Methods to attract users for development games!

Speaking of Duoduo Orchard, many people thought it was just a development game used to attract traffic, but they didn’t expect it to be profitable! Duoduo Orchard is a typical example of maximizing user value. Behind its success, it also gives us a very important revelation as development games gradually become normalized. The author of this article has analyzed this and would like to share it with you.

According to relevant information, Pinduoduo's "Duoduo Orchard" development-type mini-game project has a DAU of 60 million, and the project has achieved profitability.

Isn't it just a small game? Where does the profit come from?

This is due to the fact that Duoduo Orchard and shopping (the core business of the product) form an inseparable closed loop, making it not only a user retention project, but also a component of Pinduoduo's revenue.

Duoduo Orchard is a typical example of maximizing user value. Behind its success, it also gives us a very important revelation as development games gradually become normalized.

The previous article is continued and the book will continue for a while.

Today, let’s continue to talk about the content of the #community# column. Click to review the first two articles, and you will have a clearer understanding of the content:

1. Phenomenon: They have been developing communities in the past two years

2. Do you know the three stages that all great apps have gone through?

Today, let’s continue to talk about #maximizing user value#.

The core functions of the product have been solved and users have been well retained. So should we continue to add functions to meet more user needs or consider how to maximize user value?

In fact, in the long run, it is necessary to add functions to meet more user needs, but such products need enough users, word of mouth and other deeper reasons (background, relationships).

For example, Alipay and WeChat, these two national-level products not only provide core functions of payment and social networking, but also open up many other functions such as: checking social security, provident fund, swiping bus cards, etc. Of course, most products cannot possess this kind of potential energy.

Every industry has its saturation period, and products have their own development cycle. After the growth period, what we need to consider is how to maximize user value. This is the third level of the product, and it is also the topic that we need to discuss with you in this chapter.

Different product forms have different ways of maximizing their value. Next, we will talk to you about two apps with different product forms, "Weibo" and "NetEase Cloud Music".

The more appropriate way to describe the continuous output of user value is: how to provide users with better functions/services while pursuing greater revenue for the company.

From an operational perspective, there are generally two ways to continuously generate user value:

The first is to establish a UGC system to release users' desire to express themselves, so as to create a community where users drive user interaction, thereby improving user stickiness, gaining a stronger brand image, and greatly reducing operating expenses.

The second method is to plan activities (or mini-games) to encourage users to make repeat transactions and increase user stickiness.

Just like the following examples of Weibo/NetEase Cloud Music and simulation development games.

1. Micro Insurance

WeSure is Tencent's first insurance platform controlled by Tencent. It provides users with high-quality insurance services by collaborating with well-known domestic insurance companies. Users can purchase, inquire and claim insurance on the two life service platforms, WeChat and QQ.

There is a particularly obvious search function at the top of the discovery page, which almost includes hot searches related to insurance business; in terms of content matrix, it is composed of multi-faceted text/video content such as Micro Insurance Lecture Hall and Insurance Guide; there is also a column that is quite fresh in insurance products, that is, the #Hot Topics# and #Mutual Aid Q&A# columns, which inject new capabilities of real-time interaction into the discovery page.

In fact, we can see that the largest proportion of content on Weishou’s discovery page is related to insurance business. This is related to the product attributes of insurance. Insurance is a high-value, low-frequency product with a high purchase threshold and requires certain professional knowledge, which is quite different from general commodities. Therefore, the goal of gradually lowering the purchase threshold is achieved through a content matrix including popular science texts, short video explanations by experts, and analysis of common cases. This is a typical content conversion.

You may think, isn’t this just a soft article? The content format is very similar to soft articles, but the overall content matrix will create a subtle trust in users while lowering the purchase threshold, thereby enhancing the influence of the brand itself, and ultimately has a direct relationship with subsequent brand/word-of-mouth communication.

In the summer of 2019, I communicated with the relevant person in charge of the Weibo content matrix. They are currently mainly cultivating user awareness through the PGC (inviting big names to settle in) cooperation method to lower the transaction threshold. He said, "Although the process is slow, it is a process of cultivating trust and lowering the purchase threshold at the same time; through experiments, we will find that the subsequent explosive power is very strong."

