Analysis of the user operation strategy of Honor of Kings

The author will briefly analyze from an operational perspective what methods and strategies King of Glory uses to attract and retain players as a mature mobile game.

1. Product Introduction

Honor of Kings is a 5V5 fair competition mobile game developed by Tencent. It highly restores the gameplay and operations of the MOBA terminal game, and reasonably simplifies it according to the characteristics of the mobile terminal, making it more suitable for users' fragmented time. It has won market recognition with its exquisite graphics and smooth game operations.

In October 2015, Honor of Kings was launched in public beta. During this stage, the scale of mobile game users gradually expanded, existing users gradually matured, and their requirements for game quality became higher. As the mobile game market shifted towards more refined and intensive demands, the emergence of Honor of Kings brought the mobile game industry to a higher level. The game had 4.5 million daily active users one month after its launch. In just one year, its daily active users exceeded 50 million and its registered users reached 200 million, exceeding the initial growth rate of most competitors and creating a record in the history of mobile games that is difficult to surpass.

This data also reflects that more users are beginning to get involved in medium and heavy games, and games will become a popular entertainment product for more and more people.

1. Product positioning: "5V5 hero fair battle mobile game"

Honor of Kings is positioned as a domestic MOBA multiplayer online competitive mobile game. Based on the WeChat and QQ social relationship chains, it has formed a mature game model, business model and social model. The game time is short and you can start playing at any time. It does not require physical strength or development, and relies on personal skills and teamwork.

2. Target Users

The user group of Honor of Kings is roughly between 15 and 29 years old, with users aged 20 to 24 accounting for more than a quarter. The ratio of men to women is evenly distributed. Compared with the national distribution of netizens, it is more concentrated in second- and third-tier cities. The user profile is as follows:

• MOBA game enthusiasts: familiar with game modes, focus on game fairness and competitiveness, and have fragmented time.
• Casual game players: willing to try new games and focus on immediate feedback from games.
• The majority of female mobile game players pursue exquisite game graphics, love sharing and discussion, and have high social needs.

3. Demand Scenario

Like MOBA games, seek excitement and satisfaction;

Enjoy entertainment on weekends, holidays or before going to bed;

Making friends, chatting, and voice chat through games, showing a need for socialization;

Team up with others to play games during offline gatherings.

4. Core Functions

Battle mode, ranking match, adventure mode, micro-event, game mode is its core function, social mode is an important function for the activity of Honor of Kings, heroes, inscriptions, tasks, achievements, and levels ensure its playability.

5. Product structure diagram

2. Product Life Cycle Judgment

1. Time perspective: Honor of Kings was launched in October 2015 and has been in operation for 4 years.
2. From the user's perspective: In 2017, it had 200 million registered users, and in 2018, its product penetration rate still ranked first. The average monthly DAU of Honor of Kings was nearly 60 million, and the MAU exceeded 100 million, which was significantly higher than other mobile game apps. However, the number of active users showed a fluctuating downward trend. MOBA dropped from 26.06% of the mobile game users' time to 14.05%. There was a negative growth in MOBA active users, and 98% of Honor of Kings users were losing.
3. Product perspective : The game mode is improved, and the current version iteration focuses on optimizing the game experience: achievement system optimization, game environment optimization, social system optimization, comprehensive art upgrade, adding new gameplay, new heroes, and new skins.
4. Operational perspective : Currently we focus on refined data operations, with active retention and conversion being the current operational priorities.
5. Business perspective : Profitability: In the global game revenue in May 2019, Honor of Kings ranked first among mobile games, with profits approaching 2 billion US dollars in 2018, making Honor of Kings a representative of high revenue.
6. In terms of e-sports events: In 2018, the official viewing volume of KPL reached 17 billion, a 65% increase from 10.3 billion last year. The single-day live broadcast of the KPL Autumn Finals exceeded 300 million views, and it was performed as a performance event at the Asian Games.

Summary : Honor of Kings is in its mature stage, and user data shows that it has greatly extended the product life cycle.

(According to data from KuChuan, the cumulative number of downloads of Honor of Kings on Android is close to 7.4 billion)

(According to iResearch data, Honor of Kings ranks first in mobile game penetration rate)

3. Operational Strategy Analysis

1. Start-up period (2015)

Get user:

Internal testing period: rapid adjustments, iterative verification, and focus on mining seed users.

