As a vane for the development of the game industry, one of the highlights of 2019 ChinaJoy is the settlement of many overseas game manufacturers and overseas marketing platforms. With the regulation of policies such as red sea and version number in the domestic market, more and more Chinese independent R&D mobile game manufacturers began to seize the overseas market. However, with the increasingly fierce competition, the extensive method of simply buying is no longer applicable, and the demand for brand marketing begins to highlight.

To better help Chinese game manufacturers win overseas, Twitter has investigated more than 40000 users in 12 global markets, including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and released the 2019 Twitter Overseas Game Industry Insight Report during ChinaJoy, revealing the portraits of overseas game players, and deeply analyzing the opportunities and challenges of Chinese mobile games in mature markets such as the United States, Japan, and emerging markets such as the Middle East, So as to help the game go out to sea to create more popular marketing creativity, directly hit the audience's interest, and achieve win-win results. Some of the core findings of the report include:

77% of Twitter game players play mobile games, GenZ is the main force of the game, and women are the highlights

The report found that 73% of Twitter users said they would play video games, and nearly half of them were multi device players. Among these people, mobile game users account for 77%. At the same time, female players prefer mobile games to men, accounting for 60%.

From the perspective of age, GenZ (18-24 years old) players have become the key to the breakthrough of game manufacturers. Their use ratio on various game devices is higher than that of other age groups, and the mobile game proportion is the highest, reaching 60%, followed by 25-34 years old. Accurate user positioning and effective content strategy are undoubtedly the key to success in overseas marketing.

In addition, 85% of Japanese Twitter game users choose mobile games, which exceeds the global average of Twitter (77%); The United States has the largest number of console game players, with 65% and 60% of console game and mobile game users respectively.

Action/adventure games are the most popular, tracking topic tags to create community operations

According to the report, more than half of Twitter game players play multiple games at the same time. Among the users who play at least three games, action adventure games are the most popular (89%), followed by strategy games (74%), puzzle solving leisure games (73%) and role playing games (73%). Mobile gamers prefer casual puzzles (53%), while console gamers prefer action adventure games (55%).

The report also analyzes the consumption behavior of mobile game players in different markets. Globally, the game type with the highest consumption proportion is action adventure (22%), followed by role play (20%). These two types of games are also in the forefront of consumption in the markets of various countries, but their proportions are quite different. For example, among American mobile game players, 31% said they were most inclined to spend in action adventure games, and 26% were role playing; In Japan, 44% of mobile game users prefer role playing games and 40% of action adventure games.

The popularity of Chinese mobile games has increased nearly 8 times in Japan in the past 4 years, and event marketing has been created in combination with local unique culture

In recent years, the trend of China's mobile game brand "going east to Japan" is obvious, and it has gained more and more popularity and attention. According to the report, the number of tweets mentioned by Twitter in the Japanese mobile game market in the first half of 2019 was nearly 8 times that in the first half of 2016. Among them, the Chinese mobile games most concerned and discussed by Japanese Twitter players include Blue Route, Wilderness Action and The Fifth Personality.

Japan is not only the market with the highest ARPU value (average income per user) in the world, but also one of the most closed countries. Only by clearly understanding the local user interests and cultural tone can it stand out in the fierce market competition. According to Japan's statistics on the amount of discussion of Chinese mobile games, topics are generally pushed by mobile users or official accounts, and the peak hours mainly occur in new product releases, news releases and festivals (Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc.).

Funnel takes the lead, and Twitter helps outbound mobile travel achieve win-win results

"In recent years, Chinese mobile game manufacturers have competed overseas, and game categories have gradually enriched. However, the intense market competition and the scattered choice of players' interests have constantly increased the cost of mobile games' customer acquisition, which has also prompted manufacturers to rethink their target strategy of 'relying solely on the purchase volume to transform the success or failure'." Yang Yonggang, director of the game industry of Twitter Greater China, said, "Twitter believes that an obvious trend to meet the challenge is to develop marketing strategies around the full marketing funnel, start with brand awareness and let your entire marketing funnel expand outward, so as to ultimately expand the transformation volume and achieve win-win results."

Listen to the audience and formulate marketing strategies accurately

Twitter is a platform for game fans around the world. In 2018, more than 1 billion game related tweets were generated on Twitter, and game related conversations increased by 122% year on year. Global game publishers, media, and e-sports teams, players, and commentators interacted actively. ESL One, IEM, DreamHack, and other e-sports events were broadcast live on Twitter. On this platform, which is both real-time and interactive, domestic overseas manufacturers can fully insight into the interest points that can stimulate and drive overseas game players, understand what should be included or avoided in the new product release, and precisely customize marketing strategies and target audiences by tracking various topic tags related to games.

Community operation and emotional connection enhance player stickiness

Twitter game users have high acceptance and participation. 62% of users get the latest game news through Twitter, and 38% of them will explore and try new games in the process. 46% of Twitter users will discuss game related topics with other users, and 33% will collect comments on the Twitter platform before purchasing. This provides an excellent way for domestic manufacturers to release news, warm up new products and promote real-time search of content information related to players.

Insight into culture and use event marketing to create popularity

The traffic dividend of the overseas game market is fading, and the most effective marketing method of the brand is no longer extensive investment, but to make full use of event marketing, such as online and offline IP linkage through new game release, event celebrations, hot cultural events, etc., so that the brand can continue to ferment by taking advantage of hot spots and gain the greatest attention and goodwill.

For example, on the basis of NetEase's Wilderness Action, which was a great success in the Japanese market, they had a deep insight into the interests and age groups of players in the Japanese market, and cooperated with Twitter to create a 360 ° all-round experience marketing of online and offline linkage. Use live broadcast to launch # Wilderness 1st Anniversary Celebration, and invite musicians to perform live in many landmark venues in Japan. At the same time, Wilderness Action expanded its online influence through Twitter's First View, created topics in the Japanese market, and used Retweet to Remind to encourage players to continue to participate. The final live video viewing volume reached 2.65 million, the first view interaction rate was 5.5%, and the intended players increased by 10%.

Jiang Yunlong, director of overseas distribution of NetEase Games, believes that: "It is an indisputable fact that the customer acquisition cost in the Japanese market has gradually increased, while mobile game manufacturers are competing for limited fragmented time for users. We believe that the way to cope with the challenge is to surround your core users with multi-dimensional content and multiple points, from brand exposure to event promotion, community voice, and finally to the harvesting of core users. Twitter is a content centered, real-time communication platform. Last year, we carried out a promotion activity on Twitter to celebrate the anniversary of Wilderness Action. Through the content extension mechanism, we reached our target users at multiple points. On the surface, it increased brand exposure. In fact, by promoting dialogue and discussion volume, we greatly stimulated users' interest points and return desire. "