Transactions made through content creation are generally referred to as content marketing. In 2016, I noticed Bazaar in, which mainly deals in mid- to high-end women's products (clothing, jewelry, and beauty products). It does a great job of content marketing, using all the necessary means and forms.

Discovery Page - Search

Discovery Page - Mutual Aid Q&A

Back to the WeSure product, if it only relies on content it will always make people feel a little "dry". In fact, I think we can also add an activity section to make it truly interesting, useful and fun.

For example, they give away free medical examination coupons, peripheral products, etc. If you know Ping An Insurance, you will know that this is also a method they often use.

In short, the combination of hard and soft gameplay through activities and content is a set of combined punches that effectively enhance the continuous output of user value.

2. NetEase Cloud Music

NetEase Cloud Music——The Power of Music

NetEase Cloud Music is a music product focused on discovery and sharing. It relies on professional musicians, DJs, friend recommendations and social functions to create a new music life for users.

From the brand copy, we can interpret that the core of NetEase Cloud Music is based on musician services and user services. The latter is undoubtedly a development trajectory that further releases user needs such as friend recommendations and social interaction.

It carries the functions of the homepage, with a search box at the top, allowing users to search for songs, MVs, musicians, etc. Next is the banner bar, the entrance to several core functions, followed by the playlist and new albums/new songs that are intelligently recommended based on user behavior, and finally a long column of Yuncun’s selected videos.

In fact, in addition to the core functions (daily recommendations, playlists, rankings, radio stations, live broadcasts), placed on the discovery page are "intelligently recommended playlists", "new albums/new songs" and "Cloud Village selected videos". Perhaps from this perspective, there is nothing noteworthy about the discovery page.

Careful users will find that the recommended playlists are very accurate each time. This is based on the same principle as the intelligent algorithm recommendation of Toutiao products (including Douyin). The recommended playlists are derived through intelligent algorithms based on users’ daily product usage behaviors, thereby achieving the purpose of improving user stickiness.

On the other hand, there are comments from NetEase Cloud Music.

The quality of NetEase Cloud Music's UGC music reviews has always been very high. On March 20, 2017, NetEase Cloud Music printed the 5,000 most-liked high-quality music reviews on Hangzhou Metro Line 1 and the entire Jiangling Road Metro Station. Later, this phenomenon instantly became a hit on the entire Internet.

Regarding the reasons why the event was screen-sweeping, the author believes there are three reasons:

First, the innovation of this design, coupled with the overall carriage design of "aunt red", is enough to give the audience unprecedented visual stimulation, and catch the user's attention as a whole;

Secondly, it changed the production process of advertising slogans. While copywriters were still racking their brains at their desks, going through layers of speculation, layers of overturning, and layers of review, and after many twists and turns, they were able to present their works to the audience, NetEase Cloud Music had already used the music reviews left inadvertently by users as "copywriting" to achieve advertising dissemination. The massive amount of high-quality content created by these users just happens to 100% accurately represent the user attributes of NetEase Cloud Music. This is an endorsement for NetEase Cloud Music and also a model of user self-endorsement.

The third is to meet the audience's spiritual need for "resonance", which is actually the innate loneliness of our generation expressed by the content selected from massive user comments, which makes the audience feel heartbroken. Choosing to use overwhelming visual impact in a relatively closed environment like a subway car to invade the relaxed or tired audience will undoubtedly make them resonate with them more strongly.

As far as I can remember, NetEase Cloud Music was committed to cultivating the habit of users reading comments while listening to songs soon after its launch, so UGC and community attributes have always been the killer feature that distinguishes NetEase Cloud Music from Xiami Music and QQ Music.

Gradually, "listening to music while reading comments" on NetEase Cloud Music has slowly become a fashion, which I guess Ding's father didn't expect.

To date, there have been more than 400 million music reviews (as of March 2017), of which there is certainly a lot of high-quality content generated by users (at least hundreds of thousands of them are producers of high-quality reviews). They are forming a strong attraction, gathering "like people" and even users of competing products.

