease has a firm foothold in the Japanese market , Chengdu Tap4fun、 Zhuo Hang is self-developed and spontaneous , Basically only send your own products .

For the US market ,Garena It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tencent ,IGG It's an old distribution company , Leisure game company is cheetah 、Lion、Ohayoo It's also good in the United States .

Notable UK publishers in Europe Miniclip, Acquired by Tencent , At present, we are also looking for Chinese games to be sent to Europe and the United States .

The Middle East market is not particularly recommended , Localization is particularly troublesome , There are many taboos in culture , It is easy to have problems if you are not familiar with it .

Generally speaking, we are looking for distributors to cooperate , It is not recommended to find pure local distribution , Sometimes poor communication and understanding will be difficult .

5、 ... and 、 How can small and medium-sized teams self issue
Game developers will notice ,CP Always looking for distribution , Distribution is always looking for CP. Distribution will require a lot , Sometimes it will bring down the team . If CP Learning ability and market trial ability , It can be released by itself . Self research spontaneously does not need money to issue , Facing users directly, you can directly tune the game . The long-term revenue of the game will be better , The publisher is looking for hot money , Not a long-term money making game , Self issuance can make money , Even if you don't earn a lot .

The first thing we should pay attention to is the alliance buying test , Test material 、 Absorption and retention must be done by the team itself , The follow-up can be handed over to a third party . such as Google and Facebook On behalf of , Many investment agents will charge several service fees , Set the volume charge , lower than 1 Just invest US dollars , higher than 1 Dollars will stop . Agent investment is a relatively mature model , Your own research may be complicated .

Another point is US dollar payment settlement , You can find a third-party settlement company , The cost is not very high .

Finally, the localization of translation companies , Finding a mature Localization Company to optimize the game will be better than the team doing it by itself . The core needs the team to dare to try , You can get feedback on the effect of overseas purchase for one or two thousand dollars . Even if there is only 1 Million dollars budget , But a week later, the advertising revenue may be 1 Ten thousand dollars , In this way, the funds flow .

So it's not money that can buy , With a certain capital base, you can try , Continuously optimize products according to purchase volume . Taken together , The whole process of overseas issuance is very simple , The core is that the data of the game meets the standard , Second, minimize costs in terms of purchase volume , The tested and optimized products can be launched on a large scale .

Q&A link

1. How much is the cost of buying volume test ？

answer ： Theme test and play test , Basically, the amount of importing hundreds of users is about the same , After conversion, it may be only a few thousand yuan .

2. The R & D investment cost is 10 How to get started with a team within ten thousand ？

answer ： The pure R & D team suggests that we should cooperate with the publisher , Find the publisher after the project is approved , Let them see if the project direction is appropriate . You can find a suitable publisher on the tea party applet , In addition, you can see the list of countries , Looking for a name is obviously a domestic company to communicate .

3. What is the proportion of overseas publishers ？

answer ： If you cooperate with domestic publishers , There is no special fixed proportion , Sometimes press to flow water , Sometimes divided by profit , Generally, it is based on profit 55 branch , If the game performs better , The issuing company is willing to share less . And the ladder is divided into , Similar to the pattern of gambling , For example, the game flow reaches 100 ten thousand , The issuer is divided into 20%; If it is higher than 100 ten thousand , It's divided into 15%.

4. How to judge the quality of the distribution team and get a higher bargaining space ？

answer ： First, select the well-known releases in the industry and the releases on the list . If it is an issue that cannot be seen on the list , You need to look at historical data , Unknown distribution will also have well-known products , If there are no well-known products, it depends on the team experience . Start up teams play more casual games , At home Ohayoo Good performance , It's a good choice if we can talk about it .

The start-up team has no influence in the industry , If the product performs well, it has good bargaining power , Distribution can only help developers test 1 Time or 2 Time . Developers can test more times , Measure the data yourself first , The performance is better. There will be better bargaining space if we talk about issuing .

5. Is it reliable for local games to be distributed to overseas Chinese circles ？

answer ： This sail has been done , But the response is not particularly good .

6. What is the highest cost of overseas issuance ？

answer ： It must be buying and putting .

7. How about the performance of Chinese style game going to sea ？

answer ： Chinese style can only choose Asia , Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Southeast Asia are preferred , Europe and the United States are relatively poor , Japan is mainly quadratic , South Korea is mainly about Three Kingdoms , The performance of fantasy theme in Japan and South Korea is not good .