Kai's Happy HappyFarm
Social games have exploded in China, starting with Parking Wars on Kaixin001–a game adapted from Facebook where you have to find a parking space for your car or pay a parking ticket. The game behooves you to login often: if you find a friend in your space, you can slap them with a fine. Save that money and you’ll soon be able to afford that virtual Benz or Rolls-Royce you’ve always dreamed of. The addictiveness (rewards for constant login) and social interactivity have made social games a smash hit in China. A number of our Chinese delegates (Yunli, Xian…) can even attest to this from personal experience!
CEO Joe Chen of Renren presents to FACES tomorrow!
Cut-throat SNS Competition
Social games are hosted on social networking sites (SNS) that either serve as a platform for game developers or produce/copy games in-house. There is fierce competition amongst the that seek (and claim) to be “China’s Facebook.” The leaders by estimated active user count are:
- 228m Qzone (focused on teens, chat)
- 70m Renren (focused on students, networking)
- 50m Kaixin001 (focused on white collars, gaming)
Wednesday’s FACES Alumni Banquet speaker is Joe Chen, Chairman of Oak Pacific Interactive (whose companies include Renren, Mop hi, and the fake kaixin.com). By the
Happy Farm: The World’s #1 Social Game
Happy Farm (开心农场) has an estimated 80m active users across all of China’s SNS. You can grow and steal from friends (see screenshot of me happily farming away). If you’re sick of having your crops stolen, you can rent a virtual guard dog for ~15RMB a month; yes, social games are a cash crop. Moreover, the leading game on Facebook is now Zynga’s FarmVille, with 63+ monthly active users! (maybe a few of our American delegates can attest to this?) If you’re interested, I wrote a longer piece on Happy Farm here: http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/29/china-qq-farm-happy-farm-games
A Bridge to China’s Internet Island?
In many ways, China’s internet is an island—ideas cross-pollinate, but firms find it extremely difficult to enter in or expand out. Internet giants Facebook (blocked in China), YouTube (blocked), Twitter (blocked), eBay, and Yahoo have all faltered in China. Chinese firms are starting to go global, but have had little success to-date.
Social gaming (or farming) could be one of the first sectors to bridge the internet divide. The very first farming game was Happy Farm on Renren–the creators, Five Minutes, added the app to Facebook and has gained 2.5m users. A number of Chinese game developers are eyeing Facebook and vice versa. Chinese-American exchange at it’s finest.
Technically, I don’t think Qzone should be placed along with Renren and Kaixin for it has much different functions and much less degree of interaction as compared to the later two.
Although, there does exist a possibility that Tencent will enter the SNS market by either acquisition or rolling out its own.
that’s an excellent point. Qzone as I understand is for a younger audience that will also often use nicknames/icon instead of real-name/photo networking. In addition, the numbers of active users from QQ are questionable–they seem to include some who use QQ messenger but have only minimal interaction on Qzone.
I also agree on your last point. I expect Tencent will introduce a more mature SNS and heavily promote it in the near future.
eventhough I commit the vast majority of of my time on the internet playing online games like zynga poker or farmville, I nevertheless like to take some spare time to research a a small number of sites now and then and I am content to report this recent post is in fact fairly good and a whole good deal improved than 50 % the other rubbish I read today , anyhow i’m going to have fun with a few hands of zynga poker