The game team conducted its first internal test in June 2015, and in August, "Heroes of War" started a limited non-delete version, followed by the public beta of "Honor of Kings". During the period, based on the feedback from thousands of MOBA players during the internal beta test, we worked with the R&D, marketing and other teams to attach great importance to user voices and continuously verify user recognition and feedback on the adjustments.

During the internal beta test, the game's gameplay, positioning, and brand image were all updated, and it was adjusted from a true competitive MOBA mobile game to a 5v5 hero fair battle mobile game. The keywords were adjusted from 10 minutes and 3v3 to 5v5, fair play and team fight.

After its release on October 28, the data of "Honor of Kings" has been comprehensively improved, the retention rate has increased significantly, and the game mode has been basically determined.

Precision marketing to create brand activities: live broadcast battles to attract a group of core users .

Different from "King of Glory" which focuses on social marketing, "Honor of Kings" chose the path of precision marketing for game users, observing the behavior of LOL players who like to watch live broadcasts and games. During the Hundred Regiments Night, we cooperated with the live broadcast platform to plan a live broadcast battle between LOL e-sports teams and celebrities, and invited OMG, the top team in LPL at the time. The live broadcast of the game battle allowed the audience to see the characteristics of this game, including teamwork, fairness, and 5v5 battles, and successfully attracted a group of core users.

2. Growth period (2016-2017)

(1) Obtaining and activating users:

Promoter System + Hundred Cities League:

The promoter system refers to Tencent exchanging resources such as product packages, Q coins, and online exposure with local suppliers, with brand partners or Internet cafes taking over the promotion of events. It uses the characteristics of offline competitions or Internet cafes to further convey the brand among players, attract more users, and set off a competitive craze. After being verified many times on games such as CF and DNF, this system has been continued in the promotion of LOL and Honor of Kings. It is one of the most important links in Tencent's e-sports industry chain.

E-sports event operation strategy:

Through the exploration of early city competitions, the professional league of Honor of Kings is divided into four divisions: city competitions, WGC, QGC, and TGA. The latter three cover WeChat users, mobile QQ users, and Tencent e-sports event users, allowing more e-sports enthusiasts to understand and cover more users. The official viewing data of KPL in 2017 was 10.3 billion. On the one hand, the KPL professional league system is constantly being improved and developed towards international competitions. On the other hand, it is creating a national e-sports culture, continuously sinking the competition system, and launching more city competitions and national competitions.

Develop basic products for the event: TV stations for watching games, game uniforms, and OB systems, and accumulate users through the assistant community platform, official website, and event center.

While building the competition system, we develop products related to the competition content: the entertainment-oriented "King of Glory", the competition interpretation "KPL Daily", and the documentary "King of Glory in Progress", which are pushed to users through Weibo, official accounts, game assistants and other channels.

(2) Activate and convert users

1) User incentive system mechanism

Emotional motivation: social relationship chain based on WeChat and QQ

From the perspective of emotional motivation, the social relationships of a game affect the user's life cycle. Based on social incentives, Honor of Kings has added the function of inviting friends via WeChat/QQ, a new LBS system for playing with people nearby, a new function of adding friends to the team interface, and a new master-apprentice and lover system. This huge social relationship chain has created a phenomenon where everyone plays together to play Honor of Kings, and it has become a form of social entertainment and a social currency. The in-game leaderboards also stimulate users’ sense of competition and satisfy their sense of achievement.

Spiritual encouragement:

1. Through a common task system, Honor of Kings guides users' daily gaming behavior habits, such as seven-day sign-ins and evening logins, and also guides their attention and participation in new content.
2. The achievement system continuously provides feedback to players' behaviors, including achievement medals, MVP, KDA, pentakill, and super god, which motivate players to participate in the next game.
3. The level system in the game is divided into experience value ranking and qualifying match ranking. Level upgrades and high-level titles motivate users to increase their gaming time. High rankings and high levels can allow players to gain a higher sense of honor in social interactions.

Benefit incentives:

There are three currency systems in Honor of Kings, namely gold coins, diamonds, and points. Players obtain currency through game matches, completing tasks, system gifts, recharges, etc., and then redeem it for heroes, inscriptions, skins, and lotteries in the mall. Currency separation ensures normal entertainment time for free players, meets the needs of operations and promotion, and takes into account the value-added needs of paying players.

