💰 Mini-Games = Mega Revenue: Inside China’s gaming revolution

So the crash mini game is actually I think still at an early stage compared with going in 2023.
What am I watching?
What are you looking at?
Is this a UA creative or what is it?
It's something probably accurate. It's it's a one of the hottest memes show.
Yeah, that's the Italian brain ro one.
Yeah. And a lot of people they made this video into the mini game and we're rolling the dice with those coins worlds chasing the sky with the two and a half gamers the midnight crew talking UA advers and game design too feeling shing the insight we're rocking those vibes till the early daylight master eyes on the prize tracking data through the cyerspace skies feeling stacks colors like a wizard in disguise jacks Lift us to the highest. Two and a half gamers talking smack. Slow hockey stick. Got your back. Ads are beautiful.

They like the way. Click it fast. Don't delay. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Hello everybody. Hello. Hello. Hello. Two and a half gamers. Another special episode. We only have special episodes so far. So, we continue with this. So my name is Mata Lancher.
I'm Felix Brober.
We are your hosts and we have a special guest. Hello. Can you introduce yourself?
This is Chen from Kokus. I had been a developer for more than 10 years and also a publisher for about 5 years now. I'm doing ecosystem operation in Kokos.
Nice. Well, and today we're going to talk about mini games in China because this topic is full of insights and this is exactly what we're going to dive into today. So, buckle up. It's going to be very interesting. I can't wait.
Okay, let's begin. So, first let's let's

me introducing something about the Kokus. So, Kokos currently is the largest crossplatform and opensource 3D engine in China. Currently we have probably like 1.7 million uh developer using the cookus probably 40 percentage of them outside China uh most from the United States and Canada some from the Indian and European countries. So our device coverage has been more than 2 m 2.1 billion and about uh 54%age of the mini game in China are made with Koko's creator and also about 20%age of the Android game are using cocoos as well.
That 20% Android means Android games in China or Android overall.
Oh hello hello hello there. I didn't see you. Thank you very much for coming to this episode. Uh, it's brought to you by our sponsors, PVX Partners, the simplest and most effective credit line for

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most like like worldwidely because I count the cocox as well. So you can say there's a lot of classic games like the legend of the mushroom the top world war also the street fighter the king of fighter uh the clash of kings like all of those game are made with treasure sheep of sheep
of course
yeah the sheep shape

the most well known the casual game yeah so first I'll introducing the marketing chains for the mini game in China we have seen the mini game indust industry in China has reached about $5.6 billion US in 2024. So it has a potential to break through 6.5 billion US in 2025. So in this industry because have contribute more than 55%age of the mini game to this industry in China.
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Uh we can also say due to the decline of the world economy all the global mobile games actually is declining this year and also affect the China mobile game. China China miniame is growing really rapidly from 2021 to 2022 and also there's a there's a big step from 0.7 billion US to2.8 billion US I'll

introducing in this page. So there are two reasons why China miniame is growing so rapidly from 2022 to 2023. The first reason is because of the IP. So we can say most of the revenue actually from the IP instant of IIA the IIA in 2022 is about uh 60 about six uh 61.2%age of all the revenue but it's declining to only 31.3%age. So which means most of the revenue is actually from IP instead of the IIA and so the IIA reprint many opportunities in future because it doesn't require an ISBN and another thing I think for this year the ECPM or the revenue from the IIA is growing really fast because we

see a little signal the economy is getting better in 2024. So if the ECPM is getting better, if there are more advisor, the IIA will take more share in the future.
Yeah. Just just a little bit wait there like just so we understand because some people don't not familiar with this. So games that are running only on ads without inner purchases don't require pretty much government approval. That's the ISBN number. So you can release them freely and don't need to wait. Yep. And and there's still like a big uh big problem for current games to be released if you they have enough purchases.
Yeah. So there are two different ISBN. So the first one is for the casual game. Currently for the casual game ISBN usually like uh the time for the delivery is roughly about five months. But if it's hardcore game something like a APG or the SRG the 4X game it usually takes more than one year for the hardcore game. But for the casual game
get approval. Oh okay. Yeah, there's two

