"Honor of Kings Assistant" tops the free list. Why does Tencent make a tool that doesn't make money?

After the App Store list was updated at 23:00 on May 8, " Honor of Kings Assistant " (abbreviated as "Assistant") topped the free list , leaving behind super apps such as QQ, WeChat , and Taobao . " Honor of Kings " could only compete with them at around 7th place on the free list. A game auxiliary software can actually surpass the original game. What kind of ambition do Tencent and "Honor of Kings" have behind this?

1. The MAU of “King of Glory Assistant” exceeds most of the top mobile games on the best-selling list

The daily import volume for a product to top the free list is in the order of 200,000. Until now, only national apps such as QQ, WeChat, Taobao, and Alipay have been able to reach this high threshold. It was not until the emergence of " Onmyoji " and "Honor of Kings" that the curse that games could hardly surpass the user import volume of super apps was officially broken. Now, "Assistant" has once again broken everyone's conventional perception - it turns out that a popular game can also push its auxiliary application to the top of the free list.

How many users does "Assistant" attract? According to data released by Quest Mobile, the MAU of "Assistant" was 3.84 million in Q1 2017. This MAU has surpassed most of the products at the top of the App Store best-selling list. For example, "A Chinese Ghost Story", which is often in the top 10 of the best-selling list, and "Naruto", which is in the top 30 of the best-selling list, both have lower MAU than "Assistant".

QM2017Q1 report MAU list

2. Why make a "King of Glory Assistant"?

When a mobile game is popular enough, it has already gained the ability to generate topics - countless Weibo celebrities and content subscription accounts will launch a large amount of related jokes, information, strategies and other content to cater to the huge number of "Honor of Kings" players. Tencent should just play the role of a game operator . Why would it withdraw from an auxiliary tool APP that is not intended to make money?

Behind “Assistant” is Tencent’s careful planning! Let’s go back to June 2016 when “The Assistant” was launched. According to the 2016 Autumn Report released by Quest Mobile, the DAU of Honor of Kings reached 11 million in September. That is to say, the launch time of "Assistant" is around the time when the DAU of "Honor of Kings" exceeded the milestone of 10 million. It should be noted that since 2015, there are only four mobile games officially announced to have a DAU of over 10 million ( Battle of Balls , CF Mobile, Onmyoji and Honor of Kings). Honor of Kings has an unmatched ability to attract money; compared with the latter two, Honor of Kings spent a full six months climbing slowly but steadily. 10 million DAU is still in the early stages of its life cycle. It can still have more users and go a longer way. And "Honor of Kings Assistant" can help it go down this path.

Judging from the mobile game stuff , the existence of "Assistant" is on the one hand due to the fear of losing users, and on the other hand due to the ambition to occupy users' time.

(1) Social networking among acquaintances, social networking among strangers, and social networking among interests

As a MOBA product, the way players bring their friends into the game can easily create a chain effect, allowing the number of game players to continue to increase. But correspondingly, the loss of some players will also cause their friends to abandon the game, which is a concern of "Honor of Kings". "Assistant" provides timeliness and coverage of information, allowing all players (diligent and lazy) to obtain game information content with low time and energy costs. They can socialize with acquaintances through the daily battle report module (the daily battle report includes game battle reports and friend circles, and you can see the information of comrades and the average number of games played by friends with associated social accounts), open stranger socialization through "Nearby", and engage in "interest-based socializing" with players who play the same heroes. You can even peek at the battle records and rune combinations of professional players and beautiful anchors to satisfy "idol socializing". Satisfy players' various social needs to improve player stickiness.

(2) Come for "Honor of Kings" and are not distracted by other games

Currently, the time spent on Honor of Kings is already terrifying, with 167 million MAUs and an average monthly playing time of 362 minutes per person, which means that the average daily playing time is 12 minutes per person (a game of Honor of Kings lasts more than 20 minutes, but not every player plays it every day, so the average is 12 minutes). But it also wants to claim all the time associated with its content as its own.

On social media , content platforms, and video websites, players of "Honor of Kings" are also very active. If the time spent here is also gathered on the official platform, "Honor of Kings" will naturally be able to take up more time. Moreover, users who fall into "Assistant" may not be able to do the same as on other platforms. For example, they go to iQiyi for the "Honor of Kings" guide, but when they leave, they are led away by a funny video or a new game. Users who can’t run away will naturally stay longer.

According to DataEye data, the average daily gaming time of players is about 56 minutes, which means that 21% of the time of 167 million players has been taken away by "Honor of Kings". If it takes up 30% or even more of the time, these players may no longer be able to play medium to heavy games, and at most they will play another "Happy Match". So "Honor of Kings" is not only invincible now, but also does not want to leave any gaps for new products to come in.

According to AppAnnie data, the download volume of "Honor of Kings Assistant" has topped the free list, but has never entered the TOP1500 best-selling list. When a company does something not for the purpose of making money, it often sees a bigger gold mine.

3. How was "King of Glory Assistant" made?

There is no such thing as reaching the top without reason. "Honor of Kings" and "Assistant" have also tried their best.

Almost every day when I open the login page of the "Honor of Kings" game, there will be a pop-up window to download "Assistant" to win permanent Yu Ji. This activity has no appeal to me, but players don’t think so. You can also see many players being tempted on Weibo.

Honor of Kings login page

Players who were "cheated" by downloading "Assistant" because of Yu Ji on Weibo

In addition, "Assistant" also provides many exclusive benefits, such as KPL guessing activities that can win relatively generous prizes, upgrading the assistant to draw heroes, exclusive gift packages for new registrations and other activities.

What’s even more frightening is that the Android version of “Assistant” is simply helping players cheat. By starting the game through “Assistant”, you can enjoy the auxiliary functions of blocking calls, blocking text messages, blocking notifications, taking honor screenshots, and game prophet. The auxiliary function of the game prophet means that at the beginning of the game, players can get a glimpse of the ranks, hero usage and win rate of both teammates and opponents, and can also know the gender of the players to facilitate friendly social interaction (the iOS version does not have auxiliary functions or it is in violation of iOS regulations because it is linked to other applications). Just imagine, if you see an opponent who has only used a single-digit number of games, you can attack him boldly, or cooperate with him to weaken his strongest opponent. Wouldn't this increase your chances of winning?

Accessibility

Game Predictor Function

Summarize:

The cruelty of the gaming market is that your desires and abilities do not match, while your opponents have both ambition and strength.

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