How does “Duoduo Orchard” achieve gamification growth for Pinduoduo?

"Duoduo Orchard" is a casual social game launched by Pinduoduo in April 2018. In the online virtual orchard, users water the fruit trees to help them grow and bear fruit. The format is similar to the Happy Farm that was popular on the entire Internet more than ten years ago. The difference is that Happy Farm is just for fun, but with Duoduo Orchard, when the fruit trees are ripe, you can really get a box of fruit, and the best part is that it’s free shipping! This box of fruit was like a bullet, piercing through the dimensional wall between the Internet and reality! This model has also attracted a large number of "real fragrance monsters". Many young people who once looked down on Pinduoduo also exclaimed that it is "toxic" and "can't stop at all." So, how does Duoduo Orchard play cultivation games and make users addicted? Next, I will use the "addiction model" to disassemble Duoduo Orchard.

1. HOOK model analysis

The Hook Model was proposed by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover, authors of Addicted to Products. It mainly analyzes how to make users "addicted" to products, that is, the four major product logics that allow users to develop usage habits. It includes four elements: Trigger, Action, Reward, and Investment.

2. Trigger

1. External factors

Autonomous trigger

Pinduoduo has set up two very obvious entrances for Duoduo Orchard. One is the navigation bar on the homepage, which has a green tree and a shaking red "领" character, which is hard not to attract attention. The other is in the middle position of the personal center. Although it is not as prominent as the homepage, it is also a huge traffic entrance.

2. Entrance to Duoduo Orchard

Interpersonal Triggers

This is the fission gameplay that Pinduoduo is best at. I believe everyone has received sharing links from family and friends. Whether you help the other party click for the sake of face or you are slightly moved by the extremely tempting copy, as long as you click on the link, you will fall into Pinduoduo's routine.

3. Internal factors

(1) Positive emotions

Advantages: Duoduo Orchard’s main promotion is “Get free fruit and free delivery to your home”. Just by moving your fingers, you can get a box of free fruit. Just thinking about it makes me happy.

Interesting : Duoduo Orchard is a typical cultivation game. The game scene is the tree planting scene that users are familiar with. Users collect water droplets and fertilizers, and continue to water and fertilize, watching the fruit trees they choose grow day by day. Who doesn’t want to try this kind of cultivation fun?

Meaningful : Pinduoduo once revealed that it would purchase real fruits from poverty-stricken areas and deliver them to users through Duoduo Orchard. On average, it would deliver more than 2 million kilograms of fruits free of charge every day. Playing games can also help farmers, and you can do charity at 0 cost, which satisfies the user's sense of mission and public welfare.

(2) Negative emotions

As the king of the sinking market, Pinduoduo has a large number of users who are price-sensitive and have relatively more free time. Duoduo Orchard, a lightweight and easy-to-play game, can help these users relieve boredom and kill time.

3. Action

A trigger is a hook that triggers user behavior. If the user does not take any action after going through the triggering steps, the trigger is invalid. Here we introduce the Fogg behavioral model mentioned in the book "Addiction". Fogg's behavioral model believes that for a behavior to occur, the actor must first have the motivation to perform the behavior and the ability to perform the behavior. Then, if they have sufficient motivation and ability to perform the intended behavior, they will do so when induced/triggered. Fogg's behavioral model believes that three elements are indispensable for people to actually take action, namely B (behavior) = M (motion) * A (ability) * T (trigger), action = motivation * ability * trigger. The triggering factors have been analyzed in the previous article, and the following analysis will focus on motivation and ability.

1. Motivation

Triggers are reminders for people to take action, while motivations are whether people are willing to take action. Dr. Fogg believes that there are three core motivations that drive us to take action:

Pursue happiness and avoid pain;

Pursue hope and avoid fear;

Seek recognition and avoid rejection.

Duoduo Orchard’s design of user motivation can fully meet the above conditions. In terms of gameplay, Duoduo Orchard allows users to enjoy the fun of raising a tree and taste the delicious fruit they grow themselves with just the movement of their fingers, satisfying users' sense of accomplishment and giving them the simplest happiness and the most tangible benefits. In addition, Duoduo Orchard introduces social relationships. Players can interact with friends in the game, “steal” water drops from friends, and also find ways to prevent “being stolen”. Stealing, an act that is prohibited in reality, can be done in the game. Human nature is naturally averse to losses and likes to plunder other people's resources at low cost. This may also be the reason why the "dark side" of similar development games is enduring.

2. Capabilities

There is a gap between motivation and action that is not easy to cross, which is the cost that users have to pay to take action, that is, the ability to do something. The game design of Duoduo Orchard has a very low operating threshold, which allows motivated users to participate in the game very easily.

Time : It’s a lightweight game that only takes three to five minutes a day.

Money : The game itself is completely free, and you can also get free fruits.

Physical strength: Move your fingers without consuming any physical strength.

Brainpower : Fool-style operation, with guidance at every step. No need to use your brain, just follow the prompts to complete the task.

