WeChat vs. Apple: Who will play sleep first?

Rumors of a showdown between WeChat and Apple have resurfaced, sparking heated discussions around the "Apple tax" and WeChat app support issues. Although both parties denied the rumor that "WeChat will not support iPhone 16", the payment loophole for mini games has become the focus of attention. Analysis points out that in the game between Apple and WeChat, user demand has become a key factor, and the cooperation between the two parties has more benefits than disadvantages. Under the market competition and cooperation situation, Apple may find it difficult to abandon the Chinese market.

Is it possible that the 3Q war will happen again?

Will Apple and Tencent stage a two-horse showdown?

In order to collect Apple tax, does Apple want to be broken?

There are rumors that WeChat may not support iPhone 16.

Once the iPhone is upgraded to iOS 18.2, WeChat will not be available, and users will not be able to use WeChat. As the news continued to ferment, the topic "Apple WeChat" became a hot search on Weibo.

In this regard, an insider said that this rumor is a rumor. In addition, a Tencent employee said: "We have not received this news yet."

Previously, there were reports that Apple had increased pressure on Tencent and ByteDance.

Apple hopes to "plug" the payment loopholes in small games to prevent developers from directing users to external payment systems. Apple has warned Tencent that if it does not eliminate the ability of developers and users to bypass the Apple ecosystem, it will refuse to provide WeChat updates in the future.

In August, Tencent management stated in an earnings call that there are some misunderstandings about the nature of the current situation, that is, Tencent is not currently commercializing small games on iOS through in-app purchases (bypassing payment), and relevant discussions are underway.

Before that, rumors that "Apple may impose Apple tax on WeChat and TikTok" were rampant.

It is reported that Apple’s 2024 fall new product launch conference will be held at 1 am Beijing time on September 10, when the latest iPhone 16 series will be launched.

Angelo Zino, a technology analyst at CFRA Research, predicts that prices for the iPhone 16 series may increase across the board due to the addition of more artificial intelligence features.

Now the question is, if you really have to choose between the two, who would you choose?

Do mini-games really have such great magic?

In this regard, Jia Tianrong, a reporter from IT Times, and Shu Le had a discussion. I think:

This kind of two-choice situation has no possibility of happening. The most Apple can do is just speak out to gain some attention.

Of course, we have to admit that Apple tax and Android tax have always been a huge mountain weighing on game manufacturers.

The difference is that Apple's 30% tax is mainly controlled by Apple. It is derived from the "commission ratio" of game console platforms starting with Nintendo's Famicom. It is relatively customary, but all Apple mobile phone applications cannot circumvent it.

On the contrary, Android tax may be split in half, with various mobile phone manufacturers being the main controller, although the proportion is higher.

However, if game manufacturers are extremely confident in their products, they can abandon the channels and take a detour, such as when “Genshin Impact” was distributed without using channels. This kind of interest game has caused many disputes, but most of them have been left unresolved.

After all, the bulk of traffic is in the hands of the channels, and even if the game manufacturers split it in half, it is often profitable. In addition, the quality of most games does not reach the level of high-quality games, so it is difficult to make up their minds to take a detour.

Of course, due to the system characteristics of iOS, there is no way around it. Although it seems feasible to boycott profit sharing through the loophole of mini-games.

But for Tencent, it is just a drizzle, and the general trend is for WeChat to support small games. It should not compete head-on with Apple, which occupies half of the smartphone market and has a higher concentration of mid- to high-end users.

It is worth noting that the money-making prospects in the mini-game track are bright, but not bright enough for the giants to take action.

Although large companies have entered the mini-game market, the core is still small and medium-sized game manufacturers, so the latter will definitely be more affected.

According to the rules, for small games, if they do not have a version number, they cannot make in-app purchases and can only monetize through advertising.

However, current small games have indeed broken through this norm and adopted an advertising + content model, which in a sense may also cause operational risks and also affect Apple's business.

However, the overall impact should not be significant. For WeChat mini-games, before the corresponding policies for version number approval are clarified, it is more important to launch mini-games through supervision to avoid risks caused by in-app purchases.

After all, the current level of license approval cannot cover a large number of small games, so relevant requirements need to be further clarified.

In addition, mini-games are essentially products that were ported in parallel from mobile games (with clients) from five years ago with technological upgrades, which also led to a migration of users who are sticky to such games.

At the same time, the convenience of obtaining, simple operation and social communication attributes of mini-games have turned some low-frequency game players into high-frequency mini-game players, and some non-game players have also joined in game entertainment, giving it incremental market attributes.

In 2024, mini-games will inevitably develop further, combining the real-life attributes of short dramas, the casual attributes of party games, and the base downgrade of more once medium-core games to further enrich the content and experience, satisfying the fragmented and diversified gaming entertainment needs of gamers.

Going further, Apple's official implementation of taking a cut of WeChat mini-games actually has little impact.

Overall, advertising revenue will not be affected, but user recharges will definitely be directly affected.

But in terms of compliance, small games without version numbers can only monetize through advertising.

For some small games, since they are cloud game versions of client games, if the client games have version numbers, in-app purchases can be carried out, but the number should be too large.

Therefore, Apple should not actually remove or stop updating WeChat and TikTok.

After all, all parties have high user stickiness of hundreds of millions in the Chinese market.

Moreover, at this stage, it can at least be said that the iPhone is not an absolute necessity, but WeChat is a necessity for users, and the necessity of Douyin may be slightly higher than that of the iPhone.

Since both sides will benefit from cooperation and suffer from separation, the so-called tax payment and suspension of updates by both parties will not be excessive, and there is still room for bargaining.

What's more, even if the app is stopped from being updated, users will not be unable to use it in a short period of time, and there will also be a buffer period.

But it seems that Apple does not want to lose its market share in China and can only "pretend to sleep".