Opportunities in China's hyper-casual market

this is a chance to get interactive so there's going to be drinks up this don'twe drinks coming in if you've got last questions if you ask questions the panel there will be prizes and these are these are serious prices within there there's a solid gold bar worth about that and I've done it there is actually but um anyway so we discover that we're going to round things off with a chance to get a bit more interactive so first of all I'd like you've all got mics oh you should have I just give you guys I mean Michael you've already spoken has everybody spoken I didn't think it was so have we spoken to Michael and Alison so if we could if the other two panelists introduce themselves very briefly and talk about your experts very brief from the Chinese market yes hello so my name is summer young and I'm working at odd v7 and I was actually relocated to Beijing for three years because you know we were setting up our business in China and now I'm back in

the UK yeah so I'm Oscar I'm the last minute Colin I used to be globally for games fashion one power back in the day of Java games I also work for papaya mobile in Beijing for a while but I'm better known for standing on stage just deal me your events talking about everything to do with the games industry that never you never dare to ask fantastic okay cool all right we've got a question for you that we do we have a last minute changed but these things happen we go roll with it so it's fine you can tell us all about you can aim at this place so I'm just got a few kind of set questions and I'll open up for discussion I'm on I'm like come on you can hear me I'm very quiet otherwise you wouldn't catch me so I'm gonna start with with Michael with me tag Wallace I so you're obviously a good presentation earlier I don't want to kind of go too much ground but what would you say is that the core strategy for you for acquiring a cool cool strategy of acquiring Chinese users I think there are two key factors and the first one is

creative the second one this channel the four critic you need to there are two things that is important just as standout just sad talking about the first one is about looks like they and the other one is playable for localization you need to optimize you creative including images videos and all kinds of creative to use the kana the Chinese Dale factors such as Chinese music Chinese background and the folder trend in Chinese market and also do that in your video creative and also you need to try some play ball and some somebody may think making a play ball has is very expensive yeah I mean is much more expensive than video but actually it's not because for playable as it is easier

and cheaper cheaper to do the a B test you can easily to change some factor and change the color changes style in playable ass to figure out the most proper play we'll add for yourself that is crib and for channel you need to know exactly the top media in Chinese area and also the network what is the advantage and disadvantage of is just what I said this is the two key factor and you need to combine this two two key factor together and from your requirement and you will get the best answer from them so it's quite a lot there then so basically it talk to me integral oh no it's good so I'm going to come sir to outfit seven because you have a chance to speak yes so so when you release your first title in China what do you feel were the best biggest kind of obstacles you were kind of facing I was he talking tom tiles massive internationally my son loves

them that's very exciting but but was the first big obstacle from coming to China I would say understanding and communication so I'm not just referring to the language barrier but also the cultural differences the different legal systems and just understand your the market actually yeah so we officially launched our first app on 360 in China back in 2014 as you know there are many third-party app stores in China and it could be worth challenging to launch the apps and back then you know the Chinese app market was actually you were more fragmented that it is now right but we found that actually the App Store themselves was really cooperative so they wanted to work with us and we wanted to work with them yeah so well other mobile gaming companies were sort of using publishers to distribute their games in China we put direct relationships with app stores okay

you see China is one of the most important market for us so it was our priority to build a more in-depth understanding of the market and our strategy was to distribute on the top app stores one by one and once we successfully launched the first app we quickly launched on many other app stores such as you know Baidu ten cents Xiaomi and more but you know the ranking back then is very different from it is now because the market changed very quickly yeah so over the years you know we have gained a lot of knowledge like really in-depth knowledge of the market but the spice of the despitefully success we have achieved there were a lot of misunderstandings along the way as well okay so just give you a small example well we had really appreciated that we were given a lot of opportunities to have our games promoted on the App