2) In-game micro-community operations

Establish more valuable information channels within the game to promote activation, meet users' needs for fresh gameplay, game strategies, and data information, and promote paid conversions. In the early stages of community operation, we focus on PGC content guidance, use KOL content guidance to ensure community quality, increase community activity, and then gradually open up UGC content production.

On the other hand, the use scenarios of the community can be expanded within the game. For example, when a game fails, you can check the hero guide in the community. When viewing heroes, you can learn how to play the heroes in the community; when viewing skins, you can further watch videos to be guided to pay.

3. Mature stage (2017-present)

(1) Activate and retain users

User self-propagation

In July 2017, Honor of Kings launched a new hero named “Kai” and launched the “Collect hero marks and exchange for heroes for free” activity. Players can share fragments with friends and exchange them for permanent heroes for free. This meets the needs of most users and has led to the phenomenon of swiping the screen to ask for fragments.

The official also launched an H5 mini-game, allowing players to understand a hero's background and game world view in a more interesting way, and also warm up other new heroes that are about to go online.

Brand linkage, IP promotion

In recent years, Honor of Kings has continued to cooperate with other brands, such as McDonald's, BMW, Pizza Hut, Sprite, and vivo, and has also cooperated with many celebrities. With the trend of cross-border cooperation and pan-entertainment cooperation, it is not difficult to see that Honor of Kings wants to integrate the game brand into the lives of players, jump out of the boundaries of the game, and turn Honor of Kings into a deeper popular symbol.

At the 2018 anniversary celebration, Yang Yuhuan's flying skin was launched. Prior to that, the theme song and charity H5 were also released. The fan MV combining the theme song with the game CG received unanimous praise from players. The cooperation between Honor of Kings and the Dunhuang Research Institute demonstrates the organic combination of digital cultural creation and traditional culture.

In early 2019, it collaborated with MAC to launch customized lipstick, which reached a large number of young users through the dual IPs of games and celebrities, became a hit on Xiaohongshu, and was sold out within an hour of its launch.

In April this year, Honor of Kings cooperated with "Creation Camp 2019" to launch the Infinite King Boy Group, and initiated a voting for the C position of the boy group through Weibo and QQ Music to attract the attention of players. Subsequently, the boy group's personal settings and singles and other materials were released, which conformed to the idol culture's exploration of creating popular symbols.

Recently, Infinite King Group and the summer hit drama "The Longest Day in Chang'an" jointly launched the cross-dimensional theme song "Chang Xiang Si". The user groups of the two have a high degree of overlap, which provides a foundation for the successful gameplay of the film and game linkage.

4. Operational Strategy Analysis

1. Content Operation

Judging from the iterations of game versions in the past year, Honor of Kings has continuously optimized the achievement system, comprehensively upgraded the art, added new gameplay and new heroes, allowing old players to constantly feel fresh. Skins are an important step in the commercial monetization of Honor of Kings. Cultural value is given to the new skins it launches, such as the "Farewell My Concubine" combination skin, the "Dream in the Garden" skin, and the Mengqi Panda skin. These drive the diversified development of skin design, help the game connect with more users on the road to IPization, and expand the influence of the game brand.

However, while continuously introducing new gameplay and new skins, we must focus on optimizing players' gaming experience, including game matching mechanisms, hero skin special effects and modeling issues, and experience issues caused by weakened hero skills. Compared with the MOBA end-game players of Dota 2 and League of Legends, the proportion of female players in the King of Glory group is higher, and they are more willing to pay for the game. They enjoy paying more attention to the details of the game art. There are a lot of feedback from the player group under the comments of the official Weibo of "King of Glory":

It is common that the number of comments on the official game Weibo accounts far exceeds the number of reposts. Most of these active comments come from player feedback. One reason is that the feedback issues have not been resolved, affecting the players' gaming experience; the other is that players cannot find a reasonable channel for feedback, such as the voice of players saying "there is no response from the manual customer service."

So, how do game operators solve this problem? First, they need to investigate and judge the user portraits of these players. Are they core players? What is the percentage in quantity? Can their voices represent the opinions of the majority of players? Secondly, to what extent do these feedback issues affect players’ gaming experience? Does it reduce player activity and retention? Discuss scheduling with planning, art, and R&D students based on the priority of the issue. Finally, the player feedback mechanism needs to be improved so that players’ issues can be responded to and handled in a timely manner.

