The gaming industry is rushing into the private sector

In order to stand out in the fierce market competition, more and more game companies have begun to turn their attention to private domain traffic, trying to maximize user retention and life cycle value by building a private domain ecosystem. This article will deeply explore the current situation and trends of private domain operations in the game industry, revealing how game manufacturers can reconstruct their connection with users through private domains and create truly "evergreen" products.

Nowadays, it costs hundreds of yuan to buy a download user for a game on Douyin; NetEase’s new game The Legend of the Condor Heroes, which cost billions of yuan to build, failed, and Tencent’s Dream Star and NetEase’s Egg Party fought a multi-billion-yuan funding war; the success rate of new games is getting lower and lower, and various game companies have been laying off employees.

At present, game manufacturers are not only worried about how to acquire customers, but are also thinking about how to retain users' hearts for a longer period of time and create evergreen products.

Behind this "customer retention" crisis, a covert war over private domain traffic has quietly begun - the gaming industry is flourishing in the private domain, trying to reconstruct its communication channels with users.

"The essence of private domain is the desire for its own traffic pool." Chen Shixuan, former head of Lilith Global Private Domain and former head of NetEase Games Private Domain, explained this when analyzing the private domain market of games with Jianshi. In the traditional model, once players uninstall the game, they disappear in the data torrent. However, through tools such as WeChat, QQ Group, WhatsApp, and LINE, manufacturers can settle users as their own assets, predict their behavior with data tags, and extend the user life cycle with emotional connections.

Today, the domestic private gaming industry is developing in full swing, while the overseas private gaming industry is still in the exploratory development stage.

As a senior practitioner of private domain operation in the gaming industry, Chen Shixuan was in charge of private domain operation at NetEase, where he built a team from scratch and achieved a scale of 15 million enterprise WeChat friends. He was also one of the first explorers of overseas private domains, and he also had a lot of thoughts on the operation and exploration of overseas game private domains.

There are many types of social software used by users in different countries and regions; the complaint and unsubscription rate of users in some countries and regions regarding marketing messages remains high; unlike domestic WeChat accounts, overseas push has high push fees, and without refined operations, the ROI cannot be positive.

The push effects in different regions are completely different, which undoubtedly leads to manufacturers spending more time on global private domain strategies. But even so, based on social software such as WhatsApp and LINE, it is still possible to obtain high-value users that far exceed Facebook, Twitter, and Discord. Private domain is still an area worth exploring overseas.

The above content all comes from the observations and thoughts given by Chen Shixuan during the conversation with Jianshi.

As follows, enjoy:

01 How can domestic private game developers solve the high purchase volume dilemma?

The private domain operation of the domestic game industry is essentially a protracted battle against high costs of buying traffic. Taking NetEase as an example, we started to build a private domain team in 2019 and accumulated 15 million users through WeChat for Business.

The core logic is simple: after users download games from platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, once they leave, the manufacturer will completely lose the ability to reach them. The existence of private domains is to "lock" these high-priced users in its own traffic pool, which can extend the life cycle value of players.

It is worth noting that user stratification in the gaming industry is more extreme than in other industries. Based on the rich behaviors of players within the game, the gaming industry can build a precise segmentation and stratification operation system with hundreds of labels.

Zero-氪 players account for more than 70%. They are the "population base" of the game ecosystem. Although they do not contribute to cash flow, they are the key to the social atmosphere.

For example, in SLG games, zero-krypton players are the "soldiers" of the war ecosystem. They maintain server activity by participating in collective activities (such as siege warfare and resource transportation); while in MMO games, zero-krypton players are the basis for guilds to recruit new members. The core of maintaining them in the private domain is "high-frequency and low-threshold activities" - such as daily sign-in to give props, double experience for holiday limited-time dungeons, etc.

• Monthly card users spend 30 to 68 yuan per month and prefer cost-effective gift packages. The focus of operations for this type of users is to "cultivate the habit of small payments." For example, Onmyoji pushes "double jade for first charge" and binds the monthly card renewal reminder; Genshin Impact designs a "journal system" (similar to an advanced version of the monthly card) to unlock rewards through task progress and improve user stickiness.
• Mid-tier users (monthly payment of RMB 500-5,000) are sensitive to limited-time skins and ranking rewards. Game manufacturers will design "ranking competitions" and "exclusive appearances" for them. For example, a certain ACG card game launched "the top 100 players in the server will be given limited-time character skins", and the payment rate of mid-tier users increased by 40% during the event.
• However, high-end and super-end users (who pay hundreds of thousands per year) need more in-depth services: exclusive customer service 24 hours a day, "exclusive skins", "exclusive avatar frames", "in-game broadcasts to all servers", "customized peripherals", "offline meet-and-greet VIP seats" and other privileges. Small and medium-sized manufacturers will even urgently coordinate with the planning team to adjust the values ​​based on the dissatisfaction of super-end players with the gameplay, and ultimately use customized solutions to retain users.