Store's we were often given very short notice to deliver the promotional materials you probably know this yeah and you know so back then we were not used to it and then gradually we sort of built up a more efficient workflow yeah and now we have the capacity to react very quickly Bobby Slade back then it was quite difficult so you working with I'm going off-piste already are you working with how many of the Android app stores of the app stores are you working with because obviously there's like hundreds right I'm not all big at all different guy so how much do you work with everybody or is it you work with like a select few that are your kind of chosen partners well back then you know as I said we have to launch one by one we call sort of like starting the top-ranking you know so we all cover the top one at the time was like you know face extensions Xiaomi yeah and more but no you know the drug has changed especially in the recent years

you know the operators now is like we will will part you know Havana songs they become a really baked and you know but for us we have the situation that you know we we were acquired by a chase group yeah and then you know they were working as a publisher so we not only distributing on the main stores we're also distributing on what we call the long tail doors as well okay yeah so I'm gonna go to Michael the unrelated to this because it's kind of late because you talked a little bit when you gave your advice earlier about the Android mark is too complicated so would you stand by that that obviously you know out for seven huge install base already maybe the a different scale to certain other publishers do you think the most Western companies the Android Market is just in China too complicated or how would you you know what's it what's it what's it look like at the moment yeah in China we don't have wouldn't have the

market or wooden how Google right and I don't know how Google have market we have many channels and also we have many mobile game manufacturer that can show the the main channel and also some top meteor yeah for user acquisition I think most of the user evolution generated from the top top channels yeah and but you can get a little money from the advertising and because you know you own you can only use the SDK provided by the channel unless accept the package you upload it on your website your own website you can't use any SDK but if you use one channel such as you use show me market you can only use young SDK to to do the ad monetization right yeah the CPM is so low it's just I say this Swan thief's maybe one one thief's

100 and six after that thing is there's a lot of SDKs everyone wants to do yeah it's quite complicated yeah um Allison I come to you obviously from a publishing perspective do you think it's it's kind of essential to work with local partners that's where buddy says that you have to work the local partner I mean I know some people are publishing direct through you know iOS on their own without doing that but do you think it's essential to have a local partner yeah yeah sure I'm Celeste that when I again feel free to embellish on that remark if I get chair can I feeling a little bit I don't like tearing over people yeah it's just incredibly hard to go to China without people who are familiar with the market like you were saying people who can walk to an office to figure out what's going on with your game that you've submitted for approval things like that you know it's a it's a complicated place I think time zone just yeah communication alone is it's really difficult as well so you guys it's very

helpful to have the local expertise I'm I'm getting the child expression going on traditionally that it's been quite difficult for a lot of Western content to transfer into the these market mostly because of audience exception so acceptance rather than just from the basis of good I'm obviously I'm looking more at the Western market of the Eastern Market but when I look at partners in teams I've worked with in the past it's often been a lot easier for Asian companies to come to the west particular with certain themes of gameplay but a lot harder particular and the sophistication of depth of gameplay and I'm wondering whether maybe this is why the hyper casual market is so interesting now because we're having to focus on simplicity is that making it

transfer better cheaper you definitely and it definitely transfers better because it's a such a broad appeal and yeah in terms of taking your games over there you know hyper casual game again you you've only put a little bit of development into them right and so then dealing with all of this stuff on top to get your game over there's pretty daunting and then you know the the west to east movement also I think for more midcourt and hardcore games then you're really you're competing against local developers making games that are what I was going to ask is there any because obviously there's there's you know the Chinese games much pretty huge there's a lot of companies every time I go to China joy I'll discover a new company about 20,000 stars I've never heard of the year before so what are the advantages for kind of Western companies in coming to China do we have any native advantages is it kind of is there anything especially in a hyper casual space that you know because it comes like Buddha doing very welcome quali and

seventies anything that yeah I think we shall we do find kind of a from our perspective looking for Western games that can go over there we do find a lot of games being made that are creative that our fun that really have that that spice that they need with hyper casual that can then be easily moved over within the local market we also have business development happening there as well and we just don't find the same type of development happening because they've been so core and mid folk mid core from yes there's been a lot of like Three Kingdoms obvi I mean if you want an RPG that's um I was I saw an interesting survey with presentation million Helsinki this they're saying about how X 60 something percent that the market is all RPGs and they just so if you've got an RPG probably probably a quite competitive markets comes China don't not three kingdoms I mean with me I'm just speakers Gareth at total war three kingdoms apparently yeah that shows that

