The document discusses the Chinese social gaming market, providing examples of popular social network games in China along with screenshots and data on metrics like monthly active users and revenue. It also outlines some of the key differences in the Chinese market compared to Western markets and regulatory hurdles for foreign game developers looking to enter the Chinese market. Government agencies that oversee the game industry and a basic process for setting up an office in China are also summarized.
Slides from a GDC 2013 talk on how PopCap achieved success in China with a local adapation of Plants vs. Zombies -- and general advice for any western company considering entry into the Chinese market.
In this presentation we introduce the concept game balance, its different types, and the most useful methods to study it.
These slides were prepared by Dr. Marc Miquel. All the materials used in them are referenced to their authors.
Link chi tiết: http://boardgame.vn/all-games/monopoly-deal-us-563
The fast-paced, addictive card game where your luck can change in the play of a card! Collect 3 complete property sets, but beware Debt Collectors, Forced Deals and the dreaded Deal Breakers, which could change your fortunes at any time!
Slides from a GDC 2013 talk on how PopCap achieved success in China with a local adapation of Plants vs. Zombies -- and general advice for any western company considering entry into the Chinese market.
In this presentation we introduce the concept game balance, its different types, and the most useful methods to study it.
These slides were prepared by Dr. Marc Miquel. All the materials used in them are referenced to their authors.
Link chi tiết: http://boardgame.vn/all-games/monopoly-deal-us-563
The fast-paced, addictive card game where your luck can change in the play of a card! Collect 3 complete property sets, but beware Debt Collectors, Forced Deals and the dreaded Deal Breakers, which could change your fortunes at any time!
Learn how to design a game with Seth Sivak, CEO of Proletariat. This deck covers Basic game design skills, how to analyze an entertainment experience, and tips on how to leverage common user behaviors.
Game Design Document - Step by Step GuideDevBatch Inc.
A well documented game design is your absolute asset to build a successful game. It doesn't only allow you picture the final shape of it but keeps you precise about the resources, expertise and team needed. For game development phase, you might want to consider pro services at hello@devbatch.com
Good Luck!
Link chi tiết: http://boardgame.vn/all-games/11-nimmt-81
11 nimmt là một card game nằm trong gia đình của thể loại bài đầu trâu nổi tiếng 6 nimmt! Có một số điểm khác biệt tạo ra thú vị ở phiên bản này, bên cạnh những nét giống với các trò khác trong cùng sê-ri giải trí này.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is an online multiplayer battle royale game developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole. The game is based on previous mods that were created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene for other games, inspired by the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale, and expanded into a standalone game under Greene's creative direction. In the game, up to one hundred players parachute onto an island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others while avoiding getting killed themselves. The available safe area of the game's map decreases in size over time, directing surviving players into tighter areas to force encounters. The last player or team still surviving wins.
PUBG is a online survival game. In this ppt i have mentioned all the necessary details about this game like game-play , fact, its addiction , reason of its popularity etc.
An overview of the economic, media and advertising landscape in China today with ad spends, trends, case studies and viewpoints across all key media channels.
Learn how to design a game with Seth Sivak, CEO of Proletariat. This deck covers Basic game design skills, how to analyze an entertainment experience, and tips on how to leverage common user behaviors.
Game Design Document - Step by Step GuideDevBatch Inc.
A well documented game design is your absolute asset to build a successful game. It doesn't only allow you picture the final shape of it but keeps you precise about the resources, expertise and team needed. For game development phase, you might want to consider pro services at hello@devbatch.com
Good Luck!
Link chi tiết: http://boardgame.vn/all-games/11-nimmt-81
11 nimmt là một card game nằm trong gia đình của thể loại bài đầu trâu nổi tiếng 6 nimmt! Có một số điểm khác biệt tạo ra thú vị ở phiên bản này, bên cạnh những nét giống với các trò khác trong cùng sê-ri giải trí này.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is an online multiplayer battle royale game developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole. The game is based on previous mods that were created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene for other games, inspired by the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale, and expanded into a standalone game under Greene's creative direction. In the game, up to one hundred players parachute onto an island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others while avoiding getting killed themselves. The available safe area of the game's map decreases in size over time, directing surviving players into tighter areas to force encounters. The last player or team still surviving wins.
