Chinese Browser Games

Although typically the North American online gaming market has been targeted on games for social media and apps - like Farmville or Candy Crush Saga, the arrival of Chinese browser MMO (multi-member online) games has sent me researching more about them.

For about a year now, my husband has been playing a game called League of Angels, which involves a complex series of of challenges, both personal and team-based, which - despite the fact is technically "free-to-play" - encourages the heavy need to purchase miscellaneous extras and in-game currency in order to become a higher ranked or powerful character.

Apparently, this approach works really well and the company can easily make several millions of dollars a month.

At the 2012 Game Developers Conference in Europe, one young man named Jared shared his insights into the world of Chinese Browser games and how they work. It was called $100,000 Whales - An Introduction to Chinese Browser Game Design, and frankly, it's astounding. If you have time, and are curious, I recommend listening to his chat.

Some key facts:

• These games are designed to be MMO games, which will encourage competition among players.
• Designed to be focused on monetization.
• Many new servers are opened every week - like 200! Why? Because these games typically have a short turn around, they need to make their money back as quickly as possible, so the goal is to encourage players to join a new server, offer incentives for ranking up the leaderboard, spend excessive amounts of money to claim the #1 position on that server and make a quick return on investment.
• Event focused: Server launch rewards & scheduled events all day so you know what you need to do from the moment you sign in to when you log off. These reward you with points to help your leaderboard status and through prizes that will better your character's stats. It also keeps you playing and spending money because you want to complete that event in a certain position to maintain or better your place on the server ranking boards. 
• Everything in the game is upgradeable - gear, mounts, status, items, experience scrolls, convenience, etc. You just have to pay. 

After watching the video, I took a new look at the game my husband plays and it's exactly following this model.

It uses multiple platforms (including Facebook now!) and constantly has new servers opening - most of which offer bonus incentives to help those players blast through the starting stages to become as strong, if not stronger, than the older servers. Everything has stats and is upgradeable.  There are events and activities scheduled all day long. There are rewards for daily participation in special events. There are cross-server games and events to encourage competition between servers (who is the best?!). There are payment options for just about everything: more turns to spin the wheel, more time for a game, revive yourself faster when you die in battle, getting new gear, buying items to better your chances to rank in high-reward events, getting additional mounts or heroes or angels, in-game currency to use in shops, adding points to the guild's score to make it better, scrolls to help you level up faster, monthly payments to be a VIP - and have bonuses like a single click button to complete tasks, etc., etc.

It's a slippery slope - and even when it's just a few dollars here, few dollars there, it's easy to see how companies running games like this are able to quickly rake in multimillion dollars per month. The people who choose to not to spend money quickly fall to the bottom of the standings and those who pay rush to the top. It isn't really about skill - it's about what you are able to buy and the rewards you get for doing so. I recently heard that one of the "big name" guys that my husband has been chatting with admitted to having sunk over $16,000 into the game during the past year. It's mind-blowing to me that someone could spend that much on a game.

It seems as though localizing this style of game can be a challenge in our Western world, needing several adaptations to make it more marketable to the difference between cultures, but it looks like some game design companies are giving it a go and are doing fairly well.

It is interesting, however, to see how the monetization methods appear to have rubbed off on other games - have you noticed that even Facebook games seem to have daily rewards for logging in and now offer bonus turns or extras for a small fee? I think we could have the Chinese Browser Game model to thank for this.

If you are a hardcore gamer, and want to get into some of these games, I recommend bracing yourself for the financial requirements in order to be the best. That being said, they can be a lot of fun, build a fun community of gamers, and provide a variety of different activities every day that give you a good challenge for skills and entertainment.