SubscribeIs SNS+Game the Next Big Thing?
We all know that Chinese young Internet users are crazy about online games, which makes five Chinese online gaming company to successfully go IPO in the US. With recent SNS hype, many people are thinking about opportunities of monetizing SNS by offering online games, esp. web-based games.
Two weeks ago, Giant Interactive, a major online gaming developer and operator, announced its $51 million investment in social networking site 51.com, and back to CHINICT event in May, 51.com already said it would offer web-based games to users soon, actually it has started to partner with 51wan.com, a leading web-game developer and a portfolio company of Sequoia China, to provide web games.
Yesterday Oak Pacific Interactive(OPI), the holding company of Xiaonei.com and Mop.com, announced an RMB 10 million acquisition of a game developer PeaGame. PeaGame develops four web-games. Currently OPI already operates a web-game called Mop Pet, it is said that it is generating several million RMB every month for the company.
Today Sina reported that Myspace.cn will launch online game business within this year.
Besides these, since Xiaonei.com, Comsenz’s UCenter Home and 51.com are all launching their developer platforms, we expect that more web-game developers will work on social game widgets to exploit the platform.
In China, online gaming is a sector which has proved that it can really charge users and get real money. Due to the characteristics of online ads market in China, it is not easy to monetize traffic of SNS by ads, so online games seems the way to go.
-
Related Posts
4 Responses to “Is SNS+Game the Next Big Thing?”
Post a comment
I recently talked with a foreign company considering a big M&A in Korea, and they said they believe online games with social elements will be the next big thing.
Games attract users and SNS ensures stickiness. “Matching games” are already in use in casual games platforms, some dating sites, and even mobile SNS such as Mobile Game Town in Japan.
Games enable real-time interactions that make visual representation (Avatars, etc.) more valuable, which promotes the digital goods business model.
Games also enable users to gain status within a community. The only issue with games is the demographics it targets, and the ways to make them pay (as there is little overlap with credit card / paypal, etc. for Western markets).
I agree with Benjamin that people is attracted by games.
Especially, online game is usually connect to other gamer who wants to challenge each other.
Entertainment and fun things are important to attract people.
[...] How can kaixin001 gain such growth momentum in a short time? Its secret weapon is the entertainment and just for fun applications on the site. When Kaixin001 was launched, it offered some just for fun applications for users, for example, two most popular apps are very similar to “Friends for Sale” and “Parking War” apps on Facebook. These apps are quite sticky and helpful in retaining users and keeping users’ activeness. This may be another proof that SNS with game elements is very important, and entertainment is still a killer app. [...]