In the first half of the year, a "Made in Guangzhou" small game earned nearly 400 million US dollars overseas, it is "The Legend of the Mushroom Brave" from Guangzhou, which earned more than 100 million US dollars in Japan and South Korea, winning the first and second place in the revenue growth of Japanese and Korean mobile games in the first half of this year. In addition, the producers behind the popular games in Japan and South Korea, "Song of Cloud City", "Origin of the Saboteur" and "Demon Hunter" are all Guangzhou game companies.

On October 30, Tencent Cloud, Guangzhou Game Association, and  eclicktech jointly launched the "Win in the Future, New Chapter of Games" digital and real industry activity in Guangzhou. Based on Yeahmobi's decades of overseas marketing experience, combined with the insights and marketing strategies of local mini games in Guangzhou, Evan Chen, Senior Business Manager of Yeahmobi, brought the theme of unlocking innovative marketing solutions and optimization strategies for games going overseas.

01 Casual gameplay combined with deep long-term development: seizing the right timing for "mini-game-like" expansion.  

According to Sensor Tower's analysis, in 2023, hybrid casual games will have the largest growth rate in the revenue growth rate of mobile games with different product models, up to more than 30%, far surpassing medium and casual games to become the dark horse of growth. Evan Chen, Senior Commercial Manager of Yeahmobi, shared: "Casual games with mixed monetization still occupy the C position in the overseas market, among which the release of Mini Program + H5 games, plus double-ended packages into apps, is a new combination of Mini Games going overseas, and the representative products are "Little Demon Asks" and "Legend of the Mushroom Brave". Among them, casual games that have done a very good job in advertising and in-app purchase settings, through the natural and seamless splicing of various content sections, attract players to continue to break through and upgrade heroes, giving players an "Ad-To-Win" experience, 'light gameplay + heavy long-term development', plus the 'mini-game like' mode, has become the key to winning overseas. ”

02 There are two key points in the release of popular mini games: buying rhythm + creative localization

The key to the game's sustainable growth is how to coordinate the game's regional distribution and user growth, and strategically adjust the pace of buying and delivery and the localization of materials. Then, Evan Chen, senior business manager of Yeahmobi, took "The Legend of the Mushroom Brave" as an example for in-depth analysis. He shared: "The Legend of the Mushroom Brave is a casual development game, which is the overseas version of the domestic WeChat mini game + App double-ended hit product "Adventure Wars". The game products in the East Asian market focus on pre-registration marketing, and the acceptance of RPG (role-playing) games is generally higher, so in the early stage, it has a certain degree of recognition among overseas players in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Macao. ”

 Strategic buying fo game:

In the early stage of the game's online testing, the purchase should focus on small-scale testing, collect user feedback, and evaluate the popularity of the game in different regions. The amount of advertising at this stage should not be too large, aiming to accumulate a data base for subsequent promotion. With the official launch of the product, the material is no longer limited to peripheral features such as themes, painting styles, and characters, and begins to use in-game graphics to allow users to better understand the game content.

Material creativity and localization:

To adapt to the user attributes in different markets, it is necessary to quickly capture the real-time popularity and iterate with differentiated theme painting styles. For example, in Japan, the ACG culture is profound, and by inviting otaku gods and goddesses to quickly win over the ACG core player user group, they will carry out differentiated materials in combination with local characteristics. In the game, in terms of gameplay and art, the gameplay content and characters of the holiday limited-time benefits are launched; In addition to the game, the creative and packaging of the material according to the gameplay content of the festival activities, add product icons, name suffixes, and holiday keywords and element ideas of copywriting to the remarketing advertising creatives, which can increase the advertising conversion effect. 

Finally, Evan Chen used "Little Douluo" as an example to reveal Yeahmobi's programmatic advertising strategy. Under the multi-dimensional coverage of all media, Douluo IP established an initial impression, and then chose a more affinity Internet celebrity marketing to infiltrate the promotion into the minds of users, so as to achieve further conversion. Yeahmobi's programmatic advertising and marketing platform provides all-round monitoring and automatic optimization functions from ad push, exposure, clicks, landing to conversion retention, ensuring a high ROI advertising ROI ratio of advertising investment-output ratio. For the target group that is no longer active, Yeahmobi can achieve accurate recall through data analysis and intelligent algorithms. In the end, the closed-loop model from the establishment of initial impressions, to the deepening of influencer marketing, to the precise delivery and continuous optimization of programmatic advertising and marketing.

As Chinese game companies continue to promote their globalization strategies, Mini Games have successfully created a number of "Like" gameplay products with wide appeal by implementing diversified operational methods such as welfare, continuous draws, and horse catching plots by virtue of their lightweight, easy-to-use, and rapid iteration. These products not only transcend cultural barriers and win the love of players around the world, but also open up new growth points for game manufacturers in overseas markets.