Product operation skills at Station B!

As the first stock in the two-dimensional world, Bilibili's game agency business is both an opportunity and an obstacle. It will take many attempts to achieve diversified revenue in the future.

Preface: De-gaming or de-FGO-ing?

When talking about Bilibili’s gaming business, it seems impossible to avoid the keyword “two-dimensional game joint operation”.

At the end of 2016, Bilibili introduced the derivative game "Fate/Grand Order" (hereinafter referred to as FGO), which was based on the well-known Japanese IP "Fate". Because it was highly in line with the preferences of two-dimensional users, it quickly opened up the market and became a phenomenal product.

In 2017 alone, it contributed 2.058 billion yuan in gaming revenue, an increase of nearly seven times compared to 2016. Thanks to the rapid growth of its gaming business, on March 28, 2018, Bilibili was officially listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in the United States, becoming the first stock in China's two-dimensional industry.

However, FGO is like the sword of Damocles. While it brings high revenue to Bilibili, it has also become a greater hidden danger.

Data source: Bilibili 2019 Q2 financial report

According to the financial report released by Bilibili, its main revenue comes from four parts: mobile game business, advertising business, live broadcast and value-added service business, e-commerce and other income. Among them, the mobile game business has accounted for as much as 80% in the early stage of listing, and FGO is the largest in the mobile game business, bringing in nearly 70% of the revenue.

However, FGO is only a proxy mobile game, and Bilibili does not own its copyright. It even needs to renew the agreement with the original copyright holder Aniplex every year, which is extremely dangerous for a listed game company.

A lesson from the past is like the Ninth City, which developed rapidly in China with the exclusive agency rights of "World of Warcraft" and successfully rang the bell on the Nasdaq in 2004. Later in 2009, when the agency contract expired, Blizzard signed "World of Warcraft" to NetEase, and everyone saw the final result of 9c.

Bilibili’s management is naturally well aware of this, so we have seen that from Q1 2018 to date, the proportion of mobile game business revenue has gradually decreased from 79%, 77%, 69%, 61%, 64%, and 60%. So everyone believes that Bilibili needs to optimize its revenue structure through "de-gaming" to enhance its ability to resist risks.

However, what Bilibili actually wants to get rid of is never gamification, but the high revenue share of agency games like FGO. Of course, this does not mean that Bilibili will "tighten costs" to reduce FGO's revenue, but rather, it means that while maintaining stable FGO's revenue, it will obtain more diversified sources of revenue through "open source".

Bilibili has indeed done so, while vigorously developing other businesses:

• E-commerce business: opened official corporate stores on Tmall and Taobao, launched membership shopping, and sold figures, peripherals, tickets for performances or comic conventions and other products; in Q2 2019, e-commerce revenue reached 124 million, a year-on-year increase of 489%.
• Membership business: Paid premium membership was launched. As of Q2 2019, the number of members reached 5.3 million, a year-on-year increase of 148%.
• Live broadcast business: Game and e-sports live broadcasts continue to be popular, and the new Vtuber live broadcast brings a powerful growth engine; in Q2 2019, the number of paying users of the live broadcast business reached 1.2 million, a month-on-month increase of 100%.
• Advertising business: Brand advertising and performance advertising were launched successively; advertising revenue in Q2 2019 reached RMB 167 million, a year-on-year increase of 75%.

On the other hand, we are exploring more possibilities in the gaming business:

• E-sports layout: "Bilibili E-sports Company" was established, and it owns BLG and Hangzhou Spark E-sports clubs in the two top e-sports leagues LPL and OWL respectively; it also carries out businesses such as artist management, event organization, planning and production.
• Attempt at self-development: Launched the self-developed mobile game "Shindai Yuukatan", but due to insufficient technology, the market response was mediocre.
• Launch more games: As of Q2 2019, it has 16 exclusive games and more than 600 co-operated games.
• Fully open the game center: from "helping users choose products" to "letting users choose products themselves", no longer limited to core 2D mobile games, intends to create an open content-based mobile game distribution platform.

Next, this article will analyze the "Bilibili Game Center" from a product level, including why to do it from a market perspective, what to do from a user perspective, how to do it from Bilibili's perspective, as well as improvements and suggestions.

1. Why do we need to do this from a market perspective?

1. What is a mobile game distribution platform?

China's mobile game industry chain is mainly divided into R&D and distribution. The former is mainly responsible for content, and the latter is mainly responsible for traffic. After a game is developed by a developer, it is handed over to a publisher for distribution. The publisher then distributes it to various channels through advertising or game joint operations, ultimately reaching players. The revenue generated by players paying to download games or making in-game recharges is settled between the developer, publisher, and channel operators according to a certain sharing ratio.

In the distribution link, due to the closed nature of the IOS system, only the App Store dominates the market. On the other hand, Android channels are flourishing, with five main types: hardware manufacturers, advertising platforms, super apps, operators and application stores, cutting into various scenarios to meet users' different download needs.

Among the five major mobile game channels, hardware manufacturers, due to their inherent advantages, firmly occupy the top spot with a penetration rate of 76.90%. Among them, industry giants such as Hardcore Alliance were born. The Hardcore Alliance, also known as the Android Smartphone Ecosystem Alliance, is a distribution channel formed by Wanka Media and domestic first-tier smartphone manufacturers OPPO, VIVO, Coolpad, Gionee, Lenovo, Huawei, and Meizu.

Due to the openness of Android and the special national conditions, major domestic application markets have also entered the market, replacing Google Play as the main distribution channel.

In addition, many super apps rely on their user base to distribute games in order to realize traffic monetization, such as Weibo, WeChat, Douyu, etc. Bilibili is also a mobile game distribution platform of the super app type.

