If you want to summarize the general trend of the mobile game market in the past two years, I think "cautious" would be a more appropriate description.

The increase in the volume increase caused by the intensification of competition in the investment market, the fact that homogeneous products are no longer in the stream, and the squeeze caused by large DAU products to the volume acquisition space of small and medium-sized products have made some manufacturers begin to re-evaluate the investment value of buying volume.

Because a very real problem is that if you want to make incremental progress in the current existing market, you have to think about how to reach those users who "don't belong to you".

The number of games in the investment is declining year by year? Whoever breaks the circle first wins

The first thing to admit is that no matter what you think the general environment is, the confidence of game manufacturers in buying volume is indeed declining.

According to the "White Paper on the Effect of Mobile Game Advertising in the Mainland Market in the First Half of 2024" released by DataEye last month, the number of APP mobile games in the mainland market in the first half of 2024 will be about 14,600, a decrease of 9.9% from 16,200 in the first half of 2023, the lowest in the past three years.

Due to the current market environment, players' requirements for the quality of mobile games are rising, and the core groups of various categories of tracks are relatively solidified.

However, in the long run, this is obviously not a situation that will pass with patience, and manufacturers still need to find ways to seek increments in the end, and must get involved in those "unknown circles" to transform, so as to introduce new blood to their products and IP.

That's right, it's time to break the circle. The question is, where is the chance to break the circle?

Still finding a new crowd? The platform upgrade holds the password to break the circle

It may be a cliché, but this year to break the circle, you may have to go back to the ability to review the marketing platform.

Manufacturers are disappointed with the overriding buying volume in the past, and the platform must also see it. Therefore, on the proposition of breaking the circle, relying on their own considerable traffic pools, each company has iterated a new refined expansion model.

or focus on community infiltration, or iterate technology to improve the effect of automated delivery, all of which want to find "unexpected players" for manufacturers with different needs.

For example, in Douyin, the initial promotion stage of the game is called "game push". Through automated delivery technology + crowd breaking products, the platform helps manufacturers to acquire new users in a short period of time, and helps manufacturers who cannot "take the first step to break the circle" to gradually find other circle users who can be converted.

Delivery automation tools like UBMax can pick out the high-quality traffic with the highest conversion rate and the most suitable for game manufacturers from the massive number of users in bytes, and help manufacturers get more volume. It is not only simple to operate, but also ensures that the manufacturer's investment will not be wasted, so as to achieve long-term benefits. According to the data feedback, UBMax automated delivery can increase the revenue of running volume by 20% compared with traditional methods, and has helped many products find new users in the past two years.

But in the face of the increasing demand of manufacturers, is there a new solution for the platform?

Facing incremental demand: new tools bring new solutions

Judging from the launch of some popular products this year, the data insight platform under the giant engine and the game version launched by the giant cloud map give a new solution such as "game opportunity crowd".

In the "Game Opportunity Crowd", manufacturers can directly circle a wider range of player groups such as "people on the same track", "people with the same gameplay", and "IP interest groups", and they can clearly see which competing games are competing with themselves for similar users.

These functions allow manufacturers to break the circle layer by layer in a more extreme way, starting from the core group, to the same kind of competing product group, and then to the IP interest group, and constantly expand the scale of the circle-breaking group.

Sword and Crusade: Departure, which only launched this month, is a complete example of a practical example.

The game started to pre-order on Douyin 90 days in advance, with graphics and original plot materials, to store water for the big push, and cultivated 2.4 times more users than similar products during the pre-order period.

Immediately after the big promotion period, manufacturers lock in potential users layer by layer through the "game opportunity crowd" function, from game fans, to idle gameplay crowds, and finally to global interest groups, constantly expanding their "opportunity crowd scale". At the same time, UBMax is used to automatically buy and place volume delivery for key behaviors such as activation and download. Finally, on the first day of the launch of "Sword and Expedition: Departure", the contribution of new users on Douyin far exceeded that of other platforms.

In addition, it is worth noting that the game promotion is not only suitable for a certain type of product, whether it is a masterpiece with brand endorsement, or a vertical category that not so many seed people can rely on, you can use corresponding tools to achieve a certain degree of breakthrough.

For example, some products with little brand accumulation, more competitive products and less prominent main features, such as casual gameplay, can actually focus on IP linkage and other operation methods to gain increments in the pool of pan-users. Not to mention the popularity, but it is completely possible to seek a wave of outbreak and expand a wave of circles.

In addition, those products that are expected to be "national IP" and "world-renowned masterpieces", even if their own traffic has been indiscriminately killed in the user pool, they can still rely on the huge number of platforms to push through the circle to further tap the opportunity crowd. Spread out from the user's footage such as side-scrolling action and SLG, and try to achieve a record of breaking the upper limit of the platform.

Overall, such a challenging proposition of "breaking the circle and seeking increments" is due to the continuous iteration of advanced tools and investment strategies of marketing platforms, which are gradually opening up new interfaces. While polishing the gameplay content and building IP features, game manufacturers can use tools like massive cloud maps to make a more effective observation of users.

Towards a new stage of buying: a good game should not worry about a way out

A few years ago, under the extensive buying method, many friends were somewhat "standing in the wind and relying on luck". Nowadays, in the stock era, the industry continues to roll in, and it is also a normal development trend to come to a node with higher requirements for game manufacturers and marketing platforms.

In this context, we can see that all platforms are pushing the form of product acquisition into a new stage, whether it is to guide user participation with more delicate community operations, or to dig deep into product features to produce interesting communication materials, they are all exploring how to adapt to Chinese games with rising quality.

The huge amount of related technology exploration similar to the one mentioned above is an attempt to build a more intuitive channel for developers to reach users. For the team that is immersed in R&D, it can be said that it is an important piece of the puzzle at the operational level.

It is believed that in the future, manufacturers and platforms will further run in more new incremental models to open up the situation for more categories. If the manufacturer is interested in breaking the circle of "opportunity crowds" mentioned above, you may wish to register and open a huge cloud map game version account to learn about the specific functions.

After all, a good game should never have to worry about a way out.

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