different camps, different types of
guarantee that you will get an approval, right?
Yes.
Yeah. If it's come if it the game from outside China the average time maybe one and a half year for the overse it's already I'll say the wai mini game probably the biggest fish in the market then followed by the doing the OEM the manufacturer mini game style then followed by the alipe the quao and the muan and then the others so why China miniame really huge since China is has like 1.4 billion population. So which include nearly 600 million monthly IK miniame users. So that is really huge. So it's creating amazing single market opportunity. For example, like doin and alip pay may have probably about the uh

each of them probably have like a 800 to 900 million meu for each application. So the ma is actually bigger than the population of some small countries. Just for people to know, doin is the Chinese version of Tik Tok.
Doing is a Chinese version Tik Tok and unlike like many regions, China's Android ecosystem like the Google Play phase. So allowing the developer to keep the hagger revenue from the super application and on another thing we have the probably the world leading mobile payment system like the WeChat pay the Alip pay. It also drives strong user spending and simly monetization which means you don't have to use the Apple Pay. You don't have to use the sorry you probably you need to use the iOS pay since they have the agreement with iOS. You still currently for the doin and for Ali Pay and for WCHI like for most of the game you still have to pay the Apple Pay but for Android totally like uh no

Google play fee at the moment.
It's pretty much like all IP purchases are direct to consumer. You mean
yeah not really it's depending on the game do depending on two condition it's IP or IA if you buy the traffic from the uh from application if you buy the traffic from application you can get more probably like percentage of the revenue from the application on the on the consumer side. So it's little bit complicated. So it's roughly like 50 to 50. You get a 50 percentage of revenue from the super application or the manufacturer. Yeah.
So so if I if I let's say if I pay like $100 in white out survival on WeChat century games get 50%.
Yeah.
But if you buy but if you a user from the traffic you buy probably you get a 70 or more. So this is some data from

Kokos. We can see like in China in China more developer actually they building the mini game like it's more than the combination of the Android plus the iOS and uh we can see the mini game currently represented like more than half our build distribution in this data is from August and September. So it's demonstrating like significant market validation like more people they they are building the mini game. So that's probably why they don't want to publish their games in like outside China especially for the mini game because that t of the super education like Alan and in this year there uh there will be a super education like decide they will go for the mini game market like every quarter like for example like uh we get the Migu game and we also have a lot of rumors and more and more privation they

will open their mid game centers in this year. So this is uh something different like uh between China and global. So first for the traffic most of the traffic in China actually from the social application and the a stall we can see this is OEM a stall from Huawei and also the longtail traffic. But outside China actually most of the traffic is from the longtail traffic. So this is OEM style like in Europe we can say a small mini game icon is probably something like Pokey or C game and for the monetization as I introducing before probably almost 70%age of the revenue is from IP and right from IA but for the global market I think more than 90%age of the revenue is from the IA for the PLO they using a technique we call the runtime it's a SDK to load the miniame to run with the hacker performance and with the hacker security levels but for

the global I think most of the platform is using H5 which is web for the content I think most of the Chinese I'll say it should be SLG MMO or idol game but for the global most of the games are casual or hyper casual for the developer I think most of the game that may really makes money are made by the major company but for the global most are the indie or the small teams
back there one one slide. So if you say global what what do you mean as for like which store like how how should I define that the difference between global and China?
I prefer probably the pokey the create a game the yandex store also the game distribution.
So like other other mini games outside of China yeah problem hyper casual versus the actual forex and like the heavy heavyweight
game Facebook instant game.
Yeah. So this so this something a little

bit different about the technique. So the mini game runtime is actually SDK. So it providing a sandbox for the script and another window for the rendering. It could providing something like for the hacker performance and the high coverage and also the low cost. So what's the most important Chinese super application they using the runtime is about the controlability. They using the runtime to control the payment to avoid the mini game. Sometimes in the the web view they may cut the payment, they may cut the ads, they may replay the payment with their own, they may replay the attachment with their own ID. So that's one of the biggest reason. Another another big reason is they cooperating with with Kokos and they cooperating with Unity. So they providing some like engine features in the runtime as well providing a much higher performance and uh this is uh some of the major