Generally, traditional tool-based distribution platforms are driven by distribution. They guide users to download by pushing mainstream games and earn distribution fees from them, such as Hardcore Alliance and major application markets.

However, in recent years, content-based mobile game distribution platforms have begun to emerge. They focus on content and supplement distribution, establish player rating mechanisms to allow users to choose games themselves, and build gaming communities to continuously produce content. For example, TapTap, Haoyou Kuaibao, etc., compared with tool-type distribution platforms, content-type distribution platforms are more UGC-centric, forming a virtuous circle through content production and promoting sustainable development.

2. A cold winter in 2018

If we use one word to describe the development of China's mobile game market, then "rapid progress" is undoubtedly the most appropriate.

Since the release of the first iPhone in 2007, which ushered in the era of touch-screen smartphones, the mobile game market has benefited from the rapid development of mobile Internet and users' growing demand for cultural and entertainment. In just 10 years, annual sales revenue has increased nearly 900 times from 150 million yuan to 133.96 billion yuan. Not only has it squeezed out PC gaming to become the largest gaming market in China with a 66.7% market share, it has also surpassed the United States to become the world's largest gaming market with a market share of nearly one-third.

Data source: "2018 Mobile Game Industry Data Report" Aurora Big Data

High growth and high returns inevitably attracted a large amount of capital to enter the market quickly, and as a result, countless game companies sprang up like mushrooms after a rain.

As of July 2019, there are 198 listed gaming companies in China, and more than 20 new games are born in this market every day. However, users' time and energy are always limited, and they will not play multiple games at the same time. Therefore, whether a game can quickly acquire a large number of users after it goes online is the key to its success or failure.

As a result, the gaming industry has become a traffic competition market, and channel operators who control traffic have taken a dominant position.

For most game manufacturers, making games is no longer about studying player needs and polishing core gameplay. Instead, they take homogeneous products, acquire a large number of users by buying traffic, and then further sell virtual products and services to make profits.

More and more low-quality mobile games are flooding the entire market, and the phenomena of channel fraud and data inflation are becoming more and more serious. The complaining players are becoming more and more eager for high-quality mobile games.

With the popularization of smart terminals, the demographic dividend of mobile Internet has gradually disappeared, and the growth of game users has tended to slow down since 2016. In addition, the rapid rise of short video applications in the past two years has invisibly divided users' fragmented entertainment time.

Users have higher requirements for product gameplay, aesthetic design, and innovation. Inferior products can no longer attract users by relying on traffic gameplay.

The entire game market has entered the inventory era. Game manufacturers upstream of the industry chain have begun to return to a "player-oriented" approach, fine-tuning their products while continuously strengthening their control over channel resources. The method of buying volume for promotion has gradually declined. Downstream channel operators have lost their dominant position and have begun to explore new ways of development.

Thus, content-based mobile game distribution platforms such as TapTap came into being, tapping into players' eager demand for quality mobile games, focusing on quality mobile game recommendations and game rating communities. At the same time, TapTap "does not modify, does not operate jointly, does not share profits, and only makes money through commercial advertising", which solves the problems of game developers who have long suffered from channel control. It has developed rapidly in recent years, and the mobile game ratings it provides have now become the main criterion for players and the media to judge a game.

Everything seemed to be going in the right direction until a cold winter suddenly hit.

On March 29, 2018, the former State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television issued the "Notice on Important Matters Regarding Game Application and Approval", stating that due to institutional reforms, the progress of game approval work will be affected.

On August 30 of the same year, the Ministry of Education and eight other ministries jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents", which mentioned that "the use of electronic products for non-learning purposes should not exceed 15 minutes at a time, and should not exceed 1 hour in total per day". The National Press and Publication Administration will implement total control of online games and control the number of new online game operations.

Data source: "2018 Mobile Game Industry Data Report" Aurora Big Data

Only 1,872 mobile games were approved in the whole of 2018, less than a quarter of that in 2017. Without a game license, newly developed games cannot be put on the market to make profits. Therefore, with the suspension of game license approval, the Chinese mobile game market, with an annual revenue of 133.96 billion yuan and over 600 million consumers, has also entered a cold winter.

The big reshuffle finally arrived as expected. Countless small and medium-sized manufacturers had to withdraw from the market one after another because their new games could not be launched on schedule and they were unable to recover their funds. Channel dealers also had a hard time. The loss of high-quality new game content led to a large number of user losses and a sharp drop in revenue.

After the cold winter lasted for 275 days, on December 29, 2018, the official website of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television finally announced the first list of game licenses. Everything is starting to get back on track, but the difference this time is that the total number of game licenses is expected to be controlled at around 3,000 in 2019.

In the new spring, the game industry is ushering in the trend of high-quality games. The competition among channels for high-quality games will become increasingly fierce. Channels that rely solely on the single structure of game distribution will eventually die, and content-based mobile game distribution platforms are about to rise.

3. Bilibili’s Generation Z dream

For a long time, Bilibili's intermodal business has been extremely strict.

Taking 2017 as an example, it evaluated a total of 943 joint operation games, but only 55 games were finally connected and launched, with a launch rate of only 6%. It is jokingly called the "most difficult joint operation channel" in the gaming industry.

This is indeed the right approach. After all, Bilibili is a bullet screen video website targeting the two-dimensional population, so it needs to use a strict access mechanism to screen games that meet the tone of two-dimensional users in order to maximize the value of joint operations.

But the two-dimensional mobile game is ultimately just a niche market. Although it reached a market size of 19.09 billion yuan in 2018, it only accounted for 14.3% of the Chinese mobile game market, and the ceiling is not high.

