Understand the WeChat ecosystem and mini programs in Jianshi

Li Ming believes that mini-games are becoming more and more abundant and diversified, and various forms of cross-border gameplay and different types of heavy-duty gameplay are emerging in large numbers. From a technical point of view, there is more and more room for 3D games to be played.

He is a partner of a game engine technology service provider. This game engine, which has been used by more than 600,000 developers, has also shown many trend changes, and the above mentioned is one of them. At the same time, Li Ming believes that the current 2D game type is close to the bottleneck and the competition threshold is constantly rising, while the 3D game type has a broader space for expression in terms of expression.

He also suggested observing the characteristics and rules of different platforms, which hide countless exciting traffic. Different platforms such as Toutiao and Baidu actually have a lot of traffic waiting for developers who adapt to the rules.

There are currently two opinions in the industry's observation of small games. One is that the number of hit products last year has decreased significantly, and the market is becoming increasingly difficult. The 2020 WeChat open classes represent another voice: there are more and more small games with monthly sales of over 10 million.

Li Ming believes that small games are still a blue ocean. Compared with the red ocean of APPs, small and medium-sized R&D companies have more opportunities in small games. However, the quality threshold of small games is also constantly rising, and the cost of originality is becoming larger and larger. Well, let us sit down and have a chat with Li Ming to see what other trends and observations will bring us reference and reference. As follows, enjoy:

Li Ming, Partner of Engine Technology Service Provider

Reality: Looking at the changes in small game developers from the perspective of engines, what are the well-known cases?

Li Ming: Affected by the popularity of mini-games, the number of developers of our engines grew the most in 2018. The growth started slowly in 2019. By the end of 2019, the number of developers had exceeded 600,000.

In terms of engine cases, well-known 2D cross-platform products (both APPs and mini-games) are "Archangel's Sword H5" with a monthly revenue of up to 200 million, the well-known novel IP "Douluo Dalu", and WeChat's share of more than 2 "Destroy the Virus" by Billion. However, 2D product cases have not been our focus in the past year.

Since 2.0, while maintaining the stability of the 2D engine, our development focus has been in the 3D field. At present, there are nearly a thousand 3D product cases, accounting for more than 90% in the field of small game 3D engines. Engine products can be seen in various 3D types of gameplay.

For example, "Border King", "Super Brawl", "Pig Man Run", "Dancing Line", "Rolling Sky", "Everybody's Drift", "Everybody's Football", "Water Park Racing Slide", "Crowded City" and " "Tornado Brawl", "Tencent Table Tennis", "Taobao Life" and so on.

Jishi: Judging from the current mini-game products, what is the expected development of mini-game content in the future?

Li Ming: In terms of form, the content of mini-games will become increasingly rich and diversified, and there will even be cross-border gameplay, and there will be more and more serious games. From a technical point of view, the picture expression effect will become better and better, and there will be more and more room for 3D products to be used.

Heavyness is the easiest to understand. The initial local package of WeChat mini games has become heavier and heavier, from the earliest 4M package, to 8M package, and then to 12M package. In addition to casual games, serious FPS, TPS, MOBA, MMO, SLG and other gameplay methods have also appeared in small games.

Judging from the data released in the 2020 WeChat open class, there are 11 WeChat mini-games with a cumulative monthly gross revenue of over 10 million, and one with a cumulative monthly gross revenue of more than 800 million. So this ecosystem is that as long as there are successful cases, more high-quality CP will enter the market.

See the truth: The entry of more high-quality CP will force the "research and development" already in the mini-game track. Which aspects of capabilities do you think you will continue to strengthen?

Li Ming: With the rapid development of mini-games, competition in 2D games is becoming increasingly fierce. In order to raise the competitive threshold, many R&D companies have begun to enter the 3D field with stronger graphics and content expression.

According to our statistical data, at the end of 2018, there were only more than 200 3D mini-games. As of January 2020, there were more than a thousand 3D mini-games.

In terms of content form, in addition to continuing to deepen and enrich the gameplay in the inherent areas of the game, we have already seen some small games that are trying cross-border gameplay.

For example, interactive games that bring entertainment and education to attract traffic, AR and interactive games for e-commerce activities that attract traffic to e-commerce, physical gift-giving mini-games with red envelope variations, plot-based interactive mini-games combined with video short plays, and live-streaming networks Red combined fan interactive games and so on.

In the future, games, as a form of entertainment interaction, will become more and more abundant, and may even become a common form of expression for mass entertainment and communication.