For this reason, the key to the private domain operation of players lies in data labeling. Every action of the player in the game - such as not logging in for three consecutive days, failing to pass a dungeon, or joining a guild - will trigger the automation strategy corresponding to the relevant tag.

For example, if a player is wiped out three times in a row in a BOSS battle, the enterprise WeChat customer service will immediately push a tactical analysis video and a resurrection prop package; if a player draws a rare card, the enterprise WeChat customer service will also immediately push a card strategy guide and recharge discounts for continuing to draw cards.

For non-paying users, some manufacturers will combine Alipay's promotional activities with their own subsidies to launch payment-breaking activities such as 6-5. This kind of precise intervention can effectively improve the payment conversion rate.

For the gaming industry, the value of private domains is often measured in four dimensions:

1. Penetration rate: Consider the total scale penetration, active user scale penetration, and active paying user scale penetration (set different penetration rate targets for small R, medium R, large R, and super R)

2. Turnover contribution: Private domain pushes exclusive recharges. The private domain turnover of many companies can reach 50-80% of the overall market turnover.

3. Recall cost: The return rate through WeChat push is several times that of SMS (domestic) and email (overseas).

4. Internal propaganda: Accurate push in domestic and overseas private domains, with a reading rate of up to 70%, is the core position for reaching users.

No matter how you measure it, the biggest hidden value is emotional connection. For example, if a two-dimensional game designs a "virtual idol customer service", players will actively return after leaving because of the emotional connection - this is equivalent to binding users with "favors", which is more effective than simply issuing coupons.

For example, the customer service of some games will record the preferences of players. Someone temporarily left the game due to failure in an exam, and received a handwritten blessing card when he returned; customer service and players used emoticons to play with memes, giving players surprises and bringing massive dissemination on Weibo super topics; when a player got married in the game, the customer service team collectively recorded a congratulatory video.

This kind of "beyond-expectation service" makes users reluctant to delete their accounts even if they leave temporarily. Players will even take the initiative to ask customer service for recharge links, "I will use your link to help you increase your performance bonus."

In addition, the core battlefield of the domestic private sector is the combination of WeChat and QQ groups. WeChat is responsible for one-to-one precise reach, such as pushing monthly card renewal reminders to players who have logged in for 7 consecutive days; while the QQ group with a scale of 2,000 people is used to maintain the social ecology.

Taking a certain MMO game as an example, the administrator uses Excel to count the player attendance rate and holds an "in-group battle report selection". The winners are rewarded with in-game titles. However, the hidden dangers are also obvious: WeChat groups are easily attacked by advertising robots. A live code link may attract hundreds of studio accounts to send "recharge" and "plug-in" information. The management cost of corporate WeChat groups is higher - if you want to keep the group active, you need to regularly clean up silent users and design holiday activities, such as Spring Festival lucky draws and Chinese Valentine's Day couple tasks.

Our solution is to divert traffic in layers - zero-krypton players join the QQ group, and paying users add WeChat friends, trading efficiency for accuracy. For example, a certain game sets up a pop-up window in the game: players who recharge more than 500 yuan will automatically jump to the WeChat customer service QR code; while non-paying players are guided to the QQ group to receive the novice gift package.

02 It’s not that easy to do business in overseas private domains

Overseas, private domain operations are more like "dancing in shackles." Take WhatsApp as an example. A single message costs $0.06, and pushing it to 1 million users requires 420,000 yuan. A small number of players complaining will trigger a channel fuse.

Localization is even more of a challenge: the Middle East needs to adjust the right-hand layout of Arabic, and European users are extremely sensitive to data privacy - the German market requires that all push notifications must be accompanied by an "unsubscribe" button.

South Korea requires that each push be prefixed with something like [Advertisement]. Each push requires the production of localized copy and images in more than a dozen languages ​​to be arranged several days in advance. On the day of the push, the audience packages need to be classified into more than a dozen languages ​​to create push content templates.

Based on localization, private domain strategies in different regions have been differentiated into many strategies. For example, the penetration rate of WhatsApp in Brazil exceeds 98%, which is suitable for fission of "invitation code + friend support". A casual game has gained more than one million new users in two weeks by "inviting 3 friends to unlock limited characters"; Saudi users have high ARPU (average price per customer), but reject hard advertising, and need to penetrate through "customized religious festival activities".

For example, during Ramadan, a "night-only copy" was launched with double the rewards, while avoiding sensitive elements such as drinking and revealing clothing.

Therefore, our principle for developing overseas private domains is “better slow than wrong” - before entering a new market, we need to complete three rounds of testing:

1. Compliance review: The localization team reviews the materials and push scripts;
2. Small-scale grayscale test: select 10,000 users to verify the push effect;
3. Cultural adaptation: Invite local players to participate in focus groups and adjust activity design.