Data source: Bilibili 2019 Q2 financial report

On the other hand, when it went public in 2018, Bilibili's Growth Story had already transformed it from a "two-dimensional video website" to a "comprehensive entertainment platform targeting Generation Z" - Generation Z refers to China's post-90s and post-00s, with a total population of approximately 328 million. As they grow older, they will become the main force of cultural and entertainment consumption in the future.

Data source: Bilibili 2019 Q2 financial report

So we see that with the rapid growth of total revenue and MAU, the community content that was originally dominated by two-dimensional culture is also changing. The life area, entertainment area, and game area are gradually surpassing the animation/series area to become the main content production area. Bilibili's user group is no longer the core two-dimensional population, and more three-dimensional Generation Z users are pouring in.

The expansion of the user base and the diversification of user needs have prompted Bilibili's gaming business to no longer be limited to the joint operation of two-dimensional related games.

In order to embrace change, Bilibili fully opened its game center in early 2018, changing from "helping users choose products" to "letting users choose products themselves"; and increased the stratification ratio of co-operated games to 50-50, further attracting game developers to settle in.

At the same time, Bilibili Game Center products have also been upgraded to further enhance rich UGC content such as user ratings, topic guides, and video columns. From this we can see that Bilibili has also begun trying to build an "open content-based mobile game distribution platform."

But at this time, the entire content distribution market was already in full swing of competition. TapTap had just taken the top spot, while Haoyou Kuaibao, Youpinwei, QooApp and other competitors were already gearing up and waiting for an opportunity to make their move.

Compared with them, although Bilibili entered the market late, it actually has a more core competitive advantage - video content.

Data source: "2019 Mobile Game Industry Marketing Trend Report" TalkingData

Why is video content important?

From the distribution scenario perspective, whether for free players or paying players, video and trial interactive ads are more attractive and have higher distribution efficiency than text information ads.

From a UGC perspective, compared to writing comments and posting, videos have higher requirements for creators and are more intuitive, rich, and vivid expressions for the audience.

As China's largest game video platform, Bilibili has accumulated a large amount of high-quality UGC game video content and video creation UP hosts after 10 years of development. This is what other competing platforms dream of and it is difficult to match in a short time.

The victory of a war depends on "the right time, the right place, and the right people". For Bilibili, a cold winter brought the "right time", and the existing video content served as the "right place". As for the "right people", what about? Please continue reading the breakdown below.

2. What to do from the user's perspective

1. User Composition

Data source: 2018 Hardcore Alliance White Paper

Men have always been the dominant users in the mobile game market, but due to the emergence and popularity of female-oriented mobile games such as "Miracle Nikki" and "Love and Producer" in recent years, the proportion of women has gradually increased, and the overall trend is towards balance. Some distribution platforms have also begun to pay attention to the needs of female users, launching special recommendations and special areas for women to attract female users to convert.

Data source: "2019 Paid Market Half-Year Report" QuestMobile

In terms of age distribution, although young people under the age of 24 account for 32.18%, young and middle-aged users aged 25-35 account for a higher proportion of 45.88%; at the same time, young and middle-aged people are also the main paying users, and their paying ability is significantly stronger than that of young users who do not have an independent source of income. Therefore, from a comprehensive perspective, young and middle-aged people are the “main users + financiers” of the mobile game industry.

2. User Conduct

Data source: "2019 Mobile Game Industry Marketing Trend Report" TalkingData

In terms of game preferences, mainstream mobile game players prefer action shooting and role-playing games, and prefer to download games in vertical game stores. Therefore, vertical stores like TapTap and Bilibili can do more to recommend and operate these two types of games to better meet the needs of mainstream players.

Data source: "2019 Mobile Game Industry Marketing Trend Report" TalkingData

Paying for games is a common phenomenon, with 71% of players paying for games, and 63.1% of paying users prefer to use app stores to discover and download games. This shows that although social distribution channels such as Weibo and WeChat have gradually emerged in recent years, most of their converted users are free players, and traditional app stores or mobile game vertical stores are still more competitive.

Data source: 2018 Hardcore Alliance White Paper

In addition to games, mobile game users' other entertainment time is generally concentrated in the two major areas of video and information, accounting for 81.3% and 76.2% respectively; in addition, the animation entertainment field is also distributed, accounting for 47.6%. This is mainly because the usage scenarios of several fields and mobile games are similar, all of which utilize users' fragmented time. Most distribution platforms have also begun to develop video and information sections to enrich platform content and increase user retention and activity.

3. User portrait

Based on the above mobile game user composition and behavioral preferences, mobile game users can be divided into light players, ordinary players, heavy players and KOL players, with the following portraits:

• Light gamers: mainly female, who have only played one or two games and usually discover new games through recommendations from friends or social media. They play games just to kill time, so they prefer casual games and rarely pay for them.
• Ordinary players: They have played many games but have no clear preference for type. They usually discover new games through app stores. They play games to kill time or socialize outside of games (referring to playing with friends and classmates), and they will make small payments.
• Heavy players: mainly male, prefer more complex game types such as action shooting and role-playing games; generally discover new games through vertical game stores, are keen to participate in in-game social activities and integrate into various gaming circles; have a strong willingness to pay high prices.
• KOL players: hardcore players who are generally proficient in a certain type of game and have a stronger understanding of the game; they have a certain voice and influence on fans. Game anchors, game video UP hosts, and administrators of unofficial game forums are all KOL players.

The target users of content-based mobile game distribution platforms should be mainly heavy players, because they are the producers of low-quality content and consumers of high-quality content; at the same time, efforts should also be made to attract KOL players to join, because they are the producers of high-quality content.

