The Spring Festival is coming, who will be the winner of the 'Goose and Pig War'?

For a month, the "battlefield" of party games has been filled with smoke, and the two major companies, Tencent and NetEase, have been fighting fiercely.

On December 15th, "The New Prince of Goose Factory" and "Yuanmeng Star" were launched. Tencent announced an investment of 1.4 billion yuan in the first phase of ecological incentives and invited more than 600 celebrities to promote it. On the first day 27,000 sets of purchased materials were released, and NetEase, as the defender, was not to be outdone. "Egg Boy Party" released more than 240,000 sets of materials in a single day.

Judging from the results of this month’s offensive and defensive battles, “Yuanmeng Star” has a slight advantage as a new game. Diandian data shows that in terms of revenue on the iOS side, the total revenue of "Yuanmeng Star" from December 15 to January 15 was 138 million yuan. Revenue is approximately 110 million yuan.

Winning or losing may not be determined in the short term. Game industry analyst Zhang Shule believes that "Yuanmeng Star" has Tencent's social network, which may have certain bonuses, but the premise is that users can really feel the difference and have an experience that surpasses existing games. "If it does not surpass "Egg Boy" With the subversive innovation of "Party", it is difficult for "Yuanmeng Star" to carve out more shares." The industry believes that there will be a second war in the upcoming Spring Festival, and the outcome may be decided at that time.

"Goose and Pig" War

Whether you are inside or outside the circle, it is difficult not to be impressed by "Yuanmeng Star". When it is online, you only need to open a game with the name APP, you can most likely see the overwhelming advertisements of "Yuanmeng Star" from the opening screen, pop-up windows, information flow, etc.

Tencent has used almost all its resources to pave the way for its momentum, promoting it on multiple traffic portals such as video accounts, QQ, Tencent News, etc., and deeply linking it with "Honor of Kings", playing games to get skins, and "Yuanmeng" Star" lived up to expectations and became an instant hit in the last month of 2023. At the same time, "Egg Boy Party", which is on the defensive side, is also sparing no effort in terms of purchase volume. The industry estimates that it has invested nearly 100 million.

Sensor Tower recently released the China APP Store mobile game revenue rankings in December 2023. Its data shows that "Yuanmeng Star" ranks 10th on the list of new games, while "Eggman Party" It dropped to 12th place from 10th place in the previous two months.

Judging from the statistics of Diandian data, before Christmas on December 25, the sales volume of "Yuanmeng Star" has been higher than that of "Egg Party". From the 25th to January 1, 2024, the sales volume of "Egg Party" "Zai Party" began to gain momentum, and its overall revenue exceeded that of "Yuanmeng Star". After New Year's Day, "Yuanmeng Star" took the lead again. From January 6 to now, the revenue of the two games has been close.

As of January 15, the total revenue of "Yuanmeng Star" on iOS is 138 million yuan, which is slightly higher than the 110 million yuan of "Egg Boy Party" in the same period. The industry generally believes that the revenue ratio of games between iOS and Android channels is close to 1:3, so the specific revenue data of games will be much higher than the current iOS revenue.

In terms of iOS downloads, the data of the two games are relatively close. In the past month, "Eggboy Party" had 6.69 million downloads, and "Yuanmeng Star" had 6.62 million downloads.

DataEye Research Institute believes that judging from the current best-selling ranking, the number of content on the entire network, and the amount of interaction, "Yuanmeng Star" has benefited from the wave of online offensive , has a trend of prosperity. However, "Yuanmeng Star" has just been launched and a lot of resources have been invested. It is normal for this performance. The party track is of great significance to Tencent, so it is necessary to hold high and fight high. It is currently on a stable footing.

DataEye-ADX data shows that "Yuanmeng Star" began to significantly increase the amount of material released on the day it was launched, reaching 27,000 sets of materials in a single day, which was more than 50 times the amount of material released before the launch. It began to decline on the 18th. About 10,000 groups. NetEase is aggressively attacking. Starting from December 10th, "Egg Boy Party" has released 100,000 sets of materials in a single day for a week. On the day "Yuanmeng Star" was launched, it even reached 240,000 sets in a single day. Material delivery.

According to DataEye's estimates, "Egg Boy Party" consumes close to 100 million yuan in purchase volume per week. "Yuanmeng Star" has a relatively smaller purchase volume, but it is also expected to consume tens of millions of yuan. Although the investment in purchase volume is relatively restrained, more resources are spent on the brand promotion side of "Yuanmeng Star".

On December 2, "Yuanmeng Star" held a press conference in Shanghai. What was impressive at the scene was that not only did UPs such as "Top Ranker" He from Station B, Film and Television Hurricane Tim etc. Recommended by the main website, Tencent even announced a high-profile investment of 1.4 billion yuan in ecological incentives for "Yuanmeng Star".

▲He was the release official at the scheduled party

Tencent officially stated that 100 million will be invested in the first phase of building a national e-sports competition system, and 300 million will be invested in the national e-sports competition system. Yuan was used in the content ecological incentive plan jointly launched with nine major content platforms including Bilibili, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu, and 1 billion yuan was invested in UGC (user-generated content) player creation incentives for game maps. This is only the first phase of investment. Regarding the future long-term investment of "Yuanmeng Star", Tencent said that there is "no upper limit".

According to industry statistics, Tencent has invited more than 600 celebrities and Internet celebrities in the overall marketing cycle to build momentum for the game. On the day of its launch, "Yuanmeng Star" officially announced that Times Youth League is its spokesperson. This is the endorsement of Times Youth League. ’s first game quickly became a hot search on Weibo. It is reported that the average age of Times Youth League members is 16-18 years old, and most of its fans are 12-18 years old.