there is this compelling Daman oh and particularly that I think the Western market brings and again forgive me if I'm wrong but I think we have a certain sense of creativity and kind of finesse and I think particularly with you know Tim's diagram and you mentioned quality and Co they've perfected this I think more than just that it's a simple game they've perfected the hypothesis based design process I think you know something we've kind of really were that you work out what is the core movement action interaction and in a mechanic and test that and test that openly fast and find what works and I think that process applied to artistic creativity it's something we've I think we've done particularly well in the in the West is that is that fair you're talking with finally take over nice um okay so I've got few more questions I'll talk about but this is an opportunity to earn prizes just about album so second

we've got a question for Integra Lovejoy pack right fit seven or Oscar or me where do I get my church from liking that I can tell you that has anybody got a question they didn't get a chance to answer this question there can we get the mic can someone help me do you have any spare mics thank you very much awesome oh and a gift give don't give me the gift is ask question I mean okay thank you so much for the gift of a really interesting talk I really like that you'd really like data-driven like oh here are numbers so I'm wondering so say like hyper casual is a reaction towards like older more hardcore games what do you see coming after hyper casual will we see a hyper hyper casual or are we going more towards ordinary or work or games the next trick okay what we're seeing happen in the West with

hyper casual could very likely happen in China as well which is more engagement mechanics and this yeah a little more deepness to them we've definitely seen that coming about for for games as well so it's it's a little bit circular then I don't think we're gonna keep going down the line in any way but who knows okay I don't add to that because then one of the things that we're saying is a mistake to make is to try and turn a hyper cacher game into a casual game that can completely backfire but I think some of the things we were learning back in my unity days we were doing some X with creating that kind of hypothesis based test around the context look of a game and that's a different way of looking in it so the use of kind of asynchronous multiplayer use of kind of the golf clash style tournament systems that can be applied where hyper casual game has small soft variables like time and score they can be repower in fact some of the kind of quality boudu type

games do have this really good memo moment in play where you see you've done this great thing but you're third amongst your friends there's an immediate simplicity to that that's very powerful and I think we'll see more of that okay anybody else have things out in that notes pointer it was not a question it was always at least raising hands there we go see the prize now he's excited this is a question on the first presentation you referenced an acronym of which I was not familiar OCP C or something maybe I'm sorry can you tell me what that is and what it means in China okay eighteen in Chinese okay oh really yeah Oh CPC I killer example I'll kill you you have tighter and you pay for advertising and maybe per click at one

dollar per click and if the traffic is very good for you the platform bill maybe upper the price or for two dollars a click maybe the traffic is not super proper for you maybe they lower the price maybe 50 cent or just like that it's not fixed it's kind of fixed the price yeah then I make worse for prevent click most of the most of the biggest for me in Chinese market they are doing that adapting the ocbs OCBC strategy yeah they have their they have their own aimo reason is a kind of the mo loop and they can calculate how much you need to pay for that Creek yeah all right cool

I know you've got a question question over there you've been in already you will get chance don't worry I'm not against you there's a lady in the corner there she's hello hello and competitor data in China are you looking at it because obviously Google is not in China and you've got so many different stores and are you looking at it and how Wow how do you look at competitors data are you looking at all the different stores performance and how are you comparing that yes nope the performance is a different app source yeah are we evaluating the Android stores in terms of our performance of our games yeah benchmarking I think against competitors and good time you forget it

oh base the question was are we are are you evaluating all the stores are you kind of comparing I guess you are your channels of so a lot of data available to compare the stores yeah yeah and your question about whether there's that date is available somewhere or is your question is like a nap anytime things are you thinking yeah like a pony but in China this already it's a China company is from China obviously but still it's a you know like a penny in China doesn't really exist you know what I mean and I think either way even you might be game inserting data but you know that data like how much that is reliable it's also a question you know but you need to sort of say you know like you know very like how much revenue do you see from different stores and you would get certain ideas yeah so I think the