4. User needs

Based on the above four standard player types, we can further summarize the following four different typical game experience paths:

• Light players: discover the game MVP → experience the game MVP;
• Ordinary players: discover game Beta → experience game Beta → enjoy game Beta;
• Heavy players: discover game V1 → experience game V1 → enjoy game V1 → discuss game V1;
• KOL players: discover game V2 → experience game V2 → enjoy game V2 → discuss game V2 → promote game V2.

Different types of players have different demands for the same link, and the needs become more complex as the level increases, so we use MVP, Beta, V1, and V2 to distinguish them here. For example, in the game discovery stage, casual players may only need a brief introduction to the game, but heavy players need rich information such as the game’s classification/ranking/rating before making a download decision.

The target users of content-based mobile game distribution platforms are heavy gamers and KOL players, so we further stratify their needs and provide functional references:

• Basic needs: discover games (categories, rankings, ratings, theme recommendations), experience games (booking, downloading, updating, purchasing);
• Advanced needs: Discuss games (friends, communities, strategies, information), promote games (produce content to influence other players, gain recognition);
• Advanced needs: Enjoy the game (customer service, recharge, benefits, tools).

Discovering and experiencing games constitutes the smallest closed loop, and as a basic need, its stability and availability must be prioritized.

Discussing and promoting games is the main function and core competitiveness of content-based mobile game distribution platforms, so as an advanced requirement, it must be ensured to be available and easy to use.

Enjoying games is more of a demand for the game product itself, while on the distribution platform side, it is an experience beyond users' expectations, which can be achieved as appropriate.

The above is only a demand analysis from the user's perspective. In the actual implementation process, the supply-side capabilities of the corresponding platform need to be considered and adjusted. For example, game strategies and information functions require very high operational resources, so the priority of platforms with weaker operational resources can be postponed.

3. How to do it from Bilibili’s perspective

1. Main functions

The figure above shows the functional structure of Bilibili Game Center on the Android system sorted by page level, which meets the following user needs:

• Game discovery: search, rankings, game recommendations (featured/discovery channels), game details page (ratings and introductions);
• Game experience: game management (download, update, reservation, purchase, etc.);
• Enjoy the game: game gift packages (ordinary gift packages, exclusive gift packages for VIP members);
• Discussing games: My Follows (information, dynamics, etc.), game details page (evaluations, topics, strategies, videos/live broadcasts);
• Promote games: contribute columns, videos, game live broadcasts, etc.

Among them, those related to UGC mainly include ratings, reviews, topics, strategies, videos and other functions on the game details page, which determine the core competitiveness of a content-based mobile game distribution platform. Below I will conduct a detailed analysis of these product aspects.

2. Ratings & Reviews

1) What is a rating review?

Before we start analyzing the specific features, let’s first talk about what the game ratings and reviews are?

I believe that evaluation is a subjective conclusion reached by users after judging and analyzing the value of a game, and rating is a quantified score based on this conclusion. The subject is the "user", the object is the "value of the game", the action is "judgment and analysis", and the result is the "subjective conclusion".

Let's analyze them one by one:

main body:

• Users can generally be players, media, etc., based on which player ratings and media ratings can be divided;
• Generally speaking, the more professional the players and media are, the more valuable their ratings and reviews are.

Target:

• The value of the game, that is, the degree to which it satisfies the players' expected needs;
• Anticipated needs refer to the motivations for players to play games, such as having fun, killing time, socializing, challenging themselves, making money, gaining fame, etc.

action:

• There are many ways to judge and analyze, such as playing the game yourself, watching videos or live broadcasts, reading other players' comments or media reviews, etc.
• Strictly speaking, we only call the conclusions based on personal experience valid rating evaluations.

result:

• Whether it is words or scores, they are both conclusions, but they are expressed in different forms;
• Since the subject is a human, the conclusions it produces must be subjective, but we can guide users to produce relatively objective conclusions by establishing objective rules.

For game players, the main function of ratings and reviews is to assist them in discovering games and they are an important reference for them to make the decision of whether to experience the game.

For game manufacturers, the main function is to obtain user feedback to guide game production.

For the distribution platform, the main function is to promote users to complete download conversions and enhance the activity of the content community.

It is undeniable that every user will come to a subjective conclusion as long as they have personally experienced the game, but they will not necessarily write reviews or give scores. Therefore, for the platform, the main pain points are "how to guide users to record their subjective conclusions in the form of text or scores and accumulate them into platform content" and "how to improve the quality of platform ratings and evaluations." The following is a detailed analysis of these two pain points.

2) How to guide the generation of ratings and reviews

Simply put, the user's willingness to act = the value obtained from completing the action - the cost required. The larger the difference, the more willing the user is to take action. So we just need to work hard to increase the value we get and reduce the cost we have to pay.

Enhanced value:

• The value that users can obtain is the degree to which their expected needs are met. Expected needs can be divided into two types: internally driven needs and externally driven needs. Intrinsic demand is based on the user's own motivation, such as the innate desire to express, likes and dislikes of a certain game, etc.; extrinsic demand is motivation imposed by the outside world, such as additional rewards, positive community atmosphere, etc.
• Starting from the intrinsic driving needs, the role of ratings and reviews can be emphasized to users. For example, tell users that "completing the review can guide other users to download the game and allow game manufacturers to obtain feedback". If the user likes the game, the review will let more users know. If the user does not like the game, the review will also prevent other users from downloading it.
• Starting from external driving needs, you can directly provide monetary rewards, or you can provide virtual items such as medals, levels, achievements and other rewards to attract user reviews; at the same time, establish a good community atmosphere and positive positive feedback. People are easily influenced by the environment, such as prompts such as "Currently xxx players are evaluating", "Your evaluation is liked and praised by xxx players", etc.