In addition to buying volume, using spokespersons and Internet celebrity marketing, and IP linkage, another simple and crude trick of "Yuanmeng Star" is to "throw money". On the day the game is launched, users only need to experience "Yuanmeng Star" Stars", you can get rewards of cash and Q coins.

Under Tencent’s offensive, NetEase’s “Danzi Party” responded repeatedly. First, on December 8, Wu Lei was officially announced as the spokesperson and invited to the official live broadcast room for a trial. On the day "Yuanmeng Star" was launched, "Egg Party" quickly launched the "Egg Festival Celebration" in the name of "giving back to registered users", attracting users with high-welfare activities. In those days, players celebrated on social media, hoping that the two major manufacturers would carry out the business war to the end and players would be able to "have sex for nothing."

In the early stages of this battle, who is better in "Yuanmeng Star" VS "Egg Boy Party"? DataEye Research Institute believes that if you look at profit margins and DAU, "Egg Boy Party" will win. If you look at "Yuanmeng Star" as a new game to see whether it has a firm foothold, "Yuanmeng Star" will win.

The next round of war is during the Spring Festival

Nearly a year and a half after NetEase launched "Egg Boy Party", why did Tencent launch a similar game "Head-on" with unprecedented resource support? How big?

On the one hand, party games, as games with large DAU and strong social interaction, should be a track that Tencent is good at. On the other hand, Zhang Shule told China Business News that Tencent’s double-hit games have been online for many years, and their gameplay Innovation is also extreme, and there are currently no follow-up hit games, which can easily lead to a lack of success.

Tencent Games is facing sluggish revenue growth in the domestic market. In the third quarter of 2023, the revenue of Tencent's game business was 46 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 7%, while the revenue of NetEase games and related value-added services during the same period was 21.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 16.5%, although the volume is about half of Tencent's , but the growth rate of NetEase’s game business is twice that. In addition, Tencent's overseas games are growing at a faster rate, with a year-on-year growth of 14% in the third quarter. If we look at the local market alone, the growth rate is even lower, with a year-on-year growth of 5%.

Tencent’s most popular mobile game “Honor of Kings” was launched in October 2015 and has been in operation for 8 years. The hidden dangers of diminishing marginal benefits and declining user growth are inevitable, and “Yuan” "Dream Star" may be regarded as the next national mobile game to succeed "Honor of Kings".

Tencent President Liu Chiping mentioned "Yuanmeng Star" in Tencent's 2023 third quarterly report conference call. He said that throughout the game market, people are increasingly interested in casual games. Interest in content-driven games is also increasing, which is a new opportunity to build and invest, "For casual games, we already operate the largest casual game platform, and we are also looking to operate popular casual games with UGC features, such as " "Yuanmeng Star"."

After "Egg Boy Party" became popular this year, it has been promoted to the national mobile game list. As NetEase's new growth engine, NetEase also attaches great importance to this game.

"Egg Party" is the first super hit game in 2023, with more than 30 million daily active players. This is also the game with the highest number of daily active users in NetEase's history. In August 2023, the monthly active users of "Egg Boy Party" exceeded 100 million. In December, "Egg Boy Party" officially announced that the number of registered users exceeded 500 million.

As early as in the conference call after the 2022 financial report, Ding Lei said that he would invest more research and development power and management to make the game "Egg Boy Party" good. His expected life cycle is at least 10 years. .

In this battle, NetEase took the lead in entering the game and its basic market has been stable, while Tencent followed up with its huge resources and tried to share the cake. This story is not unfamiliar.

In 2017, Tencent and NetEase also launched a war around large DAU tactical competitive games, and Tencent finally won. First, NetEase launched "Knives Out" first. After Tencent took a stake in the Korean producer of "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", it obtained the domestic copyright of the game. The team worked all in overtime to develop "Peace Elite" and continue to test it for free. Today The game has become the highest-grossing shooting game in the world.

However, today, the background of the story may have some changes. Zhang Shule told China Business News that "Peace Elite" itself is the Chinese version of the popular "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds". "It will only explode if it goes online, but it will be a big accident if it doesn't." However, party games have not surpassed "Eggman Party" in terms of popularity. Under disruptive innovation, one can only follow the trend and it is difficult to carve out more shares.

Dolphin Investment Research analysts believe that NetEase’s operational innovation capabilities are indispensable if you take into account the success factors of "Egg Boy Party" from being mediocre to suddenly becoming popular. In addition, this time "Yuanmeng Star" was launched one and a half years behind "Egg Boy Party", and the community and UGC ecology of "Egg Boy Party" already have some barriers, so in the short term it may not be as good as the original "Knives Out" " was also quickly defeated by "Peace Elite", but as for how the competition between the two will change in the medium and long term, it may depend on the resources invested by Tencent and NetEase's response. It is difficult to judge at the moment.

From a player's perspective, the reputations of the two games are not much different at present, and each has its own style in terms of graphics and gameplay. When most players compare the two games, they will mention that "Yuanmeng Star" relies on Tencent's powerful servers to run more smoothly and has richer modes and gameplay, but "Yuanmeng Star" does not have many UGC maps. The strengths of "Zai Party".

▲"Yuanmeng Star" game interface

Regarding the final win or loss, DataEye Research Institute believes that it may not be winner-take-all, but differentiation. Coexistence, "Yuanmeng Star" occupies young and middle-aged players, "Egg Boy Party" is for younger players, "Yuanmeng Star" is for middle-aged players, "Egg Boy Party" is more casual, and the party circuit will inevitably expand.

According to the current stalemate situation, DataEye Research Institute predicts that the two will fight again during the Spring Festival. By then, the UGC content of "Yuanmeng Star" will have initially accumulated, and players will be able to play during the winter vacation and Spring Festival. There is enough time to experience the product and it is suitable for family fun. It is conceivable that the two will compete more brutally during this period.

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