answer is probably it's not quite as transparent as you're hoping for and any particularly bad performing stores you'd like to add or no okay fine fair enough okay it was a question here this gentleman stood up at the back his player sees okay question hey how are you so my name is Omri i have a question about you said earlier Allison said something about you know you you don't mind bombarding the users with a lot of ads right so what is your take on the ads quality how they continue are you concerned about it or maybe they're today anyway other of the panel members can answer that and also when it comes to the users privacy how imported it is in China they don't have the same privacy laws and regulations that are happening over here in terms of gdpr and all of that if that's what you're asking around the the quality of the ads being

shown it works similarly and that we work with the ad partners to like whitelist and blacklist so we can determine what's being shown in our in our game and we can kind of control the quality if you will based on that so basically you are dependent on the SDKs that you're working with and then networks right okay and is it working for you I don't have any stories that where it's not yeah but there's always the case that as a designer you can decide where you're going to put those moments of that and I think you know working out the particularly for hyper cacher because they're so simple if you've got the right level of kind of unfinished business between each play then your placement in terms of the relief part of the player experience it's critical to making sure that you optimize the ad but you don't have the same kind of friction that you would have in a in a deep rich game because people just get frustrated and leave when those but with other casual you wait for the next thing you wait for the

next thing yeah so it doesn't have the same kind of lack of tolerance okay Oh John John's got a question hey is to be good to be good yes it doesn't need a gift isn't here to give ya thank you I just wanted to answer panel what's the biggest misconception of the Chinese market that you regularly hear for me it's that they're different actually that I get it with maybe more cores on res that you need to be aware of cultural norms and themes but you know for me gameplay is very universal and everybody plays games for the same type of experience and so that the audience is widely different is something that I hear a lot about and I don't think that's necessarily the case for a game play I think people have a core of

reasons that for for why they're doing that I think that's exactly what I wanted to say but I think quite often I hear oh my game will never work in China for that very reason and and then you particularly around the west and versus Eastern type of content while the reasons also say anything earlier is that although I think it's harder for Western games to come to China my impression is that it's not to do with the content it's to do with the business processes yeah right maybe I'll something ok Clinton question still ah I'm kind of a first name ServiceNow at this point so thanks Chris Michael mentioned earlier about using to tracking solutions for for running campaigns in China so my question was about primarily why's that so and why do we need you and rebel trackers where one is global and one is local do they run

different attribution models and do they do they have different metrics which some networks collect like you said and also which data does the network rely on in order to make that tribution Thanks okay okay sorry just to mention the reason for you to use to track and choose is that the first thing you need to use a global one adjust about changing and then if you want to enter in Chinese market for some for some Chinese channel they do not know the exactly the the detail number in that channel so you can't not figure out there that the real what what is having that channel and Chinese local tracking tools they know everything about China basically global Charles the global tools that aren't very effective in certain Chinese channels yes but the actual data they're color correcting is the same same same same same dynamic a

matrix or same Agra reason it's nearly the same yeah about the data the report is near busy okay cool but does that mean necessarily that that they actually make a decision whether this network deserves to have the install claimed to itself or or not if that data differs how do they settle this conflict no the the total base is similar but they do not know the the sum of the channel the detailed data in some of the channel the total is assumed inner yeah okay I think sounds like a bigger conversation you have to close yeah we'll talk about it there's a good one okay all right you just put in the Hat Thomas thank you sorry I probably do know that I'm sorry Thomas from flying chief studios we heard a lot about the Android and iOS stores tonight I'd like to ask you love to hear your opinion about WeChat as a gaming platform

opposed to the native stores what your opinion is on that well we use WeChat but we chat because reach has part of tension basically you know and things may have changed in our butts basically if you cooperate raise tensions normally you can only do exclusivity so that means like you can't actually distribute on other channels I mean it could be beneficial to distributing on which head but you have to evaluate you know for you what do you want do you want really to give your games a exclusivity for a particular channel or do you know maybe it's better for by the distribution so basically I'd have to choose between WeChat and all the other stores so you know it's the person may works for you may not so I think specs are that you sort of you know investigating a bit more and maybe talking to people