See the truth: Switching from 2D mini-games to 3D mini-games is considered an upgrade, or is it a force from the market?

Li Ming: The accelerated development of 3D cannot be called a switch, nor can it be considered an upgrade. 2D is also a good form of expression, and high-quality products will continue to come out, even earning better than some 3D products.

For example, "Eradication of the Virus", which uses an engine, has a revenue of over 200 million in WeChat mini-games alone. I think 2D and 3D are just differences in expression. Whether a good product can be produced mainly depends on the quality of the developer.

There is a lot of R&D investment in 3D in 2019. There are actually several reasons:

First, the market is forcing you to choose one because there are too many 2D competing products.

Second, the type of gameplay is close to a bottleneck. When the research and development reaches a point where it is difficult to break through, 3D has to be passively converted because it has more forms of expression.

Third, some people focus exclusively on the European and American lists. On the European and American APP lists, more than 80% are 3D games.

Fourth, when communicating with the platform and purchase distribution, we found that the overall average of 3D products in terms of purchase conversion effect and operational data is still a bit higher. This is caused by the influence of the data benchmarks around us.

Jishi: How do you see the differences between various mini-game platforms?

Li Ming: Starting from the WeChat mini-game platform, traffic apps such as Baidu, QQ, Toutiao, and Alipay, as well as mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo, more and more traffic entrances have joined the emerging field of mini-games, and More and more mature, more and more cruel.

In the process of providing technical services and distribution services, we found that since WeChat mini-games are usually everyone's first launch platform, it is easy to overlook the unique user attributes and traffic introduction characteristics of various platforms. Of course, there are also a large number of developers. They don’t even understand the differences between platforms.

Relatively speaking, the WeChat mini-game platform is the most mature platform in the current business ecosystem, and it is also the platform with the most comprehensive attributes such as user portraits. It also has rich traffic entrances, including public account traffic, mini-game matrix traffic, advertising traffic, fission traffic, and keywords. Traffic etc. Compared with other small game platforms, especially non-Tencent platforms, the most distinctive feature is that the relationship chain brings fission traffic.

Therefore, if the relationship chain attributes in the game are tightly bound, the data on other platforms may drop, and some may drop by more than half. At this time, you must understand and understand the characteristics of different platforms before you can make targeted adjustments.

For example, in the Byte mini game platform (Toutiao, Douyin), you need to be able to make short videos to attract traffic. Byte Mini Games has an API that can record game content as short videos and share them. Some products attract traffic through video streams. The free amount can exceed the imagination of many R&D developers;

However, for those who do not understand the rules or are not suitable for mini-games, if the recorded game video scenes are all the same or similar, ten thousand players will generate ten thousand duplicate videos, and this operation will waste a very good traffic opportunity. , because repeated short videos will be automatically filtered out.

In fact, not only will the video fission traffic be lost, but the exposure rate of such games will also be reduced. And creative teams that can produce a large number of videos with different contents through mini-games will have a better chance of survival and development of byte-based mini-games.

If a team uses the same operating ideas for Byte games and WeChat games, it means they do not understand the platform attributes and platform ecology.

Another example is that in Baidu, in addition to the centralized header entrance after the data reaches the standard, those who can enter the information flow to obtain traffic will even exceed the traffic of the centralized header; in addition, "Xiaodu Home" has very good active users, every day It can bring very considerable new additions, but the characteristics of the touch screen and the user groups of the elderly and children mean that it can only be a horizontal screen game, and the operation cannot be too complicated. If Taobao launches mini-games in the future, perhaps their ecology and e-commerce will be more closely related.

In short, different mini-game platforms have their own genes and attributes, which will differentiate different content tendencies. This requires careful understanding by developers to do better.

Jishi: People say that the small game industry is not easy to survive. What do you think?

Li Ming: In the 2020 WeChat open class, we saw this set of data: "The commercial scale of the WeChat mini game platform in 2019 increased by more than 35% compared with 2018, and it is expected that the growth rate will exceed 38% in the next two years; The number of models with registrations exceeding RMB 10 million increased to 194, and the number of models with monthly sales exceeding RMB 10 million increased to 43, with both growth rates approaching 30%.”

I think small games are still a blue ocean. Compared with the downturn of the overall game market, there are still more opportunities in the field of small games. But it is undeniable that after two years of development, the small game market has become more and more mature, the quality threshold is constantly rising, the risk cost of originality is very high, and there are fewer and fewer games that can be copied, and even if they are copied, they have to fight hard Speed ​​versus quality. Therefore, for various reasons, it is normal for everyone to feel that mini-games are difficult to play.

