'Plants vs. Zombies' enters China

You must have played Plants vs. Zombies, and you must not have spent any money. Now the game's maker, PopCap Games, wants you to change that habit.

The company was founded a decade ago in Seattle, with its first game, Bejeweled, which became a global hit. Thanks to its unique play-to-buy approach - allowing customers to try the easy version online for free and then enticing them to pay for the full version with more levels and saved progress - the product was a huge success and formed the basis for the company's unique sales model.

In the following decade, Baokai has launched 35 stand-alone games such as "Plants vs. Zombies", covering multiple platforms such as web, PC, Mac, mobile phone, iPad, Xbox, PlayStation, and is developing games suitable for the Android operating system.

In the United States, it is making good money thanks to its partnership with Facebook. In December 2008, Baokai put its flagship product "Bejeweled" on the world's largest social networking site Facebook, by adding a "buy magic power" payment option to earn income; In April 2010, the game became available as a paid download and is now in the top 20 games apps on Facebook with 12 million active users.

It aims to replicate that success in China. In fact, developing social games is a trend. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the "2010 China web game survey report" shows that as of April 2010, the total number of web game users in China has reached 105 million, of which social web games have reached 92.09 million, almost equivalent to 90% of the total scale of domestic web games.

Today, we define social games not only as web games on social networking sites, but also as single-player games with social elements. For example, in the anniversary edition of Plants vs. Zombies, users can design their own zombie characters and share them with friends, such as on social networking sites or as MSN avatars. Liu Kun, the company's country manager in China, said each of its future games will incorporate similar social elements.

But their success in China may not be as simple as beating a horde of zombies with a watermelon cannon.

In May 2010, a game called "Gourd children Battle Group demons" has aroused heated discussion among players. The product, developed by a Beijing-based company called Pixel Software, has the same rules and gameplay as Plants vs. Zombies, which was originally launched as part of a 3D online game called Seeking Fairies, run by Tencent. Because of the controversy, the game is no longer available on Tencent's platform. The game QQ Dragon Ball, which Tencent has been operating for many years, is also suspected by players of copycat Bao Kai's other classic game Zuma.

A small move can spark a heated discussion -- Tencent is a mountain in the Chinese market for any small or medium-sized game developer.

As of the second quarter of 2010, the country's largest Internet service provider's instant messaging QQ service had nearly 1 billion registered users and more than 600 million active users. QQ Zone, a social network tied to QQ, has amassed more than 428 million users; Its "QQ Games" portal, which mainly operates casual games, has a maximum number of online accounts (including only casual games) of 6.5 million.

This powerful operating platform is not currently open to more third-party developers, it only operates Tencent's nearly 100 large and small products, which are either developed by Tencent, or acquired by Tencent.

Compared with Tencent, Baokai's partner of choice, Renren, does not have a convincing advantage in the domestic social networking battlefield. In addition to the most dangerous Tencent, happy net, 51.com and other websites are also eyeing, and the number of users of both is comparable to Renren. That discounts Renren's value as a sales channel for Pokkai, while Facebook is the biggest social network by market share in the United States.

Baokai will also face disruption from copycat products such as "Gourd Children Battle Group Demons" that may appear at any time. Although Tencent may no longer operate this game because of the suspicion, once a similar product appears on the QQ platform, it is obviously able to find users more quickly than "Plants vs. Zombies", especially in casual games with a high degree of player engagement.

The card that Baokai thinks it can play is the quality of the game. "Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense game that anyone can do." "Liu Kun said. But he believes that each company makes different handling, artistic precision, Plants vs. Zombies is a 10 developers spent three years to develop.

The company is pursuing a localization strategy in China. In the localization studio that has been set up, 75 employees from all over the country have summed up user preferences in different regions, such as the southern region may prefer cartoon characters, while the north prefers more realistic scenes and martial arts content. They will develop products based on this and do not need to go through the approval of the US headquarters. In games developed specifically for the Chinese market, adding Chinese images and elements will be an important direction.

Baokai hopes it won't hit a wall again this time.

The company had been trying to enter China since 2007, when James Gwertzman, then a business development manager, came alone to explore the vast market outside of Europe and the United States. In 2008, Shanghai Baokai Software Co., Ltd. was established. Initially, Baokai sold its games to CNY.com, a subsidiary of CNY.com Entertainment Technology Co., LTD., with an average price of about $20 per game. In a market where there is no habit of paying for single-player games, sales have been extremely difficult. The Internet was full of posts asking how to crack the game, which made the company feel helpless, and eventually terminated the cooperation with the network.

The company realized that finding a business model that fits the habits of Chinese consumers is extremely important in the Chinese market, and buying games like buying software is clearly not welcome here. So, in the end, working with social networking sites to develop social games that meet the habits of Chinese players and charge for game items became the new way to play in the Chinese market.

If there is no Tencent, if there are no various "gourd children", this may be a perfect plan.