platforms in China and global. The first talking about the OEM the manufacturer. The first one is a Huawei. They have two style. The first one is for their Android style the Huawei Android phone. Another one is for the Harmony OS their newest operating system. So it's growing really rapidly. So followed by the OPPO and the way wall mini game stall then followed by the MI and the owner. It's a new OEM stall last year and then followed by the social application. I want to mention something about the Q. Do we know the QQ actually closed their own miniame in May this year? So all the QQ mini game are replaced with a wai mini game. So the tensen just maintain one ecosystem this year. There's no more Q. followed by the doin the topo tob is a shopping the biggest shopping application in China then the alip pay the mtoan it's a lifestyle application by the qu show which is a Chinese

version of the kawaii uh then we have the migu last year migu is the application from the China tycom so it's the biggest telecom company company in China but for the global applications we also to say like index has have their own application with like a millions of user already then followed by Tik Tok. We all had a rumor that Tik Tok will have their miniame center soon probably by the the end of this year and disc followed by the YouTube. I think this should be the probably be the Google mini game since Google already has their mini game in Google Play already but there are no monetization yet. Then followed by the telegram tagram is a mix of the web three and web two by the yandex also by the ky game.
Yeah for the hy website I introduced before we have the pokey the create the game and game distribution followed by

the game snacks. So we can see like outside China all the global application and although all the h5 website they are using the web wheel instead of the runtime. So probably for two reasons. First they need to share the revenue with Google and with the iOS. So they need to let the manufacturer know what exactly happened inside their application. So web wheel will will be clear to the manufacturer. If you're using a sandbox, they don't know what script you're using like inside the sandbox. So it's dangerous for Google Play and the iOS. If you're using the sandbox for iOS, you probably you couldn't get your application at least in ice. It's very high. By the way, can you can you just roughly say if you go to China like the main stores there like was the percentage share of the market like which which one is just like you were there already like I mean like in the
uh I like to say the biggest probably

80%age of the revenue is from the WCHI followed by the doing which is Tik Tok China then followed by the Alip pay and the quai show which is Kawaii China then probably by the muan It's a lifestyle application. Then probably and migu star.
So which which is 80% still
the wai the largest 80
y okay
80%age then followed by the doing and OEM stores
and uh which of these UA networks are the largest in China like where do you buy the users?
Uh it's quite complicated. It's it's quite interest
I think for the UA probably 60%age from the WHI which is Tensson AB system arise from the ocean the ocean engine the ocean engine is owned by doing which means actually you can buy the wai mini game traffic from doing system as well but the doin they gave a lot benefit for

their traffic loop if you're buying the traffic from ocean engine to go in mini game you get more benefit. So they for last year like most of the ocean engine traffic UA for miniame is actually leading to we try but for for this year I think more hager and hagger percentage is uh in the doing systems loop they don't want the UA outside the doing system
interesting
introducing later in the doing section
okay go ahead so I'll talking about the ecosystem chain so first I'll talking about the IP. So these are two leader ball. So the first one is for the IP game. The second one is for the IA game. It's quite interesting. We can say like most of the revenue is from the AP. And in this year I like to say more than 70%age of revenue comes from the IP. And we also have a data that shows which

mini game has the largest developer or the user base right now. And uh on the other hand probably most developer they only publish IIA games only. So which indicates two things. So most of the developer they only build IIA but most of the revenue is actually from the IP. That makes sense. And another thing is like u the miniame IP revenue is actually into the A game income. So which means the mini game revenue in the IP is go glowing really will glowing slowly in the next five years because it's already reach the limit. It ate most of the consumer cost on IP from the AP game. So that's why it's really growing so rapidly this two years because we try providing a really good ecosystem for the users and developer for the top game which I heard the

retention is almost as same as the APB game in the way chart.
So so can we go back there once again? So I so I understand.
So this is about the old testament and also the game play from the three kingdoms.
Mhm. So I'll say the most represented game probably the ice wars three kingdom has been one of this year's longest longest running top grossing mini game. So beyond beyond the end this winter I'll say the probably the why night like in the uh like titles are entering the wise revenue charts and many game are either clown war game play later or the SRG like since SRG is often deliver the highest long-term RT way
there are a lot of games they add I thinking the clam war they're adding the SRG player either the very end of the game to improve the long RT way for their games.