PUBG is a online survival game. In this ppt i have mentioned all the necessary details about this game like game-play , fact, its addiction , reason of its popularity etc.
An overview of the economic, media and advertising landscape in China today with ad spends, trends, case studies and viewpoints across all key media channels.
2016 is quickly approaching and so we took the opportunity to pull together some thoughts on where social media in China is...and what's going to be important next year.
The landscape of online gambling in China
How much do you know about fantasy eSports in China?
Where do you feel the biggest opportunity is to gain brand awareness in China for gaming business?
How would you get creative and leverage your past contacts/connections for ways to generate leads that then the gaming co. could then try to convert?
How would you send traffics to gaming website and estimated volume?
If you had 1M RMB to build an acquisition strategy, where would you spend the money? What would you hope to get at the end and how would you measure the ROI?
What you would like to contribute for quick-wins
500 facebook Ads Examples. 500 mẫu quảng cáo FB của các thương hiệu lớn cho ace tham khảo. Bao gồm 6 chủ đề: brands, digital product, e-commerce, mobile-app, mobile-game, services.
Online Gaming and the Growing Impact of China DDoS - David LiebenbergEC-Council
Ever since online gaming became widespread throughout China in the early 2000s, entrepreneurs have been selling pirated versions of games, offering reduced prices and increased benefits. It is an immensely popular and profitable industry in China. In 2013 there were around 1000 servers offering pirated versions of the online game Legend. Servers for this game alone generate nearly $316 million that year.
Given the amount of pirated game servers available, there is fierce competition for customers. Because of this, China has a long history of server managers unleashing large-scale DDoS attacks on rivals. This has led to a cottage industry of DDoS software and DDoS-as-a-service. This aligns with observed trends in DDoS activity, which has seen a rise in targets in both China and the gaming industry.
The scale of some of these incidents is staggering, and its effects have been felt around the world. This includes mass brute forcing campaigns and attacks that have taken down entire TLDs.
This presentation will go in-depth into the world of pirated online gaming in China. It will then look at two recent DDoS malware campaigns, ChinaZ and SSHPsychos, which are both linked to Chinese game server rivalry. Following this, I will provide examples of how DDoS service providers targeting private servers advertise their wares and negotiate attacks. Finally, I will review indicators that could potentially signal a connection to online gaming and discuss methods to collect intelligence on attackers.
Social Casino Q1 2014. Whats going on and why you should care. Elad Kushnir
VISIT WWW.ELADKUSHNIR.WORDPRESS.COM TO SEE AN UP TO DATE VERSION OF THIS LECTURE (Q2/Q3 2016)
An overview of the Social Casino gaming category. Lecture given at Casual Connect Amsterdam in February 2014. You can watch the full lecture on video at the end of the slide share presentation.
Game Developers, Investors, Telecom Operators and NGOs are invited to learn how Game Power 7 made such huge success in the untapped market of Online Games in the MENA region and how unique is this company.
OK.RU Native Mobile Game Platform for Android. First Results
Нативная мобильная игровая платформа OK.RU на Android. Первые результаты.
(White Nights Conference St. Petersburg 2016)
FGS 2011: Keeping Yourself Honest in Game Design (SteamBirds)mochimedia
Game developers often fail to hold a critical eye to their own work, and struggle to see why they aren't finding success. Join Andy Moore, Captain of Radial Games, as he explores all the painful ways his previous works failed, and his adventure to correct them all in the production of his multi-award-winning game, SteamBirds - and the mobile editions and sequels that followed.
How to start a new game business using our startup Everyplay (www.everyplay.com) as an example case.