Reduce costs:

• For the act of completing the rating and evaluation, the cost mainly refers to the time cost and energy cost consumed.
• Reduce time costs. That is, shorten the user's evaluation path as much as possible. For example, providing a convenient and obvious pre-evaluation entrance, and providing a smooth and stable experience during the evaluation.
• Reduce energy costs, that is, minimize the complex thinking of users when evaluating. Turning subjective conclusions in the mind into words or scores requires users to consume their thinking energy. We can display excellent evaluation templates in the evaluation to help users think about and organize their language. We can also pre-set some typical labels, such as "smooth operation", "simple operation", "interesting gameplay", etc., to facilitate users to quickly complete the evaluation.

3) How to improve the quality of ratings and reviews

What are high-quality ratings? Simply put, the quality of evaluation = evaluation angle * evaluation depth, that is, the more comprehensive and in-depth the thinking angle is, the higher the quality of the scoring evaluation will be.

The following are detailed descriptions:

Evaluation angle:

• Generally speaking, the more comprehensive the player's evaluation is, the better. However, due to the diversity of game types, users have different demands for different games. For example, for casual games, people hope that they can kill time and be easy to play; for MMO games, people hope that they can socialize, develop themselves, and challenge themselves.
• Therefore, we can set different evaluation dimensions for different game types and guide users to complete the rating evaluation according to the dimensions. For example, when scoring, multiple scoring options such as "plot satisfaction", "running smoothness", and "social satisfaction" are set for MMO games, and the final score is calculated based on the weights of different options.

Depth of evaluation:

• The more in-depth the evaluation on a certain aspect, the more reference value it has, but it will often cost users more time and energy.
• Since the cost has increased, in order not to reduce users' willingness to comment, we can only increase the value users receive at the same time. For specific practices, please refer to the above.

Of course, in reality, there are still very few users who will seriously make comments. Most of them just make a witty comment or simply express their opinions, which can often get a lot of likes from other users. For distribution platforms that are not positioned as professional evaluation platforms, such evaluations can also be included as useful content, but they must be displayed separately.

In addition, we must also take into account abnormal users such as the Internet water army. Targeting the Internet water army is even more complicated and requires prevention from multiple levels such as operations, products, and technology. I will not analyze it in detail here.

4) How to display ratings and reviews

After obtaining a large amount of user rating and evaluation content through the above steps, the next step is to solve how to display the content.

The general principle is to display high-quality reviews first, because reviews help users make download decisions, and the higher the quality of the reviews, the greater their reference value. But this brings up another question: how does the system identify high-quality reviews?

You can start from the following angles:

• Manual identification: that is, operations intervene to process users' rating and evaluation data and screen high-quality evaluations for display; but this involves the problem of high labor costs and low efficiency, so it is only suitable for the early stage of platform development when a large number of evaluations have not been accumulated.
• Machine recognition: that is, using machine algorithms to allow the system to automatically identify user rating and evaluation content. The final result depends on the perfection of the algorithm.
• User identification: This means that users are provided with the function of liking or disliking other people’s comments. The system will then identify comments with a high number of likes as high-quality comments and display them. However, if users always give priority to high-quality reviews, it will lead to a clustering effect, that is, more and more likes and objection data will be tilted towards high-quality reviews, so we also need to set the sort order of "latest reviews" to facilitate user operations.

In general, we should choose appropriate methods based on the platform's actual supply-side capabilities to screen out high-quality reviews, and then display high-quality content by default; at the same time, we should also provide other arrangement dimensions such as latest and interesting for users to choose from.

5) Bilibili Game Center’s rating and evaluation function

Based on the TOP20 mobile games in the annual comprehensive popularity list selected in Gamma Data's "2018 Mobile Game Report", I selected three content-based mobile game distribution platforms: Bilibili Game Center, TapTap, and Haoyou Kuaibao, and statistically analyzed the evaluation data as follows:

• Overall, Bilibili’s coverage of popular games is still relatively comprehensive, but some games may not be included because they do not meet the audience requirements, such as "Happy Landlord" and "Happy Match 3".
• In terms of the number of reviews, except for "FGO" which has more reviews due to its home field factor, the others are far lower than TapTap and Haoyou Kuaibao; this is because the former two have been deeply engaged in content, while Bilibili started late and therefore needs to continue to work hard to improve.
• In terms of rating quality, although Bilibili has a small number and is closer to TapTap's score, given that TapTap's ratings are highly recognized in the industry, this also indirectly shows that the quality of Bilibili Game Center's ratings is acceptable.

In fact, it can be seen that the current primary pain point of Bilibili Game Center is how to increase the number of user ratings and reviews. Next, we will analyze the specific process steps for users to complete rating and evaluation in Bilibili Game Center and provide reference suggestions.

The operation path to complete the evaluation and rating is relatively short. You can make an evaluation after entering a game details page through the main site's game videos or game area.

There are two obvious evaluation entrances on the "Game Details Page", but there is a lack of positive evaluation guidance.

The "Add Review Page" is relatively simple. The rating is divided into 5 stars (terrible, boring, average, good, amazing), and the text review is limited to 5,000 characters, which is enough for the typing input experience on mobile devices.

The “Review Success Page” displays reviews in the form of small posters and supports players to save and share them. The design is very sophisticated but lacks active sharing guidance.

The "Evaluation List Page" provides three sorting orders: default, useful, and latest. Users can choose to view other users' evaluations, and support comment, like, and object operations.

