Mobile games need a strong fragmented social system based on acquaintances

In the era of mobile Internet, what are the obvious differences between users of mobile games and client games (page games)?

The main purpose of mobile game users' games is to kill fragmented time, such as taking the subway, going to the toilet, and half an hour before going to bed, and their nature tends to be mild or moderate; end game users are relatively more core, and will play in a game. spend a lot of time and energy on it, and will delve deeply into it. The difference between the two makes mobile games and PC games quite different in content. Mobile games focus more on leisure and entertainment, while PC games focus more on shaping a broad game world for players to explore.

For the above reasons, there are also huge differences in the design of social systems between mobile games and PC games (or heavy online games).

Let’s talk about the end tour first.

The terminal game is like an independent small world. The existence of social elements enhances the stickiness of the game to players and makes this virtual world more humane. Here, players are looking for an alternative experience that is out of reality. The essence of this is the player's pursuit of emotions. This emotion includes growth, achievement, friendship, love, hatred, etc., and these all need to be achieved through social interaction. This kind of social relationship in the end game is mostly formed in the game itself, and the process is based on the semi-familiar social interaction cultivated by strangers.

Mobile games are quite different in this regard.

I believe that many mobile game users will have this experience - mobile games are more like stand-alone games. In mobile games, it seems that you rarely see social systems other than friends, chat, and guilds; even with the above three systems, the utilization or value in many mobile games has not really been cashed out. For example, in-game friends are more responsible for the function of giving gifts to each other; the chat function is not used or rarely used because there is no demand; the guild is also limited to weak interactive functions such as contribution and welfare. In short, the social system is not well connected with other gameplays of the game, resulting in the loss of its existence value, which is the problem of many domestic mobile online games.

As we all know, the essence of the difference between online games and stand-alone games is not only to satisfy players' pleasure, self-growth and self-achievement, but also to socialize. This kind of social interaction can be among acquaintances or strangers, it can be giving or sharing, it can be comparing or showing off wealth, it can be collaboration or competition. And I think mobile games are more suitable for social circles based on acquaintances, for the following reasons.

First, it is difficult for mobile game users to form social relationships with strangers, which is determined by fragmented time. After the players go online, most of them upgrade their equipment and play dungeons on their own, and rarely use the social system that seems to be irrelevant to them. One is that there is not much time or the environment is not suitable (you can't start voice chat during work hours!), and the other is that the social system itself does not bring more value to itself (this is a problem we need to focus on solving).

Second, social circles based on acquaintances are more likely to bring greater added value to the game. Giving and sharing, competition and collaboration, these points that are beneficial to improving user retention and stickiness are easier to spread among friends. The platforms based on acquaintances' social interaction (Weibo, WeChat, QQ, FaceBook, etc.) have also laid a solid foundation for the distribution and promotion of games.

Third, heavy online games often have their own powerful social system. Strangers based on this social system can play together for a long time to achieve a social relationship chain of acquaintances, and this relationship chain often requires a third-party platform to maintain ( Such as groups, game guilds, etc.). We can consider raising the maintenance of this relationship to the platform level when designing the guild system, so that strangers in the game can become real friends.

The above mentioned is acquaintance social, so what is fragmented social?

Fragmented social networking emphasizes asynchronous, non-real-time social networking. The status quo of domestic mobile games has determined that the number of simultaneous online users of most mobile games is difficult to exceed 1,000, so many mobile games have more or less abandoned systems such as real-time interaction and battle (of course, except for room-based chess and card games) ).

Fragmented social networking is mainly reflected in giving, sharing, rankings, mirror collaboration, mirror competition, etc. A well-designed fragmented social system can increase players' online time (stealing vegetables is a good example), and enhance competition and collaboration among players (Happy Xiaoxiaole is a good example).

For small and medium-sized game teams, it is of great significance to access the social platform relationship chain and make reasonable use of the relationship chain.