Delivered at the Casual Connect Europe conference, in Hamburg, Germany on 12th February 2009.
The benefits of operating a free-to-play "game-as-a-service" are well known: elastic pricing, a direct relationship with your players, longer lifespan, and an opportunity to fine-tune after launch. But to fully realize these benefits, you need to plan your live operations strategy as carefully as you plan your game. This talk will show how you can build an effective LiveOps strategy using PlayFab.
PlayFab runs a LiveOps backend services platform that handles more than 35 million monthly active players, on more than 450 live games, from studios and publishers that include Miniclip, Rovio, Hyper Hippo, Capcom, Bandai-Namco, and Atari. Getting to that level of scalability hasn’t been easy, and this talk describes the times when PlayFab nearly went down – and what architecture changes we needed to make each time to reach the next level of growth. This talk also shares some of the unique challenges of operating a shared platform, where problems are often not PlayFab’s fault, but always PlayFab’s responsibility, including game bugs that look like DDoS attacks, platform partners who break their APIs, and the joys of cascading server failures.
Commander's Intent: Managing Through UncertaintyJames Gwertzman
What do game studios have in common with special forces? They both depend on empowering creative individuals to take initiative and make autonomous decisions, often under stress and uncertainty, while staying aligned with overall goals of an organization. Elite military organizations have been explicitly training their leaders how to do this for over a century whereas game studio leaders rarely, if ever, get formal training in effective delegation. It’s time to change that!
The Future is Operations: Why Mobile Games Need BackendsJames Gwertzman
The future of mobile gaming is in operations. It’s not enough to just have great gameplay — that’s table stakes now. Winning games need to be able to engage their players long after launch and keep them coming back for more. To do that you need a great live operations strategy and the backend tools to execute it. And while it used to be that if you wanted a backend for your game, you had to build it yourself, companies like PlayFab and others are now making it easy for everyone.
Behind the Scenes: Deploying a Low-Latency Multiplayer Game GloballyJames Gwertzman
A deep dive into the guts of running a low-latency multiplayer game on a global scale using Amazon Web Services. You’ll get the details on how the Top 10 F2P shooter Loadout was launched on both PC and PS4 and how PlayFab’s complete backend and live game operations platform is architected to handle the scale these kind of games demand. Delivered on July 7 at the AWS Loft in San Francisco.
Launching a great F2P game isn’t enough these days to win. You need a great live operations strategy as well — and the tools to execute it. We’ll talk about how to build our your operations plan and then take a deep dive into one key component: in-game events.
Technical Disruption and a New Golden Era of GamesJames Gwertzman
Faced with technical disruption, games companies are poised to return to what they do best: focus on high-quality gameplay and entertainment. Speech delivered at the Opening Summit of the International Games Week on April 21, 2015.
With free-to-play games, you need to plan your live operations strategy as carefully as you plan your game. Learn how to use in-game events and promotions to drive retention and monetization of your game.
Online games have suffered from some high-profile failures recently. This talk from 2013 looks at some of the root causes and the need for better tools now that games are now effectively high-performance transaction systems.
This is a presentation I gave at "Career Day" to graduating seniors at my children's school last fall. I'm sure most of the lessons in here went in one ear and out the other, since you can't really understand this stuff until you've been out there for a while.
Originally presented at GDC 2004, this was a candid, no-holds-barred look at why my first start-up company, Escape Factory, ultimately failed. There are plenty of stories out there about game studios that succeed, but not enough about studios that fail.
This presentation was also in part an attempt to make good on a promise to our angel investor to share all the lessons we learned setting up Escape Factory.
Definitive Guide To Funding Your Video Game MasterpieceJames Gwertzman
Originally presented at the 2007 Casual Connect conference, this presentation delivers a quick tour through all the various funding mechanisms available to start-up video game studios to get their games funded.
Originally presented at LOGIN 2009, this is a fast-paced and colorful trip through PopCap's first year in China, with advice for any company considering the challenge of entering the Chinese market (or any developing country, for that matter).