from 10 cent and you know from other app stores and see what would be the best opportunity for you is that sort of explicit of exclusivity let's talk about is that a common thing was that more of a 10 cent thing we tend to obviously a massive massive company to most app store term and know well because you say Henson have App Store we call my app yeah but which had is because like one you know it's amazing it's like a particular channel so yeah okay alright thank you very much so we have any final questions before I end in what you sure I cut you off it I feel bad now you've made me feel like you could ask a question go on then you can go question thank you first of all my name is Luna forgot to say that before I walk for a penny okay I'm proud of that because I pad it has been mentioned so many times tonight

yeah yeah so first of all I want to just note one point that we don't have like a downloads new revenue for Chinese stores but we we do have like usages data for Android okay so maybe um because these markets so mass and complex maybe the I'm not so sure about ISM you know the the accuracy but you know if you look at the trends I think do reflect the facts ok so that's that's for one point so I've heard so much information tonight I really feel like I learned a lot for this China for Chinese markets one question I would like to focus on is for how do you see the trend in terms of ad monetization in for hyper cacher because we can see for some in the Chinese train or like in the

Western environment we see like hyper cacher they showing other hyper carriers apps right it seems like as I've been circling in this environment and what is the situation right now in China and which channels they work with a form they want to do ad monetization thank you it's a lot of question there okay yeah just one question is a good long question right it's good first to be no honestly speaking most of the have had hurt eyes and aim maybe higher cash game or hybrid house game yeah but here right now there's some big company like pythons and tension they're competing right now and they pay a lot of money in this area they don't money yeah yeah so we are money from them and of course some casual hammer game can chase the

cat can get the chance to earn money from the the to hood of the biggest company game company in China yeah and also there are some hardcore games showing in Turkish game Pulido for for tick-tock-tick-tock audience Network the the most of the most of the adult either Shore shown in their platform or hyper cacher game but for sent me medical games takes a large percentage of the impression yeah and 4pi do they bring some search of tithers into the hyper casual game yeah so the money is from them okay okay I think we're gonna wrap up we have one last question and then we're gonna turn about it's not ice can I just ask a question what is it is it quick

exceptionally quick so there's been some discussion of advertising density as is there any kind of observation on advertising duration notice that there's a lot of that ads with timers that are appearing in Western in Western games is it's the audience less likely to engage in the eastern market with longer wait time errs no interest question so talking about the length of Abbott's shown so to me a number of adverts but also Israel Israel I guess a happy time to talk a little bit about what the experiments we did in unity ads back in the day and we found that 20 seconds was a sweet spot but what we found is that a lot of the creative that are already being created was 30 seconds and so it ended up being longer by by habit yeah and there was actually I think a false expectation haunts people who are creating their creative that longer was better but a lot of the optimization is

about more about the format than it is about the length but I would I would still argue that 20 seconds is a much better format than dirty Kevin any any thoughts on left about so it's not really an issue no don't even say okay so final thing we wrap up for one piece of advice for companies are looking at hyper casual games looking coming to the to the choice market was the one most important thing to bear in mind anybody get a presentation pick me first yeah you first yeah it's very easy cooperation of this our company there we go drop the mic that's why gets a big box s yeah come on let's make money together our so can you follow that for me it's around that the don't use blocks and balls in your games put some more character into them just a little bit of of some yeah something fun

engage players in it cool well I can't actually go the wires on hyper cacher in particular yeah but I just want to say you know for a company who are just starting out in China because you say I think there are lots of companies who think changed Mac is too complex and they sort of just gave up without really taking any action oh you know I also sing companies who sort of rushing to setting up offices in China yeah and they also fell quickly because they don't actually understand the market enough so my otherwise would be a rule a built a solid foundation of the local knowledge first yeah and you know seek advice from the companies who are they strong have strong presence in China and be pragmatic flexible and agile cool someone short short it very close fine just keep it simple but leave them wanting to play more so focus on the game but at the end of the day it

comes back to choose a right partner fantastic okay co-writer pause please you guys have been absolutely awesome thank you so much for your intelligent questions to your patients we'll have lots more alcohol and maybe some more food out there we are going to attempt to show some football in here for anybody who was interested in that little bit but the bars open outside you don't care big round pause my Palin 22 meat egg responsibly [Applause]