HTML5 games are now experiencing a new wave of popularity in China. WeChat mini-app revenue growth in the last six months has been 18%. Local publisher Yodo1 talked about the benefits and prospects of the platform for third-party developers.
Yodo1’s material is based on a presentation by Li Qing, product manager at WeChat, who shared information about the growth of users and their gaming preferences within the app.
The overall numbers are.
- The total number of registered WeChat Mini Games users exceeded 1 billion after the messenger introduced mini games in 2017;
- WeChat predicts an increased growth rate in the second half of 2020 due to the development of existing projects and the continuous release of new HTML5 projects;
- mini-games on the platform can be a great way to lure users to the full version of a game in the mobile store. As an example, Yodo1 cites its game Steppy Pants: after the release of the HTML5 version, downloads of the iOS version jumped dramatically and lifted the project from 935th to 78th place on the list of free games;
- now the maximum physical cache size of WeChat games will be increased to 200Mb, which will allow developers to create more diverse and complex projects in the future.
Gender, age and geography of the target audience
- In the Chinese market of mobile games the ratio of men to women is 6:4. At the same time in WeChat mini-games this ratio is equalized and is 5:5;
- Yodo1 notes that the female audience is becoming more important than ever – especially with the rapidly growing Chinese market (mobile gaming revenues in the region will be $6 billion in 2020);
- Two-thirds of HTML5 game users are over the age of 30 (in mobile games released in the storerooms, only half of players fall into this age group);
- 58% of WeChat mini-game users live in tier 3 and tier 5 cities, allowing developers to reach a much wider audience;
- Residents of small towns are less likely to play full-fledged mobile mysteries, as they often require a stable Internet connection, take up more memory space and are more demanding on hardware.
The most popular genres
- the most popular games on WeChat are puzzles and simulation games with a total audience of 600 and 500 million people, respectively;
- HTML5 projects in these genres generate over $324 million in total revenue;
- RPG games have an audience of 300 million people and generate $295 million in revenue.
Market Prospects for Foreign Developers
- HTML5 games can be an easy entry point into the Chinese game market, allowing for easy monetization and scaling of released projects;
- as Yodo1 points out, this is not only a great source of additional income for studios, but also an opportunity to significantly expand the audience of their core titles.