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Climate Impact of Software Testing at Nordic Testing DaysKari Kakkonen
My slides at Nordic Testing Days 6.6.2024
Climate impact / sustainability of software testing discussed on the talk. ICT and testing must carry their part of global responsibility to help with the climat warming. We can minimize the carbon footprint but we can also have a carbon handprint, a positive impact on the climate. Quality characteristics can be added with sustainability, and then measured continuously. Test environments can be used less, and in smaller scale and on demand. Test techniques can be used in optimizing or minimizing number of tests. Test automation can be used to speed up testing.
How to Get CNIC Information System with Paksim Ga.pptxdanishmna97
Pakdata Cf is a groundbreaking system designed to streamline and facilitate access to CNIC information. This innovative platform leverages advanced technology to provide users with efficient and secure access to their CNIC details.
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
Unlock the Future of Search with MongoDB Atlas_ Vector Search Unleashed.pdfMalak Abu Hammad
Discover how MongoDB Atlas and vector search technology can revolutionize your application's search capabilities. This comprehensive presentation covers:
* What is Vector Search?
* Importance and benefits of vector search
* Practical use cases across various industries
* Step-by-step implementation guide
* Live demos with code snippets
* Enhancing LLM capabilities with vector search
* Best practices and optimization strategies
Perfect for developers, AI enthusiasts, and tech leaders. Learn how to leverage MongoDB Atlas to deliver highly relevant, context-aware search results, transforming your data retrieval process. Stay ahead in tech innovation and maximize the potential of your applications.
#MongoDB #VectorSearch #AI #SemanticSearch #TechInnovation #DataScience #LLM #MachineLearning #SearchTechnology
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Threats to mobile devices are more prevalent and increasing in scope and complexity. Users of mobile devices desire to take full advantage of the features
available on those devices, but many of the features provide convenience and capability but sacrifice security. This best practices guide outlines steps the users can take to better protect personal devices and information.
Goodbye Windows 11: Make Way for Nitrux Linux 3.5.0!SOFTTECHHUB
As the digital landscape continually evolves, operating systems play a critical role in shaping user experiences and productivity. The launch of Nitrux Linux 3.5.0 marks a significant milestone, offering a robust alternative to traditional systems such as Windows 11. This article delves into the essence of Nitrux Linux 3.5.0, exploring its unique features, advantages, and how it stands as a compelling choice for both casual users and tech enthusiasts.
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
GraphSummit Singapore | The Art of the Possible with Graph - Q2 2024Neo4j
Neha Bajwa, Vice President of Product Marketing, Neo4j
Join us as we explore breakthrough innovations enabled by interconnected data and AI. Discover firsthand how organizations use relationships in data to uncover contextual insights and solve our most pressing challenges – from optimizing supply chains, detecting fraud, and improving customer experiences to accelerating drug discoveries.
23. How is Chinese social game market different? More sophisticated players Closed vs. open SNS sites competing with developers Government regulation Poor economics IP enforcement issues Greater complexity of games
24. Who is playing? ONLY play online games via social networking sites Do not play games via SNS at all started on SNS and have graduated to other online games as well started as online gamers and have added games via SNS to their gaming behavior Source: NIKO PARTNERS, Chinese gamers survey in Feb. 2010 of 500 gamers in 10 cities. Niko will publish this in their upcoming 2010 Chinese Video Game Industry Annual Review & Five-Year Forecast, due in April.