As an engine side, we must not only ensure the engine foundation for everyone to improve their competitiveness. It is also necessary to launch tools that reduce everyone’s R&D costs and creative costs as soon as possible. We hope that the future mini-game market will be a market for creative mini-games. And to this end, we have also introduced some support policies. For example, for small teams that create original games, our engine will significantly reduce the cost of technical services.

See the truth: What features will the new gaming tools have?

Li Ming: In the fiercely competitive small game circle, let’s first take a look at everyone’s pain points and needs. On the one hand, it is difficult to recruit excellent programmers, especially excellent 3D programmers.

If the requirements are lowered and programmers have insufficient R&D experience, it will not only be difficult to achieve game expressiveness, but also the R&D cycle may be continuously lengthened due to various bugs, performance optimization or technical research, and users will eventually be robbed by similar competing products. .

Therefore, when the competition threshold is getting higher and higher, technology costs have eliminated a number of companies.

Even with reliable technology, creative bottlenecks have emerged. If we think of a plan, spend a month or even months or more to make it, enter the market and find that it doesn't work, and then change the plan, the time and cost will be risk. Therefore, there are some developers who copy the products on the European and American lists. They cannot bear the risk of creative costs and have chosen a relatively safe approach. Although this is wrong, we can understand their difficulties.

Based on common pain points in the industry, our game creation tool Pro will continue to work hard on how to reduce programmer dependence, speed up game creation efficiency, and reduce original costs.

First, support game planners, artists, and even game enthusiasts without programming knowledge to create games.

Second, it provides a large number of ready-made models, art resources and even core gameplay templates, allowing developers to quickly create professional games in just a few days, just like building blocks.

Third, there are no performance or BUG issues that require experienced programs to be maintained. It can be developed by one person and maintained by one person.

Fourth, you can create professional 3D games, AR and VR games, and cloud games.

Jishi: What do you think of cloud games currently?

Li Ming: At present, when people talk about cloud games, they mainly refer to native cloud games, which are represented by video streaming technology. All calculations and rendering of the game are done on the cloud server. The client only decompresses and plays the video stream, and uploads the client's operation instructions. The game logic is calculated and rendered on the server, and then transmitted to the client in the form of a video stream.

This puts no hardware pressure on the client, so it can completely break through the hardware limitations and play movie-level masterpieces on low-end machines.

Some cloud game platforms and cloud server vendors have come to talk to us. Although the video cloud technology has been reserved, we have not made efforts in this area. The main reason is that we still do not understand that in this field of video cloud games, we can How much does it help developers?

Although 5G is coming, not to mention that it will take one or two years to be fully popularized. Even if it is popularized today, there is no hope of solving the problem of high traffic charges for video streaming. At least for now, there is no hope. This is something that can be popularized by the masses. Another reason is the computing power cost when the calculation and rendering of the game are transferred from the client to the server, as well as the higher bandwidth cost caused by video streaming, etc.

This is definitely an area with high barriers to entry for R&D and operations. If all costs are passed on to users and they pay based on online time, we have not yet figured out how big the market will be.

Therefore, it is difficult for us to convince the developers we want to attract to enter the field of video cloud games. But we still strongly agree with the direction of cloud gaming, including video cloud. Many current difficulties may be solved in the future, so the layout still needs to be done.

We are planning from two directions that are easier to implement. On the one hand, cloud games should be defined as "+ cloud" games. In other words, whether it is H5, a small game, or an APP, as long as it partially uses cloud computing capabilities, it can also be called a cloud game.

In this way, there is no need to separate a separate cloud gaming field, but to upgrade the technology in the existing game field. The games we develop are only when there are some performance shortcomings, or when the local computing performance is particularly cool and the performance is under pressure. Cloud computing capabilities are only used when the time comes, which means that some APIs use the cloud, not all of them.

For example, the current small game platform under iOS is limited by the fact that JIT is not open, resulting in performance bottlenecks such as CPU particles that are not used, and complex and intensive physical operations that are not used. If some limited capabilities are used while the cost is not increased much, but the effect can be guaranteed and performance improved, partial cloud use is actually easier to implement, and it is also where developers may generate demand in the future.

On the other hand, we are laying out from the tool level how to produce cloud games quickly and at a lower cost. This is what developers need in the future and what the industry needs.

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