The top 20 best-selling items dropped 71% year-on-year. Are card games on the decline?

[[139416]]

Introduction

Looking back at the new mobile games launched in the first half of 2015, only a few such as "Fantasy Westward Journey", "The Journey of Flower", "Three Kingdoms", and "Miracles Nikki" can be stably ranked in the top 20 of the App Store best-selling list. Among them, only "Three Kingdoms" is a card game, and most of the others are RPG games. What problems have the former king of card games encountered? Has it fallen?

1. Card games are "declining", with the top 20 best-selling games down 71% year-on-year

As of the afternoon of July 7, there were only two card games in the Top 20 of the App Store best-selling list, "Dota Legend" and "Young Three Kingdoms", accounting for only 10%. Expanding to the Top 50, there are only five card mobile games, including "My Name is MT2", "Hearthstone Legend", "Let Go of the Three Kingdoms", "All Democracy", and "Pro Evolution Soccer Club", accounting for 14%. Correspondingly, there are 21 pan-RPG games (including ARPG, MMORPG) represented by "Fantasy Westward Journey" and "Tai Chi Panda", accounting for 42%, and 11 casual games (including chess, cards, and match-3 games), accounting for 22%. As far as the current AppStore best-selling list is concerned, the proportion of card games has retreated to the third place.

Looking back at the same day last year (July 7), there were 7 games including "Dota Legend" and "Water Margin" in the top 20 of the best-selling list, accounting for 35%. In other words, in one year, the proportion of card games in the top 20 of the best-selling list decreased by 25%, a year-on-year decrease of 71%.

More importantly, most of the card games in the current top 50 best-selling list are "old games" with a life cycle of more than one year. No new card games can gain market recognition, and card games have encountered an unprecedented bottleneck period.

2. Serious homogeneity, heavy users and lack of subject matter are the main reasons for the decline

In fact, the "decline" of card games has long been traceable. Serious homogeneity, "heavy" users and lack of themes are the main reasons for the outbreak of the problem.

1. Serious homogeneity

Following the entire mobile game wave, card games have exploded. Since 2012, "My Name is MT", "The Great Master" and "Million Arthur" have become the kings of a generation of card games, leading the era of card mobile games and becoming synonymous with the rise of mobile games.

However, the popularity of mobile card games has led to a large number of practitioners entering the mobile game market. It is understood that when "My Name is MT" was at its peak, there were no less than 200 teams in the market imitating and plagiarizing the game. The same situation occurred with "Dota Legend" in 2014, and this plagiarism even extended to foreign countries. According to media reports, on August 7, 2014, a game called "Heroes Charge" was quietly launched on the AppStore in many countries and regions overseas. The developer was called uCool. The company did not even modify the code in "Dota Legend" before launching it directly.

Excessive homogeneity has resulted in players not being able to find the most suitable game, and the uneven quality of games has greatly damaged players' confidence in card games. As a result, it is difficult for players to try a new card game, and even if they enter, it is difficult for them to continue paying for a game. This is the first reason for the "decline" of card games.

2. User “heavyness”

The "heavyness" of users is not only related to user cultivation, but also has an inseparable connection with the development of mobile hardware and networks.

The main reason why mobile card games were recognized by users at the beginning was that their fragmented game mode matched the characteristics of users. Users only needed extremely low traffic and network speed to upload and download data. They also did not need too much power to support the display of game screens. However, with the popularization of large-screen mobile phones and 4G networks, players were not satisfied with the boring click operation, simple picture performance and overly simple social system of card games. They pursued more dazzling pictures, more exciting operations and the pursuit of social honor.

In addition, we have to mention the influence of Tencent (WeChat) on the development of mobile games. Starting from a simple airplane shooting game, Tencent has gradually cultivated most of the novice users into paying players through its huge user base and super social relationship chain. However, these players did not have much contact with card games when they entered the mobile game market (Tencent began to focus on casual mobile games), which led to their lack of interest in card games.

3. The game theme does not match the card gameplay

I have always believed that the most attractive element of card games to players lies in collection rather than combat (or numerical value). Taking the seven mobile games mentioned above as an example, three of them are based on the "Three Kingdoms", including "Young Three Kingdoms", "All Democracy" and "Let Go of the Three Kingdoms", and three are based on the "World of Warcraft", including "Hearthstone", "Dota Legend" and "My Name is MT2". These games have a feature that their themes are particularly suitable for collection and satisfy the hobbies of players. Limited characters with different levels (rarity) are more in line with the payment psychology and characteristics of players.

This also explains why there are many unsuccessful mobile card games on the market that seem to have attractive IPs. This shows the importance of game themes to mobile card games. The lack of suitable and novel themes is one of the important problems facing mobile card games.

3. Is there still a chance for card games?

Although the market share of mobile card games is declining, it does not mean that there are no opportunities in this market. Each vertical field will have a certain market space to be explored. When there are fewer and fewer competitors, there are still market opportunities for mobile card games. But for the current mobile game market, how to make good mobile card games? Considering that "micro-innovation" and "differentiation" are already well known to practitioners, the author puts forward a few suggestions, hoping to help all developers who are interested in card games.

1. Team genes: Why do we put team genes first? Because there are too many teams making games in this market, and many teams have no goals or directions. They just copy whatever game they see can make money. If the R&D team does not understand or like cards, it will be difficult to make a high-quality card game. Card games not only require the ability of art, technology, and numerical values, but also the analysis and use of player psychology. If there is no development team with card game genes, it is not recommended to make card games.

2. Core themes: As analyzed above, the core of card games is collection, so how to find the right core themes becomes the top priority. Since there are already a lot of competing products with themes such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Journey to the West", developers may consider IPs such as "Water Margin" and "Yu-Gi-Oh" that are familiar to players and have collection elements.

3. Two-dimensional culture: In addition to the game theme, the style of the cards in the card game is also one of the important elements that players value. The two-dimensional style is distinctive, and the user group is vertical and huge, so it may be a good market choice.

Conclusion

From the perspective of the entire game market, card games have indeed declined a lot, but when the competition in card games is no longer fierce, the mobile card game market is also a piece of cake worth fighting for.