After testing, a three-line strategy was adopted in actual combat:

1. High-value area (European and American big R): In order to address the low market share of WhatsApp in Europe and the United States, additional social software is added as a private domain channel.
2. Traffic area (Southeast Asia): Facebook group + Zalo broadcast messages, focusing on attracting new users. For example, a certain idle game pushed the "invite friends to get diamonds" activity through Zalo in Vietnam, and 40% of the new users came from fission;
3. Restricted areas (strictly regulated areas such as Germany): dancing in shackles on the basis of compliance.

It is important to note that the data center is the invisible engine of overseas operations. After the user's game ID is bound to the LINE/WhatsApp account, behavioral data (such as the active hours of Japanese players are concentrated between 7pm and 10pm) drives scheduled push notifications.

In addition, if you choose a supplier with a large volume of marketing push, you will get a certain discount on push fees; make good use of WhatsApp's free customer service message interface in 2024; make good use of LINE's function menu; block push notifications for people who have not read the messages sent to them after N push notifications. These measures can effectively reduce the cost of private domains and bring higher ROI.

03 Future Trends: From Traffic Competition to Emotional Binding

The essence of private domain operation is to proactively find users, rather than waiting for users to find us. Judging from the current trend, the linkage between private domain and public domain is inevitable.

Taking Tik Tok as an example, we attract users through KOC content and then conduct in-depth operations through the enterprise WeChat private domain.

Whether it is users who "generate electricity for love" or other bloggers, KOCs, etc., a group of games have specially built a creator system based on Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Kuaishou to produce content for the game, help reduce the cost of buying volume, and bring in additional return.

This process is actually constantly maintaining them. KOC will feel that I am really participating in the product and building the brand. And through the private domain, we will also promote the creator's works to other players in the private domain. After the official promotion, KOC can also quickly increase its fans, forming a two-way mutual growth.

This model of "public domain diversion + private domain sedimentation" is also the mainstream approach in the current gaming industry.

When public domain traffic enters the private domain, we can start data-driven operations in the private domain. This mainly includes the following aspects:

• Data labeling: By extracting user behavior data within the game and converting it into labels, for example, user game time, consumption behavior, social interaction, etc. can all be converted into labels to better understand user characteristics.
• Differentiated intervention strategy: Develop differentiated operation strategies based on user labels. For example, for high-paying users, you can provide exclusive customer service and exclusive benefits; for free users, you can improve the user experience by pushing novice tutorials and game guides.
• Refined operations: Optimize operation strategies through data analysis and user behavior insights. For example, formulate targeted retention strategies by analyzing the reasons for user loss; optimize recharge and payment guidance by analyzing user consumption habits.
• Automated and semi-automated tools: Use automated tools to reach and intervene in users. For example, through the automated push system, personalized content is pushed regularly based on user behavior and tags. For example, the private domain SCRM systems of NetEase Cloud Commerce and Beijing Wisdom Tooth Technology are both equipped with interface functions such as "Scientific Strategy Center" and "Marketing Rules Engine". After the manufacturer circle selects a specific group package, these functions can be called to realize the daily push automation of this group, or the automatic push of tag changes, etc. through functions such as delayers.

Finally, it must be emphasized that operational gameplay is just a means, but the future of private domain must be a balance between humanity and technology.

For example, a certain game will record players' preferences: when someone temporarily leaves the game, they will receive virtual fireworks and handwritten greeting cards when they return; when a player gets married in the game, the customer service will collectively record a congratulatory video. This kind of "beyond-expectation service" makes users reluctant to delete their accounts even if they AFK (temporarily leave), which is essentially to build a barrier with emotions.

At the same time, technical tools are also evolving. The AI ​​early warning model predicts the risk of churn three days in advance through data such as "decreased login frequency" and "decreased copy participation rate". For example, a card game algorithm found that if a player fails to complete the "daily task" for three consecutive days, the probability of churn is 70%, which immediately triggers the WeChat push of the "task one-click completion voucher".

The customer service script library covers more than 200 scenarios, from complaint handling to new user guidance, and manual efficiency has increased by 50%. But machines cannot replace temperature. A player of Westward Journey Online II was bedridden for a long time due to illness and could not use the mouse. After the customer service learned about it, they contacted the internal technical team to customize a set of equipment for the player. NetEase also has a "100-city reunion" event for many games, paying for the dinner for players with real money. Such details are the key to cultivating loyal users.

The industry has shifted from "traffic anxiety" to "emotional binding", and private domain is no longer just a tool, but the key to reconstructing the "user-brand-community" ecology - after all, what makes players reinstall the game for the sentence "wait for you to come back" is never the algorithm, but human feelings.