The UGC music review model established by NetEase Cloud Music is like hiring hundreds of millions of free copywriters. While releasing the various psychological needs of users, it also cultivates user stickiness, user habits and a large number of high-quality reviews, which are the most valuable assets of Cloud Music in the future.

Tips: Here, (@圣杰V: heezha) I will pick a few for you to taste~

The first time I said goodnight to you ten years ago, I was so excited that I couldn't sleep the whole night. Tonight, ten years later, I said goodnight to you, and I no longer have insomnia, but your head is pressing on my arms so much

——From the hot review of "Goodnight" on NetEase Cloud Music

I graduated from college in 2006. I had lunch with someone and drank a bottle of white wine. Then I fell asleep in a daze. When I woke up, I found that most of my roommates had left. The phone on the bedside kept ringing. After I answered it, my good friend cried and cursed, "I'm on the train, I can't see you anymore." Instantly, tears fell like rain. Maybe because I drank too much, my nose bleeds non-stop. For the first time in my life, I felt a pain in my heart. I will never forget that feeling.

——From the hot review of "You Left Nanjing, and No One Talked to Me Since Then" on NetEase Cloud Music

If we don't want to be together, then let's not be together. Life is not that long anyway.

——From the hot review of "Memories of Zhengzhou" on NetEase Cloud Music

I have been drifting in Beijing for nearly ten years, and I have become the kind of person I least want to be. Thinking about the basement I rented, I washed a pair of socks, but they were not dry for 4 days, and I smiled helplessly and put them on.

——From the hot review of "Director Li" on NetEase Cloud Music

The closest I was to the sky was when you lifted me high above your shoulders

——From the hot review of "The Earth" on NetEase Cloud Music

3. Simulation and Development Game

Simulation development game is a type of game and a branch of simulation game. "Cultivation" is the core element of simulation cultivation games. Players need to cultivate specific objects (people or animals) in the game and make them successful.

Players can gain a sense of accomplishment from them, just like Alipay's Ant Forest, Traveling Frog, Pinduoduo's Duoduo Orchard, and Suning's "Xiao Su's Farm". From the perspective of community operation, users need to participate in platform business to obtain energy points in order to cultivate specific development objects, so development games are a type of activity.

In fact, I really admire Alipay's product managers and operators for being able to integrate the development game "Ant Forest" into the product and gradually infiltrate multiple functions of the product. As of now, Ant Forest is also the community development game with the highest user activity. The fact that cultivation games use the "tree planting" gameplay is more likely due to Jack Ma's interpretation of the concept of environmental protection.

Next, I would like to share with you how the development game “Ant Forest” launched by Alipay can enable users to continuously output value, or in other words, what value can users continuously output?

Alipay was founded in 2003. It is a mobile payment tool product. Like many tool products, it often has the problems of single user usage scenario and inherent deficiencies in dissemination. Users often open it only occasionally when they need it. Users stay for a short time and open it infrequently. So I have been trying to find a breakthrough in social networking and increase the frequency of user usage, but the results have not been ideal.

In 2016, a simulation development game - Ant Forest was launched. I believe many people know its gameplay. Users can pay water and electricity bills, shop and pay for other green activities on Alipay. These behaviors will be converted into virtual "green energy" to develop a green energy. After the virtual tree grows, Alipay Ant Forest and its charity partners will plant a real tree on the earth, or protect a corresponding area of ​​protected areas to cultivate and encourage users' low-carbon, green and environmentally friendly behaviors.

In April 2019, the number of Ant Forest users reached 500 million, while the MAU of Alipay users was about 650 million during the same period, with an overlap of nearly 77%, meaning that 8 out of 10 Alipay users also used Ant Forest. Together, they planted 100 million real trees in desertified areas, covering an area of ​​nearly 1.4 million acres.

Now, planting trees through Alipay Ant Forest has become the main and most frequent way for Internet users to participate in low-carbon activities. It has to be said that the Ant Forest development games are a powerful boost to increasing the activity of Alipay; and the concept of protecting the environment by participating in low-carbon life is a successful case in which Ant Forest spreads Alipay's good reputation. This is the value of "Ant Forest" in allowing users to continuously output value.