25. China SNS market QQ Alumni RenRen.com Sina Space 51.com Kaixin001.com Sohu White Society Douban.com 139.com (mobile SNS) Kaixin.com Other
47. Game companies must work with: General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) Ministry of Culture (MoC) Ministry of Information Industry (MII) State Copyright Bureau Ministry of Public Security Bureau of State Secrecy State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration (SASAC) State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) Regulatory Issues
48. Foreign game Permit Checklist MOC Internet Content Provider Permit MOC Permit for Online Cultural Operations MOC Online Censorship Approval GAPP Permit for Online Publishing GAPP Online Importation Approval MII Product Registration Certificate
51. Someone said he got fired because he stole crops from the boss.
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55. SNS Economics in China Analysis for top-20 game on RenRen: Monthly Active Users: 10,000,000 Conversion rate: 0.2% ARPPU: RMB 7.5 (USD $1.1) Monthly Revenue: RMB 150K (USD $22K) Top grossing games: Anywhere from USD $50K-$100K per month
58. Company set-up process Buy one-way ticket to china Find a lawyer Find an office File a lot of paperwork Hire an english speaking assistant Open bank account Transfer in a lot of money as registered capital Wait for licenses Start hiring employees!
62. 升职记 (office promotion) Total users:750128 Daily active users:208765 Launch date:2010.01.27 Game play: Train your different career skills, complete more works to earn money. Expand your own company to get more money, and invest in houses, buy cars to speed up work progress. What is special: Do bad things to a friend while he is working;
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69. 荣光医院(Rong Guang Hospital) Total users:15696078 Daily active users:245845 Launch date:2009.05.06 Game play: Manage your hospital, upgrade patient rooms, get more patients and expand your hospital. What is special: Visit a friend hospital, do good/bad things to impact friend hospital growth.
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74. 胡莱旅馆(Hu Lai Inn) Total users:4270139 Daily active users:144713 Launch date:2009.06.04 Game play: Decorate you own Inn, to get friends stay and pay rent. And expand Inn bigger and bigger. What is special: Visit friend Inn, invite friend to stay. Steal rent that is not collected by the friend (like Happy Farm).
75. The main UI. The Inn is pretty empty in the beginning
101. Looking ahead… First products launch end of this year Modest expectations… Validate our thinking, team, etc Gain experience “real” products launch next year The real test… That’s when we know if we are on the right track
Editor's Notes
Social games seem to be the big new import/export business from China. Why is that?
If you look at why we haven’t seen more interest in China from western developers before, just look at the games. Here you have a typical console game on the left, and a typical MMORPG game on the right. Very different quality standards.
Very different play styles --- at home on the couch, vs. in an Internet cafe
Very different business model – buying retail on the left, vs. buying prepay cards on the right.
But now… the models have converged. Here is restaurant City from playfish on the left, and a clone of the game from RenRen on the right. Same basic game now appeals to both markets. So now you have the ingredients of trade!
In fact, China has had experience with microtransactions for much longer than the US. Here are screenshots from QQ back in 2005 showing the avatar item-sales model.
Here is our own rough guess at the different market sizes – it’s hard to get confirmed numbers for social since it’s so new – along with some representative company logos.
Here’s a screenshot from a representative RPG game in China – ZT Online is infamous since literally everything is for sale in this game
You can buy pets to help level up faster
KartRider is the canonical example of an advanced casual game, or “mid-session” game.
Some sample cars you can purchase using in-game currency.
Some balloons you can attach to your car – these have functional purpose, not just decorations.
Another famous advanced casual game, Audition. Like KartRider, also created in Korea and imported to China.
Dancing performance.
They made a smart decision with Audition to charge a lot of money for the clothes – as a result, they are true status symbols.
Here are some representative mobile games in China
Web Games were huge a year ago, but seem to have been overlooked recently in the rush to social. Still a large market, and still quite interesting business. Lots of interesting things going on in Web Games. Many westerners were introduced to web games by Travian and other German games from companies like gameforge.de
Typical web portal for accessing a web game
Item-buy business model.
And finally, that brings us to social games… and Happy Farm, one of the most famous social games in china, and reportedly the inspiration for Farmville, one of the most successful games on Facebook. If true, it’s one of the first examples I’ve ever heard of a game in China being copied in the west (vs. a game in the west being copied to China which is very common)
All of this experience with microtransactions explains why chinese developers are starting to move into Facebook. But another reason is that the chinese SNS market is not yet as attractive as Facebook, for a variety of reasons.
