Dissatisfied with the high commission, game developer Epic Games filed a three-year antitrust lawsuit against Google, which recently ended in Google failure. Epic Games said in a statement after the lawsuit that the verdict is a victory for all game developers and consumers around the world, and that the CEO of Epic said in an interview after the verdict that "the end of the 30% commission is imminent."Game developer Epic Games took Apple to court in 2020 for similar reasons. At the time, Epic Games was removing Fortnite from its game Fortnite by allowing users to pay in-app currency directly to Epic, bypassing Apple's long-standing App Store payment mechanism, which required players using Apple's App Store model to pay an additional $2 "Apple tax". However, in this single lawsuit, Epic lost the case.
The case once again pushed the contradiction between game developers and channel providers to the forefront, and a legal source told a reporter from Nandu that the case may have a certain benign impact on Chinese game manufacturers' products going overseas. However, if we look at China, we will find that the contradiction between game developers and channel providers is far from being resolved. In recent years, due to dissatisfaction with the high proportion of channel providers, many game manufacturers have turned to choose not to list traditional channel providers, and in addition, new game distribution methods are also emerging.
Fortnite.
However, three years later, after an antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Games against Google, Epic Games won for the first time. During the deliberations, the jury unanimously found that Google had a monopoly position in the Android app distribution market and the in-app payment services market, and used that position to engage in anti-competitive behavior to the detriment of Epic Games. Epic Games said in a statement after the lawsuit that the verdict is a victory for all game developers and consumers around the world.
Although Epic Games finally won the case three years later, in the view of Luo Feng, a partner at Shanghai Kaiyuan Law Firm, who has been engaged in the legal affairs of games going overseas for many years, there is still some luck in Epic Games' victory. "In the field of payments, similar cases have been found in other countries and regions in the past, but successful cases are relatively rare. The Epic Games case is about market share, and you can see that compared to Apple, Android's global market share far exceeds Apple's, and from this point of view, there is no problem in determining its market monopoly. At the same time, in the course of the lawsuit, Google deleted the chat records related to the app store transactions, which is also untenable in terms of integrity. ”
Luo Feng also said that although the case file shows that the case clearly excludes Google's Chinese market, the victory of Epic Games in this case will still have a certain positive impact on the Chinese game manufacturer's products going overseas. "In the area of payment, in the future, game manufacturers may scramble to follow suit and build a new ecosystem in the game, bypassing Google's third-party payment methods to collect fees. ”
In fact, the lawsuit between Epic Games and Google has exposed the contradictions between game manufacturers and distributors. Luo Feng told the reporter that there are many similar cases involving game manufacturers and channel providers in China. "Large platforms of magnitude like Google and Apple sometimes set up unnecessary obstacles by asking game manufacturers to submit a lot of documents that may not exist at all under the banner of platform compliance requirementsWhen it comes to fees, these platforms will conduct investigations in the name of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism, and require game companies to prove their innocence. ”
In fact, in addition to the problems mentioned by Luo Feng, the biggest problem faced by game manufacturers is that the channel charges are too high and squeeze profits. Previously, NetEase CEO Ding Lei had publicly stated that "only 30% of overseas revenue, and Android manufacturers have no reason to divide 50%, which is very unfavorable to the industrial ecology."
However, there has been a shift in the distribution of games in China. An industry insider told a reporter from Nandu that many domestic game manufacturers have given up taking channels due to high shares, and buying promotion has become a major way, but the efficiency of buying promotion is not high. "Buying volume is a way to benefit a lot if you do well, but the head effect is also obvious, basically the head game can benefit more. ”
In August this year, NetEase launched the first game "All-Star Street Ball Party" that was not available on Android channels, and Android players can only download the game from the official website. Previously, game products such as "Ark of Tomorrow", "Genshin Impact", "The Strongest Snail" and "In the Name of Shining" have been selected not to be on the shelves of traditional channels, or only on some channels with lower scores.
All-Star Street Ball Party.
According to Cao Xiongfeng, head of operations at Taptap, the game manufacturer's choice not to distribute on traditional channels is not only because the traffic is scattered in more channels, but also because the traditional channel intercepts player installs due to the game manufacturer's failure to pay. As a result, game manufacturers must pay the dual cost of buying volume on search engines and buying volume on traditional channel manufacturers, further squeezing profit margins.
Cao Xiongfeng also observed that the cost of game research and development and the taste of players in the entire industry are becoming higher, and at the same time, the entire game user is entering a relatively saturated state, but the success rate of games is becoming lower, and many small game manufacturers will gradually disappear in the long run.
Nandu reporters paid attention to the fact that the NetEase game "All-Star Street Ball Party", which was not on the shelves of traditional Android channels, finally chose to provide a taptap entrance for Android users.
Cao Xiongfeng told the reporter that 85% of the traffic on the homepage of the taptap platform is provided to game manufacturers for free, and as a game plus community platform product, game manufacturers will get the recommendation of organic traffic even if they don't pay on the platform. According to reports, on the day the game product is launched on the platform, taptap will give the default "cold start" traffic, and under such a traffic supply, the platform will evaluate the click-through rate and conversion rate of the product based on the product, and if a game performs well on multiple criteria, the platform will continue to give traffic recommendations. After all the steps to obtain organic traffic have been completed, TapTap will recommend that the vendor consider whether to use the traffic cooperation method.
In addition, TapTap hopes to control the commercialization rate within a certain level in turn, so as to provide more game developers with the last part of the profit margin. "We hope that the entire game ecosystem can become more durable, on the one hand, we hope to build a game community and provide players with more rich choicesAt the same time, as a platform, we also hope to become the choice of more players. Cao Xiongfeng said.
However, some industry insiders have pointed out that TapTap users are also facing another obstacle: when users play games from Taptap, because the mobile phone manufacturer's app store cannot share from the user's recharge flow in the game, the user's installation of the product will be intercepted.
Another solution to game distribution is mini programs. Since the beginning of this year, many game manufacturers have begun to turn to Douyin Mini Programs and WeChat Mini Programs. According to the "2023 China Game Industry Report" released by the Game Publishing Working Committee and the China Game Industry Research Institute, the domestic mini program game market revenue in 2023 will be 20 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 300%. At this stage, the monetization model of Mini Program games mainly includes three types: in-app purchase payment, advertising monetization, and hybrid monetization, and due to the rapid increase in the proportion of in-app purchase payment, the rapid growth of the Mini Game market has been driven.
In fact, the mini program market is eaten from the purchase volume and channels, which is also a good thing for manufacturers to share and cost less. And compared with traditional channels relying on hardware, Douyin and WeChat have a perfect ecology, and user habits have been cultivated, and there is still a chance to do this, and now many mobile games are h5 on the applet. An industry insider revealed.
In addition to mini programs, Luo Feng also proposed that in the future, it may be a major trend for game developers to establish their own ecological payment and de-platforming models. "Every game has a need for deplatforming, but at the moment it may only be possible for a larger game. However, many senior practitioners in the game industry have mentioned that they believe that in the future, when many games can be interconnected, we will not need a platform, with the maturity of blockchain and digital wallet technology, in web 3In the era of 0, it may be that these barriers and interceptions no longer exist. ”
For example, after the implementation of the EU's Digital Markets Act in 2024, European game companies may take the lead in building their own ecological chains, and they may serve as a reference for Chinese game manufacturers.
Written by: Nandu reporter Lin Wenqi.