Based on the previous analysis of the needs for rating and evaluation, the following suggestions are given to solve the above problems:

• Lack of positive evaluation guidance - Suggestion: In essence, evaluations, like the videos on the main site, are UGC content, so they can be connected to the existing coin system. After the user completes the evaluation carefully, other users can express their support by giving coins, which can not only encourage users to evaluate but also facilitate the generation of high-quality evaluations. However, this will affect the existing coin incentive system of the main site. After all, the cost of making videos is much higher than posting reviews. The specific proportion of coin income needs to be adjusted according to actual conditions.
• There is no draft box, and if the user exits, they need to re-enter the evaluation, which is not conducive to generating high-quality evaluations. Suggestion: Add a draft box function. When exiting normally but without submitting comments, a pop-up window will prompt the user whether to save the draft. When exiting abnormally, the draft will be automatically saved to facilitate the user's next comment.

3. Topics & Strategies

Based on the above analysis, we can find that ratings and reviews are only UGC content for the value of the game itself. However, in addition to the value of the game itself, users often have the need to express other game-related topics such as questions and answers, strategies, and complaints. This requires mentioning two other UGC product forms: Sina Weibo and Baidu Tieba. Although they are also platforms for users to produce and consume content, the way they organize and present content information is very different.

• Weibo organizes and displays information with users at the core, and emphasizes the relationship of attention between people; as long as you follow a user, all the information he posts will be pushed to you, even if you are not interested in some of the content.
• Tieba organizes and displays information with content as the core. Each keyword constitutes a Tieba, and users who are interested in it gather here to speak freely. In this scenario, the user relationship is greatly weakened. People don’t care who you are, but they care whether the content you post is in line with their interests.
• There is no difference between the two forms, they just meet the different needs of users from different levels. In recent years, they have also begun to transform into each other. For example, Weibo launched the hot/super topic function centered on content, and Tieba launched the follow-up function that emphasizes user relationships.

Obviously, for the vertical field of games, interest content is more important than social relationships, so a product form like Tieba is more suitable. Content-based mobile game distribution platforms such as TapTap and Haoyou Kuaibao also use forums and post bars as a format when building their communities.

1) How to create a UGC forum

After determining the product form, what should we do specifically?

Next, we need to analyze from the perspective of user needs. Generally speaking, players' needs for game expression are mainly divided into two categories: complaining and sharing experiences:

• Tucao communication: commenting and expressing opinions on the game itself and its derivatives, usually in the form of information posts, Tucao posts, Nikkei posts, friendship posts, etc.; mainly generated by ordinary players, and determines the activity level of a forum.
• Experience sharing: The organization and sharing of gaming experience, usually in the form of strategy posts, Q&A posts, resource posts, data posts, etc.; it is mainly generated by core players and determines the quality of a forum.

In actual situation, if users are allowed to post freely, it will often lead to an increase in the proportion of water. Therefore, in order to regulate user behavior and ensure the signal-to-noise ratio of the forum, another indispensable role must be introduced - operation personnel, generally known as administrators, bar owners, etc., whose main job is to carry out content operation and user operations.

• Content operation: The first is to establish the positioning of the forum. If it is an official forum, it mainly focuses on answering player questions and publishing official information. If it is a player forum, it mainly meets player communication needs; based on positioning, the forum rules and regulations are established to guide users to communicate and post to promote activity, and control the proportion of various content to ensure quality.
• User operation: mainly divides user levels to operate, such as attracting new users, active and transforming ordinary users, incentives and retentions for core users, and early warnings and recalls for lost users.

The UGC forum must be operation-intensive, and there are many operation-based gameplay, but it also needs to be analyzed based on specific issues, so I will not go into details here.

From the product level, it is actually the main thing to build a content production system, content distribution system, content interaction system, and content management and user management system for operators.

• Content production system: that is, the editor that users produce content. Generally, the higher the quality of content, the higher the requirements for production editors, such as rich text editing, multimedia insertion, markup language support, etc. In order to take into account the needs of ordinary players and core players, a simple and convenient editor can be provided on the mobile side, while a full-featured editor can be provided on the PC side.
• Content distribution system: that is, the user's content display and distribution rules. Since users' needs for the forum may be communication and sharing or seeking help, we need to distribute the content according to different needs. The general approach is to set up different partitions, such as boutique area, guide area, question and answer area, and irrigation area, etc., and each partition will be displayed in the order of posting/replying.
• Content interaction system: that is, the user's interaction system for content, which generally includes basic functions such as reply, like, objection, report, collection, and sharing. According to the forum positioning, you can also set user interaction thresholds, and reply can only be made if certain requirements are met.
• Operation system: It mainly provides operational functions according to the requirements of operation personnel, such as deletion, top-up, refinement, partitioning and other functions in content management, and provides user layered privileges and logos, vests, small black room, etc. in user management.

In general, doing a UGC forum is to sing a big show: the product staff is responsible for building the stage to prepare props, the operation staff is the director to coordinate the actors and scripts, and the users are responsible for both performances and also participate in the viewing - the trinity is required, and must be coordinated and must not be neglected.

2) Forum function of Bilibili Game Center

The Bilibili Game Center actually does not have a direct forum function, but borrows the existing functions of the two main websites (dynamics and columns) to replace the implementation.

Dynamics are similar to Weibo functions. Users can send dynamics with "#", and dynamics with the same "#" will automatically be grouped into a topic. The game center directly displays the topic of the game, achieving the needs of ordinary players to communicate with each other.

However, dynamic release is limited to 233 characters and cannot meet the experience sharing needs of core players. So we borrowed another column function on the main site. The column supports more complex editing operations. After user posting and after operation review and screening, it will be displayed in the guide area of ​​the game details page.

From the perspective of the overall product architecture, such borrowing is clever, which can not only meet user needs, but also avoid repeated creation of wheels, but also revitalize the entire community. The following analyzes the two functions of topic and strategy.