In addition, Honor of Kings undertakes game content such as hero guides, version dissemination, and node creation through channels such as the official website, game assistants, public accounts, Weibo, and Tieba. It also launches a lot of entertainment and two-dimensional content production for casual players with high game loyalty, extending the time users spend outside the game.

In terms of joint promotion and variety show cooperation, there are collaborations with big Vs on various platforms, the launch of the Honor of Kings x Nayuki's Tea theme store, and the self-produced variety show "Glory Girls", with the aim of attracting potential users of different ages and circles. "Glory Girls" is a mobile game variety show that seizes the selling points of "mobile games + appearance + elimination system", but its dissemination effect and topic level have not "gone viral", and it has only been spread and paid attention to among some players.

It can be seen that on the one hand, content operations need to understand the needs of users in different circles and whether the content production can attract groups other than players; on the other hand, it is necessary to do a good job of "cold start" in the early stage of the program and use topic marketing to attract greater attention.

2. Event Operation

Event operation is an important means to promote activity and retention of Honor of Kings, such as the anniversary celebration, the 55th Black Festival, and the Great Wall Squad event. On the one hand, these activities guide users' gaming habits, and on the other hand, they create benefits to give back to users, maintain a good operational rhythm, and let players feel the vitality of the game.

There are many activities in the game, and the rewards and tasks are different. Players often need to spend a certain amount of time and money to complete the tasks. Similar rewards and content will cause player fatigue, resulting in a decrease in the number of people who complete the task in the end.

Here we need to integrate activity tasks, reduce homogeneous activity content, provide good activity guidance and prompts, output more high-quality activities, give players new experiences, and improve the conversion rate of activity tasks and user stickiness. At the same time, we pay attention to the design innovation of operational activities, and design them based on the principles of clear activity objectives, activities fitting the nodes, simple rules and low thresholds, resource packaging, and activity topicality, so as to do a good job in content aggregation and refined reach.

3. User Operation

The game focuses on user incentive mechanisms, optimizes social system mechanisms, and increases user gaming time.

In terms of community operation, we focus on the operation of micro-communities and game assistants, liven up the discussion atmosphere of game content, and provide players with valuable information channels.

In terms of community operations, we pay attention to public opinions on different channels and analyze the characteristics of users speaking on different platforms. For example, when the health system was launched in July 2018, there was a surge in negative reviews; negative reviews were caused by the failure of a large-scale update. Strengthen community supervision, collect user feedback, and make reasonable adjustments and iterations in a timely manner.

4. E-sports event operations

E-sports events can effectively reach lost users outside of the game, extend the game life cycle, and convert ordinary users into core users. In the past two years, KPL has increased the number of viewers of professional league games by 12 times. With a sufficiently large user base for the game and the regional characteristics of the Chinese market, it has established a firm foothold in domestic mobile e-sports and is driving the growth of the number of viewers.

Although compared with PC e-sports events, mobile e-sports lacks viewing quality and tactical depth, there are still many problems that need to be solved in the exploration of international events.

V. Summary and Suggestions

According to data from iResearch Consulting, the game license policy has slowed down the growth of the current mobile game market. In 2018, the scale of mobile game users in China was about 626 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%. Last year, several popular games did not effectively support the growth of game users. China's mobile game market has officially shifted from an incremental era to a stock era.

Analysys Qianfan data shows that based on calculations from February 2019 and historical data, two categories have experienced significant user loss in the past 12 months. Among them, 98% of MOBA users are Honor of Kings users. Non-core users are easily attracted by new games and other entertainment methods, which directly leads to negative growth of MOBA. This will release a large number of medium and heavy users for Honor of Kings, and will help game manufacturers focus more on mainstream users.

Although the advantage of the user demographic dividend has disappeared, the payment rate in the domestic game market still has a lot of room for improvement. Honor of Kings had an amazing performance in the game revenue in 2018. How to strengthen user word-of-mouth, focus on refined operations, and optimize gaming experience are the keys to the future development of mobile games.

As a game product in its mature stage, in its future development direction, Honor of Kings should consider how to retain existing users, retain users, continue to build a game IP matrix and e-sports event brand, and radiate the influence of the game to more users. This is also the direction that Honor of Kings is focusing on at this stage.

Author: Archi

Source: Archi