What it takes to win in the Chinese app

market

Contents

China Mobile Gaming Market1

User Acquisition 2

User Retention3

User Monetization4

Summary5

500M+ Android phones in China, 2X the US smartphone market already!

One of the fastest growing mobile markets with a YoY growth of 200%

Over 200 third-party Android app stores driving 65M installs per day

$1.2 Billion Chinese mobile game market

China Mobile Gaming Market

Unlike in Western markets, tier 2 cities form a large section of Android users in China.

Tear 1 cities Tear 2 cities Tear 3 cities Tear 4 cities

For most of them, smartphones and more specifically games are one of the biggest sources of entertainment. But since data cost is so expensive

in China, they are very sensitive to the game size.

Android growth in China in 2013

China is highly biased towards mid-core games (RPG and Card trading)

What is working?

*Source : http://www.techinasia.com/china-now-has-270-million-active-android-users-q3-2013/

The number of players in the mobile app ecosystem is a lot higher in China than in the West

Distribution Payment Discovery

CHINA

WEST

Ecosystem is highly fragmented

User Acquisition

PvZ2 is a 214MB game on the Play Store, but on Wandoujia (a popular Chinese app store) it is a 36MB game!

Pro-tip: To maximize downloads, make sure the size of your game is not more than 50 MB.

Size of the game

Due to high mobile data rates in China and with nearly 80% of Chinese users connecting to the internet through mobile data, the size of the game is directly proportional to the

number of downloads.

Unlike in Google Play, for games monetizing through in-app-purchases, the App Stores in China offer promotions in exchange for revenue share.

Due to the presence of multiple app stores in China, it becomes important to pick and choose the right app stores to promote your game in.

App Store promotions

An expensive but necessary step to get scale in China is through App Store promotions

Social messaging platforms like WeChat and QQ are getting in to game distribution through their game centers!

Users can directly download the games from these platforms and this we predict will become a huge part of how games are distributed in this market.

Game centers in Social apps

To maximize acquisition, publish your game in the popular social game centers in China.

Please write the name of this game center in this text box in the same formatting (except for the red colour)

To achieve this, a close coordination with the app stores is required.

Piracy: From problem to solution

Update the users who have a pirated version of your game into your original Chinese version!

Pro-tip: Post publishing, often releasing the updates with new content will protect it from piracy.

User Retention

Localization

Subway Surfer (China) Subway surfer (New York)

Western games that have done well in China have ensured that the themes are adapted to Chinese culture

Temple Run cloneTemple Run 2 (USA)

The Great Wall theme is extremely popular

Localization

Top Endless runer game in west• Darker more realistic themes.

Top Endless runner game in China • Light and colourful themes.

Perspectives and colour schemes

West

China – Gunz Dash

China

Human characters Fantasy animated cartoons are the way to go!

Characters and In-game graphics

West

Challenging gameplay

Eg. Puzzle games restrict the number of moves in the west.

Simple, fast and engaging game play.

Eg. Puzzle games are time based in China. 60 seconds per turn is popular.

Gameplay and complexity

West China

Chinese gamers don’t care much about personal milestones, all they care about is how well are they doing compared to their friends. So leaderboards are really

important to engage users.

West China

Driving force

Progression map Stars Objectives

No one cares

Objectives

Driving force

Gunz Dash

Swipe in four directions +Tilt left & right! Slide and Jump. That’s it!

Temple Run 2

Most of the Chinese native games are fast and engaging . For a better gaming experience players prefer simple controls.

Game controls

Gunz Dash

Chinese games are known to offer daily bonuses and discounts to players to

encourage them to keep coming back!

Daily bonus

Monetization

Gunz Dash

Temple Run 2

Games in the west usually do not restrict the number of gameplays. In China it is acceptable to restrict the number of gameplays and use that to monetize users.

Infinite attempts. Restricted number of lives.

Monetizing gameplays

Jetpack Joyride

Single page store menuMulti-page store menuChinese players are known to monetize better when there is a single page

store menu!

In-game purchase store

Gunz Dash

Unlike in western games where the store is in a separate section, Chinese gamers are used to seeing it as a part of the gameplay.

Showing the right IAP at the right time also helps to monetize users better!

In-game purchase store

Gunz Dash

Western games have mixed currency tabs, Chinese gamers would prefer to have them neatly separated.

In-game purchase store

Temple Run 2 Gunz Dash

IAP Size

IAP prices must be calibrated to acceptable Chinese standards.

Entry Level IAP on Android should be 2 to 3 RMB ( $0.3 – $0.5)

This is also because the preferred mode of payment for in-game-purchases is through carrier billing, and people don’t like to spend large chunks of their mobile currency.

Pro-tips: 1) Don’t forget to add higher priced for the high paying Chinese users.2) Consider introducing a new virtual currency pack to accommodate a lower entry level IAP without impacting other monetization mechanics

What does all of this mean from an Ad network’s perspective

Scale

Ad Networks which have the capacity to deliver not millions but 10’s of millions of users will win in China

Channel Agnosticity

Ad Networks which blur the line between regular publishers and distribution channels like app stores and social platforms will win

User segmentation

Ad Networks which have a deep understanding of Chinese user behavior will win.

This can only happen by using big data to segment all users, including users from app stores will win

Pricing models

Rev Shares and CPIs are just pricing models, and ad networks will have to evolve to play in the rev share world that China breathes

Localization

Ad networks which do not assume that the apps are perfectly built and ready for China will win.

Localization

Ad networks which do not assume that the apps are perfectly built and ready for China will win.

Localization is fundamental to retention and ad networks must evolve to play in that game.