4. Reward

Once the behavior is triggered, users need to be given some rewards for continuous stimulation in order to develop the habit of using the product. Rewards are simply the satisfaction that a product brings to users, which generally include three types:

1. Social Rewards

Refers to the interpersonal rewards that users gain from a product through interaction with others. In Duoduo Orchard, users can invite friends to play games together. They can steal friends’ water drops or have their water drops stolen by friends, which enhances social interaction.

The "Activity" button shows your friends' interactions

2. Rewards for hunting

Refers to the specific resources or information that users obtain from the product. In Duoduo Orchard, you can get physical rewards by growing fruits, and users are given the right to choose seeds independently before the game starts. The prey is shown to users first, and they can get the prey as long as they complete the task.

Let users choose their own target prey

3. Self-reward

Refers to the sense of control, accomplishment, and finality that users experience from a product. In Duoduo Orchard, the growth of fruit trees after watering and fertilizing is very clearly shown, giving users timely feedback. And the progress bar under the fruit tree is filled up little by little, satisfying the user's sense of accomplishment. In addition, playing games can help farmers, indirectly do public welfare, and achieve self-satisfaction for users.

The dynamic changes of the progress bar and tree enhance the sense of control

5. Investment

The more time and energy users invest in a product, the more they value it, the more likely they are to continue maintaining it, and the stronger the user stickiness. In Duoduo Orchard, users' investment is mainly divided into two parts.

1. Time and energy investment

It takes 2-3 months for a fruit tree to mature and needs to be watered more than 300 times. To obtain water droplets and fertilizers, corresponding actions must be taken to complete corresponding tasks. The process of fruit tree maturation is a process of continuous investment of time and energy.

2. Emotional investment

From seed selection, germination, flowering, fruiting to maturity, each growth stage of the fruit tree will be presented with the continuous investment of the user. This step-by-step process management gives the user a sense of accomplishment and control, just like planting a real tree by themselves.

After completing the above steps, the user completes an "addiction cycle" and gets a box of real fruit. By the time the box of fruit is delivered to the user, it has completed the transformation from "prey" to "trigger", leading the user into the next "addiction cycle". In this way, a closed loop is formed, allowing users to continuously experience the process of trigger-action-reward-investment, over and over again, and never get tired of it.

6. The significance of Duoduo Orchard to Pinduoduo’s growth

So, is the purpose of Duoduo Orchard’s existence just to make users addicted? Of course, it is not that simple. For Pinduoduo, Duoduo Orchard is not just a small game, but also a powerful tool to increase APP opening rate + improve user retention + increase purchase conversion + attract new users and promote activation.

1. Attract new customers and recall

In the process of acquiring water drops, Duoduo Orchard has designed a total of 6 conventional methods of attracting new customers:

(1) Add 3 friends

(2) View friends in the address book

(3) Invite friends to open lucky bags

(4) Invite friends to plant trees

(5) Assisting water management

(6) Invite friends to help with Waterdrop Red Packet

Similarly, in the process of receiving fertilizers, Duoduo Orchard has also made a setting for inviting friends to plant trees and receive fertilizers. Through these means, we continue to attract new users and also recall old users back to the product.

Water drop function design

2. Retention and activity

(1) Cultivate user habits

Use the HOOK model to make users addicted to the Duoduo Orchard game. Through settings such as signing in, opening treasure chests within a limited time, and collecting water drops, users can go to Duoduo Orchard on a regular basis every day to water and fertilize the plants, thereby increasing the opening rate of the Pinduoduo APP. Constantly ask users to complete corresponding tasks and provide timely feedback, so that users will invest more and more, and their stickiness will become stronger and stronger.

(2) Introducing social relationships

Increase interaction with friends in the game, such as stealing water from each other, reminding each other to water the plants, etc., to consolidate social relationships and increase the cost of users leaving.

3. Conversion and traffic generation

(1) Guide users to use core functions

(2) Guide users to use other functions

Experience settings such as sending water drops in Pinduoduo circles, sending water drops by watching live broadcasts and videos, and Duoduo Ranch buoys, and direct Duoduo Orchard users to other new features of Pinduoduo, serving as a cold start for the new features.

(3) Guide users to click on advertising merchants

This operation is quite special, as it can directly attract traffic to merchants and improve store conversions. There are two advertising merchants in the friend list of stealing water drops. When stealing water drops, you can directly browse the recommended products, and you can get more water drops by placing orders in the store. It not only promotes order conversion, but also charges traffic fees from merchants. It really is the leeks being cut on both the B-end and the C-end.

Two advertisers

VII. Conclusion

As a simple and easy-to-play game, Duoduo Orchard has more than 50 million daily active users (data from 2019, and the current data should only increase rather than decrease), which is undoubtedly very successful. Pinduoduo has established an effective growth path of attracting new users, active users, retention and conversion by using the extremely low-cost method of "giving away fruits". Whether it is Duoduo Orchard’s HOOK model or the conversion model, the underlying model is the insight into user needs and human nature. There are thousands of operating methods, but thinking is the most important. Methods are "skills" and thinking is "Tao". I hope everyone can keep thinking and practice both Taoism and skills!

Author: Nicole

Source: Nicole