Here are some of those reasons…
It’s interesting to realize first that SNS games in China are arguably much more hard-core than comparable gamers in the US. You especially see that in the fact that SNS games in china are much more complex than games in the US.
Another important point – most of the social networks are still “closed” which means that you can’t just download the API, build a game, then upload it using a click-through developer agreement. You need to do a custom deal with a closed portal, and some of them are not willing to even do that. Many of the SNS sites here build their own games, and see that as part of their business model. Only RenRen so far is truly open in the same way as Facebook.Another point – there it not yet a single clear winner in the SNS wars in China, which means the audience is fragmented across different sites.
Homepage for RenRen (see it yourself at www.renren.com)
Looks a lot like Facebook…
Unlikefacebook, which only recently added their own currency, RenRen (like all the other Chinese SNS sites) has had its own in-game currency for a long time – in fact, to put your game on RenRen, you’re not allowed to use your own ecommerce platform. You must use the RenRen currency system, and convert it into your own game’s virtual currency. Here we’re showing bank transfer.
And here we’re showing that you can buy virtual currency on RenRen from your mobile phone.
Here is a competitor to RenRen, Kaixin001. They seem to be focused on a slightly younger audience, and be a bit more game and entertainment focused.
Main page of Kaixin001 also looks a lot like Facebook.
Sohu Bai (White) society is an SNS developed by Sohu. Users can sign in directly if they already have accounts on Sohublog or Sohu email.It is targeted at white collar workers, with a few interesting features.
The main US again looks like facebook, but with a few differences. Not the importance of the app bar on the left.
They’ve added a “boss key”. While playing games, you can press F9 any time to hide the screen…
… like this!
It features games designed specially for you to give vent to your anger and stress…
QQ is the big 800 pound gorilla in China.. And of course they have their own SNS site.
Though in their case, it’s kind of like a cross between a blog,Facebook, and Myspace.
You can actually customize your page with all sorts of different “modules” – especially interesting to see how you can have both your “avatar” and your real photo on the same page.
You actually pay money for different styles for your page.
Note that this background is 17 Q coins, or about USD $2.5. 10 Q points = 1 Q currency. 1 RMB = 1 Q currency
You can also buy individual decorations for your page. This clock, for example, costs around USD $0.50.
More decorations – this fireworks display goes off when someone visits your page. Price – about USD $0.55
Again here you can charge by phone. QQ probably has one of the most robust platforms out there.
Charge by QQ card, you could purchase the QQ card at any convenience store and game shops.
Here’s a translation of the top 10 games on RenRen as of March 3, 2010 or so. Note that at least 2 of these games are developed by RenRen themselves – which brings up an interesting point. The platform is directly competing in some cases with the developer, and the platform owner always has the advantage. It would be as if Facebook had its own in-house game development team, and built their own Farming game called “Facebook Farm” and promited it heavily within Facebook. Most of these games featured here are similar to games on Facebook. Note that PopCap has launched Bejeweled Blitz on RenRen – we’re currently #41 by DAU
One of the hardest things for western developers to get used to in China is the hand of the government in many areas of business.
To operate an online game you must have a number of different permits and licenses. It’s still not quite clear what the licensing process for SNS games will be – it’s famously what we’d call a “grey area” in China.
In fact, it’s not even always clear which government agency is in charge! Last summer there was a big skirmish between two agencies over who had the right to oversee World of Warcraft in China. A lot is at stake here, since the online game business in China is big business.
One sure sign that regulation is coming in China is when you start to see a lot of negative press about a given topic. In this case, games often get a very negative rap in the press, and last fall we started to see negative articles about social games.
Here’s a typical editorial cartoon.
And then sure enough… we started to see regulation of SNS games being announced.
Another challenge in china – huge competition and lots of developers ready to ‘clone’ successful games. Here is Restaurant City by Playfish…
And here is a comparable restaurant game developed by RenRen. Lots of evident similarities, though lots of small changes and improvements too to adapt the game for China.