3.1 Alipay: Ant Forest

First, let’s break down the core functions of Ant Forest:

[User Psychological Demand Model - Y=a+∑bX: 15,000 words to explain: the underlying logic of user management methodology (User Psychological Demand Model) ] (click to view)

Appendix: Introduction to the gameplay of Ant Forest

Game Home

Tree species to choose from

Tree Planting Tips

Get props and costumes

Festive Dress Up (Arbor Day 2020)

Let’s think beyond the Ant Forest game itself. In fact, it is not the core business of Alipay. In short, even if there is no Ant Forest development game, the impact on Alipay’s business itself is negligible.

The cleverness of Ant Forest lies in the fact that it cleverly integrates some of its core businesses with tasks that users can participate in, and transforms them into community games for development. This allows users to plant trees in the name of "low-carbon environmental protection" while more effectively maintaining the stability of the core business of the product and even bringing about growth in the product business.

3.2 Pinduoduo: Duoduo Orchard

Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform that focuses on the sinking market, has established Duoduo Orchard, a simulation cultivation game mainly focusing on growing fruits, on its homepage. The basic gameplay is to choose a fruit seedling from pear, mango, kiwi, and pomegranate. Then choose to get water drops for the fruit trees to grow by watering them every day and completing tasks. The tasks mainly revolve around browsing products, checking in, drawing lots, system distribution, and help from friends. Each level of saplings will have different rewards. Finally, when the fruit seedlings grow into fruit trees, they will receive corresponding fruit rewards.

Appendix: Introduction to the gameplay of Duoduo Orchard

Selecting saplings

Watering

Complete tasks to get water drops

Invite friends to help get treasure chests

Check in and share the water drops

Generally speaking, the gameplay of Duoduo Orchard's cultivation game is very simple, but from the perspective of the entire experience, the types of tasks are complicated. It may also be because Pinduoduo's usage scenarios are not as wide and frequent as Alipay, so pop-up boxes will pop up frequently to remind users to do tasks. This style also continues Pinduoduo's "simple and rude" operating method.

Neither Ant Forest nor Duoduo Orchard are core businesses in themselves, but from an operational perspective, by planning and developing related simulation development activities, they can help increase user activity, stickiness, and help with dissemination to varying degrees. Therefore, they are undoubtedly a form of activity with low cost and obvious continuous value output effect.

In addition to the above-mentioned tool and e-commerce platforms, there are many cases in the financial industry and social communication industry.

In terms of "how to make simulation and development games more fun?", the Cheetah User Research Center conducted a survey on development games in 2019. The survey results showed that development game planners need to create fascinating storylines and resonant topics in order to gain more user favor. Connecting development content with tool apps to create new forms of interaction is also a direction that game creators are trying.

Although this is a survey from the perspective of the gaming industry, I think the results of the survey can provide important guidance to community operators in planning community activities and cultivating user loyalty to continuously increase user value output. For example, the game scenes should preferably have storylines, the game itself should be able to resonate with users, new forms of interaction should be used to obtain a better gaming experience, and the game itself should be connected to the core business of the product, etc.

IV. Summary

We talked about many cases of "discovery pages", from the evolution of communities to discovery pages that carry different functions, and then upgraded to discovery pages that provide users with more diversified functions/services to create continuous value output for users.

For products like Microinsurance that have high barriers to entry and low consumption frequency, there is an even greater need to create richer community content formats to increase awareness and to improve user experience through some free experiential insurance activities.

The music review ecosystem of NetEase Cloud Music may be just a coincidence, but the results that are obvious to all are truly amazing.

I believe that the success of NetEase Cloud Music's UGC music review community is premised on the intelligent algorithm and precise recommendation system, because the nature of "birds of a feather flock together" determines that the music review community will gain greater resonance. Community activities represented by Weibo’s community interaction and Alipay and Pinduoduo’s community development games represent the indispensable role of event planning in the community. The common point is that they all play different roles in the community to complement the core business of the product and create more value for users.

Do all the above signs give us a revelation: on the one hand, accurate content recommendations based on intelligent algorithm systems and efforts to build a highly sticky UGC community, and on the other hand, a combination of daily interesting and fun event marketing will become a new trend in product communities.