Yeah. So this is still forex where river game is competing with century games. Yep.
So give me a second. So I'll talk about the Tik Tok. So Tik Tok revenue is really surging this year because most of the revenue comes from the IP now. It's for two reasons. So first we are focusing in the IP game giving the more placement and more entry port for the mini game and the IPS adding the co the coding stats and the retention because for the last year the retention for the IP is really bite in the Tik Tok which sorry in the doin probably only 50%age of the WeChatai retention compared with the WeChatai and Another way as I mentioned before they improve the buy AD system which is the ocean engine they give the better optimation they give the better like IP support and ad payouts for the IP game. So we can say that most

of the games in the top 50 revenue chai on the doin or cli with we try.
So there's another thing doing also have the QR rewarding task.
So it's a key part of the doin traffic system. We all know like doin or the tik tok China is actually the largest show radio application. It's one k is our QR rewarding cost. So for one of our the sorry the billboard clients a top performing video could drive the bias play and the conversions can earn probably like probably 1700 rewards for one video. So the video roughly get like uh 17,000 likes uh roughly about 170 wheels. So by the end of the 2024 doin have integrated the publisher program into the ocean engine as well.

So the Alip pay so this is some screenshots of the video from the legend of mushroom. I can say the payment is really seamless by using the Alip payment system. So they got the same list Alip pay integration. They have the instant Alip payment system. I think it's probably the fastest payment error for the mini game. Less than five seconds from the pay to getting the reward in the game. Another one, they also have their own IIA advantage. They have the top off extensive the e-commerce eye and another thing they just hear a lot of stuff from the WCI and the tensen system. So they copy the exactly top game from the WCHI. So they just featuring all the top game on the WCHI. You can see they got the the game from the 37 game. They got the top word and the SRG looks exactly like the WCHI

mini game later. So they also have something like a little different from the WCI. So the Alip pay mini game link the casual play to payments and the shopping play their own system. So the player they can earn from the game play and task and redeem the point into the coupon across the alip pay or the top system. So the alip pay creating a reward to purchase loop that increase the retention and also the transaction while generating data for their targeted promotion. So for example for example if I play the game for three levels I got something like 30 cons. If I finish five game play, I got 30 cons. I can redeem the cons for some coupons. So I'll talk about the OEM miniame girls. So OEM will be different. So this is Top War China. We can see you can instant access from icons and also they providing like more

entries like integrate with their system or the OS features. They integrate in at the hard hardware level. which enhance the performance and reduce the overheating. Another thing the gaming more entries. So this is uh this is a OS entry like browser search the game center the same events the desktop icons also the cast and global search. Should you can find the mini game everywhere in the operating system and another thing which I heard from the OEM the gaming like more feature something like the floating window for the idle game. You can idle idleing a game will watch while surfing the show videos and probably more age AI features in the future. You can use the AJ future for example from the media tag or the Snapdragon chips using the RM the large language model or

the image generation from the system feature or the chip features in the future. So Crash is quite interest I think still at an early stage compared with go in 2023.
What am I watching?
What am I looking at? Is this a UA creative or what is it?
It's something probably accurate. It's It's a one of the hottest memes
show.
Yeah, that's the Italian brain wrote one.
Yeah. And a lot of people they made this video into the mini game.
Wow.
They made something like a runner game and like a lot casual game. Amazing amazing
based on this video and we can see a lot large portion of their user is actually from probably third or the first tier of the cities. So the rustic memes are very popular and another thing I think the operation are quite looser and there are

many kids mini game since we can see the letter ball. There are a lot similar games on the letter girl ball. Uh so they say something you can say I made from this video. It's a AI made Chinese like mistake based meme and that's okay.
It's quite it's quite awkward for me too. But on the other hand Crasher has more like male users probably more than 60 percentage of the users are male users. So it's making it's a really good option for the mid call IIA and the retro IP sorry it should be the AP for it's really good for the IPUa. So uh I'll talking something about Muan Mitan is the largest Chinese lifestyle a including the food delivery travel and all the local service you can find. So they say the uh user center you can find