It’s very hard to get a clear economic picture on SNS games in China right now, but here is our best guess based on what we’ve heard from others. In general, it’s not a great picture. Few users spend money, and the ones who do don’t spend a lot. As a result, it’s much less attractive then Facebook or Japanese sites, which explains why Chinese developers are so eager to tap into the Facebook market.
So if entering the Chinese SNS space is hard and the economics aren’t great, why are many western developers opening shop in China? One reason is to develop games in China for their own western markets! So far there are at least 3 companies in China – Playfish, Slide, and PopCap, and rumors are that more are coming (Playdom? Zynga?)
To help out all those developers looking to enter China, here is a handy guide for how to set up your Chinese office in 9 easy steps.
Just follow these clear steps, and you too can have a Chinese WOFE (“Wholly owned foreign enterprise”) and start building games in China.
Finally, some general comments and observations about the SNS space
You’re starting to see crossover between genres. Here is a web game embedded within RenRen
And here is a social farming game embedded within a web game. On this farm, you could plant any seeds then pick the raw materials when mature. They are used to improve your gear or tailor your cloth.
Main UI
House shopping.
Note the use here of dual currencies… coins are earned, gems are bought.
Item shop
Draw a lucky card to get special bonus at work. The lucky draw mechanic is very popular in chinese games.
It’s fun to appreciate the meta-game levels here. This is a social game that you’re presumably playing at work, where you can play a mini-game, instead of working.
Hospital games are on facebook too
Main UI
What’s interesting here is that, like other Chinese SNS games, you can visit your friend’s hospital and do good or bad things.
There’s a whole set of negative things you can do to your friend’s business to sabotage it!
Item Shop. The role for most of the items is to accelerate game progress.
This is an item collection game from QQ. It’s quite interesting – you collect a full set of cards, and then you can turn them into items which you can either wear yourself or give them to your friends as gifts.
Magic card furnace – use your low level magic cards to get higher level ones. Need one hour to process.
And of course, happy farm. The big difference between this and Farmville is that here, stealing crops from your friends is a major part of the game.
Buy the dogs to guard your farm. Your friends can’t steal your plants if the dogs are guarding. It’s a nice business model! Note that all of these dogs are only for sale if you spend real money!
Most of the fertlizers, which speed up the game, cost real money too.
Here’s another genre of game, the city decoration game – fancier cities pay you more rent.
Quests – you could get rewards by complete this quests Successfully. You need to reach to certain level to do the quest. Quests in grey means that you are not applicable to do those quests yet.Examples of quests: Set up 10 lights on your land – and you get this house as a reward collect 30 mushrooms (also on your friend’s land)
Collecting the rent by clicking the house.
You could invest in your friends buildings. You could pick up money by clicking on your friends’ houses when it’s ready.
Increase the population of this town, so you could get more tax income.
Here is a real-time multiplayer social game – fishing.
Here is an interesting feature in a web game – warbetween two countries. It’s interesting because it’s large-scale multiplayer. It’s essentially capture the flag. If the attacking country kills the leader of the defending country within 30 minutes, they will win the game and everyone on the winning team gets a unique reward. The date of the battle is set in advance… it involves real players at the same time. The king needs to get his subjects to play at the same time. The more players who show up the better the player will do
Show how king / subjects / voting works. Only the player with money in their account is eligible for the voting once a week.
It’s also interesting to see traditional client/server games moving into the web social space. Here is the QQ game multiplayer client from QQ.
And here now is a similar game on their QQ Zone web SNS site.
Here is the UI of the QQ game client…
And the UI of a card game on their web platform.
Overall it’s been a very exciting time setting up PopCap’s operation in China. We’re having a lot of fun.
Pleasantly surprised dealing with Internet companies. Very different than traditional SOE’sCompared to Chinese companies, we’re the slow onesYounger, more international, increasingly familiar dealing with western companies, willing to hire western lawyers to help them