3) Game topics

There are two main entrances for game topics, one is "Main Site-Dynamic Tab" and the other is "Game Details Page" of the Game Center.

However, the main website dynamic Ttab may have multiple topics for the same game. For example, "Ark of Tomorrow" has multiple topics such as #Ark of Tomorrow#, #Ark of Tomorrow emoticons#, #Ark of Tomorrow Fan-Humanities#, and the details page of the game center only displays the dynamics of the topic containing the game's native name #Ark of Tomorrow#.

The "Dynamic Editing Release Page" can enter up to 233 characters, supports positioning and inserting up to 9 pictures, and is also available in voting formats, which can meet users' lightweight editing needs. When posting the news for the first time, you need to confirm the "Bilibili Dynamic Usage Specifications", which are exemptions and are only for display.

In addition, when users submit videos and column articles on the main website, as long as they bring the game's # topic logo, they will also be displayed in the game's topic. The columns and videos will be analyzed separately below.

In terms of content distribution, Bilibili Game Center has set up three sections: "top", "popular" and "latest", but it is not classified separately, but is concentrated in a feed stream to display it in turn.

After observation, even the trends with extremely low forwarding/comments/likes will appear in the "topped" and "popular" areas, so they should be screened and set by the operators; and the "latest" area is displayed in the order of user release time. In terms of content interaction, regular operations are supported, including forwarding, commenting, likes, sharing, collection and reporting of other users' dynamics.

In terms of user operation functions, the topic section has a top display of "active users", listing the most active top 20 users under the game topic. According to common sense, you should be an active user by actively publishing relevant news, but whether it is actually set by the operator or there are other rules, Bilibili has not specified in detail.

Overall, although Bilibili borrows the dynamics and topic functions of the main website to meet users' communication needs, there are still many problems compared to the perfect game forum, as follows:

• The same type of topics do not have a subset attribution relationship, which leads to the discussion dynamics actually being published for the same game, but cannot be displayed in the game details page.
• The dynamic creation is limited to only 233 characters. Judging from the product form of Weibo, there is indeed no problem, and it ensures concise and easy to disseminate and quickly browse. But this also leads to the inability to carry higher quality content. Although it can be supplemented through columns and videos, it needs to go through another contribution portal on the main site, and there is no relevant guidance when creating dynamics.
• In terms of dynamic distribution and display, although there are three sections: "top", "popular" and "latest", there is no Tab classification, and users must browse in turn. If the operator sets too many tops or popular dynamics, users need to swipe the screen multiple times to see the latest section.
• The management and operation personnel of the topic are the official game manufacturers. If there is no official entry, there will be no "top" and "popular" sections on the topic. In fact, for the field of games, the official can enter the forum, but it must not be the only manager. Because during the game operation, there are often situations of official and player conflicts. If a forum is dominated by the official, it is easy to cause users to resist.
• The user incentive mechanism is limited, and ordinary users cannot participate in topic management, so they can only become "active users" at most; although it is based on Ai Power Generation, setting up promotion and incentive mechanisms with clear rules is more conducive to promoting user activity and retention.

The above questions are based on the product form of Weibo such as "dynamic topics". They are the choices in the overall functional structure of the product, which affects the whole body, so I will not make any suggestions for modification here.

4) Game Strategy

The entrance to the game strategy is divided into the "column area" of the main site and the "game details page" of the game center. However, since the "column area" entrance itself is deep and the user's demand for the strategy is based on the game scene, the "game details page" should be the main entrance, but this entrance only provides viewing functions. If you want to publish a strategy, you must enter the column section of the main site.

Compared with the game topic section, the game strategy has a higher threshold for user production access. The column needs to submit an application first, and you can only start submitting the article after the review is approved. When applying for opening a column, you must provide a mobile phone number and original article as a review reference. You can optionally fill in the creation content type and complete identity authentication to improve the review pass rate.

After the review is approved, column editing and submission can be started. It also supports mobile and WEB terminals. The number of text text is relaxed to 200~20,000 words, and it also supports richer text editing functions (special fonts, paragraph typesetting, content citations, etc.), which basically meets the editing needs of complex articles. It is worth mentioning that the column only supports the category of mobile games in terms of classification options, and does not subdivided into specific games.

In content distribution, not all published columns will enter the strategy section, but will be displayed by management and operation personnel first screening and then dividing specific types. In this process, not only the columns, but also the videos related to the strategy will also be classified into the strategy section. Users can view the game problems they need to solve according to different categories, and support up to 10 categories at the same time.

In terms of content interaction, there is more support for coin investment than game topics. Since making strategies does require more time and energy costs for users, coin investment can express users' gratitude to the strategy maker and can also inspire core users to create more and better strategy content.

In general, the column product form borrowed by the game strategy is very in line with users' needs for experience sharing, and its high threshold and strong operation screening control also ensures that users can continue to see high-quality content.

The only problem is that there is no guidance on publishing strategies in the main entrance of the game details page, and there is no clear submission options for strategies in the column area and column editorial office. Potential core users who are not familiar with the column functions are basically lost at this step.

4. Video & PUGC

Finally, let’s talk about video and PUGC alone, these two aces in Bilibili’s hands.

1) Video

First, answer a question - what can game videos bring to users?

Mr. Tajiri, the father of Pokémon, wrote a guide book on game production and design in 1995, "New Ideas for TV Production", which mentioned that the components of electronic games are mainly rules, performances and themes.

Among them, the rules refer to the interaction between people and the game system, the performance refers to the game screen, music, sound effects, etc., and the theme refers to the game story, artistic expression, and the central idea. It can be seen that compared with the aforementioned ratings, text topics and strategies, the audio and video forms of the video can more richly express the performance and theme of the game.