the all the mini game is actually integrated into the user center. There are three kingdom there are I like to say like a lot top game from WCI. So the mini games uh actually collect with mines rewarding system. The user can earn and spend the cons on the food delivery on the local system. They can make on the corn by playing the game and there are a lot of mini game actually they have the something like the f the f mini game. They can earn the real food from the f from the casual food game. So the many mine users are the regular player for the lifestyle service. So which lowering the barrier for the in-game purchase. So the IP revenue has grown really quickly since there are no barrier for the purchase ser payment they need to spend the money every day for all the service since all the service are now free in the application

so they feel they to pay in the IP
and how much does mates one charge from IPS is it 50% 30%
yeah still 50/50 but they get a lot rewarding for the UA if you get the UA from their UA probably you get more like percentage.
Do they publish that or like is it just Yeah. Is it secret? So if you spend like more than X then you get
Yeah, they Yeah, they will give you like a bonus depending on the amount of the money.
Do I get it that basically a giant offer wall then like you get stuff back and everything?
Sounds like it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it it it should be a similar thing. If you probably if you buy more UA, if you top off more UA, you get something like like bonus reward probably like three to five percentage depending on the amount of money you buy for the UA.
Okay, amazing.
So there are some like mini games guide in China. I'll uh just like category

probably like four types of game. So first for the super casual game, I like to say it's not good for the Chinese me game, it's need very high memes. So you can't say the memes in China is quite different from the memes in Tik Tok or the Facebook or the instant Instagram. You need also need a lot organization and content swipe for this kind of game. So for the runner game or for the Stigma SL game, you need to change not only the memes but also the game content. And but we also have very restrict package size. So the recommendation IIA package size should be smaller than 30 megabytes. So the IA for the super cashio I would say it's possible the low margin low margins and really high risk. So what I liking is like the this is like a Nate's master and also the catch goose is um uh which is 3D

uh which is which is 3D casual game in China. These kinds of game are really scale this year. It can scale where the IA without being but still require with a lot of miz levels. I like to say the top three needs game in WeChat probably has more than 1,000 levels already. You also need a lot like culture localization and the smooth performance and also the monetation for the AD as well. So this is like uh this game like the bomb bomb survivor I think I think it should be the name. Another one is legend of the mushroom. So both two game are really have really good revenue both in China and outside China. So I like say TD the tower defense or idle game are good f loops and also it's good for the mix monilization including probably 70 from

the IP the right from IA but there are a lot of challenges for the performance for example for the bound sur you need to optimize for the low tier mobile phone probably iPhone 7 or the iPhone 8 you need to dealing with probably how to how to allow the user mobile phone to run with 60 FPS with thousand of the bullets how the monster is still a lot of work
and the last thing is for the four I the SRG or the RPG I don't really recommend it for the global market to try it need a lot localization without the OP cost and also need you really need to find a top local publisher to get you IBN pro otherwise price a trail and arrow cost are really boring like you said.
So basically if you're not a Chinese forex company don't even try.
Yeah I recommend

uh you know this year I went to Shanghai there's a lot rumor to say the foreign company that uh they have the developers have the uh staff in China they can get the trainment as a Chinese company for the SBN. I asked few officer say this policy are not guaranteed yet. So there's no guarantee for the ISBN policy in Shanghai yet. But there's a rumor error where a lot of foreign like you have asked me could I guide the ISBN trainment like same as a Chinese company if I open a company in Shanghai. I say not yet probably next year or the year of next year.
Okay. So it doesn't matter if you're big ch big western company opening a local shop in China you still don't get the I in two years
it's still something like quite tricky you just don't like people know you are a foreign company
of course okay

but it's quite tricky and risky if you game got reported you may lost of the revenue from the platform and also lost the IBN you buy from other Chinese company. Yeah, thanks for sharing a lot like been very very insightful.
Uh if if you can if you can just say like where people can reach you or like if if they're looking for you like how how can they contact you or like what would be the best way to get in touch with you?
Okay. Uh people can find my information from the website the newai. So this is my way account. There's also my email in this website as well.
You can find my you can also get my I also write my emails. So this is my personal emails.
Yeah, we add the links to the show notes.
Yeah, perfect.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Feel free. I will write stories most about how to fair the developers with your agent.
Okay. Um any any other words, mate?

All good. All good. All good. Thank you very much for listening, guys. And also thanks for for coming on the podcast. Please uh if you like the episode, comment in the comment section. Join the Slack channel and I hopefully see you next time. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Byebye.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. [Music]