Based on this feature, we enter the game experience path and analyze users' needs for game videos:

• Discover the game: Learn more comprehensively and richly through videos to assist in its download decisions;
• Experience/enjoy the game: mainly to meet the gaming experience needs of cloud players;
• Discuss the game: By watching game videos, solve problems encountered in the game, or participate in discussions on related topics;
• Promote games: Share game experience, express opinions, and promote games by making game videos.

Then let’s take a look – does Bilibili meet these needs?

From this picture, we can see that basically the original video function of Bilibili main website has covered the entire game experience process of the user, and it has its own system and is well-functioning, and even distributed and promoted in the auxiliary game center. This is why "video" is Bilibili ace. Since there are a large number of high-quality video sources on the main site, the main problem that the game center solves is how to better utilize these videos.

Judging from the game distribution process, Bilibili has used an excellent diversion entrance - the main site's mobile game video playback page. Users have a download need after watching game videos on the main website, which is a very high frequency and extremely high conversion rate.

In addition, the selection and discovery of Tab in the game center has relatively weakened the role of video, mainly in text and pictures.

Finally, on the game details page, the game details are supplemented using introduction videos and popular videos.

In general, Bilibili still mainly uses video distribution on the main site, supplementary introduction of the game center, which is more in line with its user's usage scenarios. After all, most users' primary needs for Bilibili are watching videos.

Judging from the content distribution process, Bilibili has made a lot of use of videos in the game center. Not only does the popular videos related to the game that users have been following in the "My Follow Page" are displayed in the form of a full-screen feed stream, but a "comprehensive" Tab is also added to the "Game Details Page" to concentrate on displaying the live broadcast room and videos related to the game.

In addition, in order to meet users' needs to solve game problems, the strategy Tab has also sorted, screened and displayed the game-related video strategies.

Basically at the product level, Bilibili has covered most content distribution scenarios. Whether these contents can play a role in promoting vitality depends on another ace PUGC.

2) PUGC

Source: Bilibili 2019 Q2 Financial Report

All the major video platforms have been fighting for PGC content copyright, but Bilibili has chosen another path - PUGC, that is, in the form of UGC, to produce professional content relatively close to PGC.

This form not only bypasses the competition of heavy capital, but also builds a self-growth ecological closed loop of user-UP host-content for Bilibili. First attract users through content, users are converted into UP hosts, and UP hosts then create high-quality content to attract new users.

If games are the number one carriage that drives Bilibili's rapid growth, then PUGC is undoubtedly the second one; according to the Q2 financial report in 2019, PUGC has contributed 90% of the video playback volume to the entire site.

Specifically in the game field, the UP host corresponding to PUGC is the KOL player group. They are generally proficient in certain types of game types, have a strong understanding of games, and have a certain voice and fan influence. What content mobile game distribution platforms need to do is to motivate them to continuously produce high-quality content while helping them monetize their influence.

The first thing Bilibili has been doing, and it has done well, creating high-energy alliances, launching reward plans, creating incentive plans, charging plans, etc. I will not go into details here. As for the second thing, the most direct way to monetize influence is to guide traffic for mobile games.

However, Bilibili's use of the PUGC ace in game distribution is far less than the video content mentioned above. I have traversed the entire game center, so I can only find the traffic diversion section of "Address UP host playing" in the information flow of the "Discovery Page". I am still just the UP host I follow, which means that if a user does not follow a UP host, there will be no relevant recommendations.

Therefore, on the entire platform, UP hosts can only monetize traffic by producing and publishing promotional videos themselves, and some UP hosts even go to Steam to promote. Of course, Bilibili may not have done this matter explicitly, but chose to cooperate with UP owners and manufacturers offline, but in fact, offline and online do not conflict.

Add a UP master recommendation function to the game center, which concentrates on displaying the recommended videos or reviews and scores produced by the UP master, and then divides the UP master based on the number of downloads. This will help game manufacturers acquire users and provide users with more valuable references to discover the game.

As for worrying that UP hosts will affect the content ecosystem regardless of quality advertisements, you can feel at ease. After all, UP hosts are not like traffic stars. The ones used to maintain players' influence are high-quality video content, which will not harm the enemy by 800 people.

IV. Conclusion

It has been more than a year and a half since Bilibili announced the opening of the game center in early 2018. Although there is still a big gap with leading platforms such as TapTap in all aspects, it is still on the right path.

As long as we lay a solid foundation at this stage, slowly accumulate platform content, and cultivate a good community atmosphere and user habits, as the Bilibili user group slowly expands to Generation Z, spring will eventually usher in.

Finally, during the conception process, this article chose to focus on analysis based on the requirements itself, and rarely put forward suggestions for actual functional pages.

Firstly, because the UGC community is indeed a product that focuses on operations, making suggestions when not understanding the supply side situation and actual operation data is a way to show off; secondly, many functions are actually not to fully cater to user needs.

Just like I have always been wondering why Biliili does not directly build game forums but chooses the form of "topic + strategy". It was not until I saw an interview with President Rui, Chairman of Biliili.

What I want to do is to make Bilibili a community with the most resilience through product design. For example, I deliberately lowered the social attributes of B station to prevent users from meeting each other.

Many people asked me why I don’t post on Tieba. I would rather die than do it. Building Bilibili into a content-centric community can greatly reduce the experience of the original users due to the increase in user scale.

Every time users meet, they only meet under the video. The community has expanded tenfold. As long as this type of content is still there, he will feel that the atmosphere has not changed.

So many times, you still have to stand higher and think farther, so that you can avoid being blinded by a single leaf and not seeing Mount Tai. ,

Thank you all above.

Author: Sea of ​​Silence

Source: Sea of ​​Silence