A friend recently created a small game website: 28 Little Game www.28xyx.com , and wanted me to write a soft article to promote it. It seems that I want to go, this 28 Little Game really has no special selling points worth writing about. However, this inspired me to have a wish, which is to discuss the development trend of small game websites with everyone. My point of view is: the current environment is no longer suitable for building small game websites. From this perspective, I am not very optimistic about the development of 28 Mini Games.
My reasons are as follows:
(1) The competition among mini-game websites is already fierce.
Due to their low cost, large user base, and direct monetization capabilities, mini-game websites have become the fastest growing type of website in recent years. The current market is close to saturation, and the competition is fierce: in addition to 4399, 7K7K, Game China, and 2144, which are among the top few, there are also many second-tier sites such as Xiaoyu.com, 3839, and 007 that dominate the traffic. The high-end; more emerging small game sites represented by Teaiwan.com www.teaiwan.com are now gradually entering people's field of vision, unknowingly encroaching on the traditional position of big sites; in addition, some large websites such as Sina, 17173, Pacific, etc. also have their own small game sites, and the newly launched 3366 by Tencent is the most eye-catching... In such an environment, another competitor with no financial resources, no resources, and no characteristics will be squeezed in. The probability of winning the 28-mini game is very low, and the pressure to survive will be great.
(2) Mini game websites are no longer a huge profit industry.
Once upon a time, I heard about how a certain small game site was making a lot of money, which made those enthusiastic young people who wanted to start a business on the Internet excited. Maybe once, a new group of small game sites would be born. Perhaps it is precisely because of this that the situation of Sengduomishao appears: According to the vast majority of small game webmasters who have contacted with the author, it is increasingly difficult for small game sites to make money. In the past, Google Adsense advertising revenue, which most websites relied on for survival, was relatively high. However, since Google decided to launch in China, the eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) has been getting lower and lower, and it has gradually lost its advantage; many people have therefore switched to Baidu. , but Baidu’s income is obviously not high, and there are tax deductions, which makes many small game webmasters feel a little bit overwhelmed. There are only a few small game sites that are lucky enough to get monthly advertising from advertisers. Most of these ads are for the promotion of web games. The number is actually not large. Many of them are seasonal, and the advertising prices are also very low. Only a few major sites such as 4399 and 7K7K can rely on their traffic advantages to not worry about advertising and revenue. Even if they only rely on joint operations with web games, they can still make good profits... The current 28 small games are nothing more than It is still unknown when the cost of servers and bandwidth can be recouped for Google and Baidu ads when the traffic is small.
(3) The cost of promoting small game websites is getting higher and higher.
There are two ways to promote mini game websites: free and paid. In addition to the common forum posts, QQ group comments, and soft articles, the most effective free ones are the inclusion of the internal pages of the website. But now it is very difficult to include almost all website websites for free, because the big websites that should be included have already included them. Who would be willing to include a new website like 28 Mini Games that has no reputation, no characteristics, and no PR value? ?There is no way to include it for free, the only way is to rely on paid promotion. Practice has proved that the best promotion channel for small game websites is the homepage promotion of the website. For larger websites, such as 1616 Website Navigation, the number of clicks for each position of the homepage mini-game category can reach tens of thousands per day; for second-category website websites, the number of clicks per day is generally around 10,000. This kind of click volume is enough to make a new website like 28 Mini Games famous overnight. However, this price is also quite huge. The monthly promotion fee needs to be as low as 10,000 to as high as tens of thousands. This cannot help but make many individual webmasters sigh because they are difficult to recover by relying solely on the website's own CPC, CPA, and CPS advertising revenue. Most of the sites that can afford to invest are those that have already grown in size. Once they grow, they will have enough monthly income to support them. Many people don’t understand why GameChina, Xiaogame.com and 7K7K can invest heavily in advertising for a long time. This is the reason. Another phenomenon also illustrates this problem. Among the mini-game sites that have sprung up like mushrooms in recent years, their founders include practitioners in website navigation. According to the information available to the author, there are currently about 20 small game sites that have an unusual relationship with the famous website navigation.
(4) Users’ demand for mini-game websites is also increasing.
As usual, relying on a free program or spending a few hundred yuan to build a small game website is obviously no longer able to meet the discerning needs of current users. Layout design, color matching, function construction, game selection, speed optimization... these are all issues that have to be considered, and if there are no professional personnel to complete them, they will naturally be eliminated in the fierce competitive environment. The current team of 28 Mini Games is also relatively small, and the website they created is a bit naive, and there are still many things that need to be improved. Under the current user needs, whether the user experience of the website can be perfected and achieved to the extreme is a hard issue that tests every small game webmaster.
(5) Potential policy risks have emerged.
As websites such as 4399 and 2144 appear to have Internet culture business license numbers, the mini-game industry is also feeling a faint concern: will mini-games have entry thresholds like online games and web games? ?If this is the case, those personal small game stations will face disaster. Because according to the Ministry of Culture’s conditions for applying for literary and online articles, you first need to be an organization rather than an individual, and the registered capital applying for the game product business needs to reach 10 million yuan. I hope that Wenwangwen’s regulations will not immediately cover small game websites, otherwise it will strangle the industry. Another potential policy risk is the copyright of mini-games. In the past, mini-games were mostly produced by individuals and were mainly for self-entertainment, so there was no copyright requirement. As user demand continues to increase, the requirements for the production level of small games, including graphics and technical standards, are also gradually increasing. Single-handed personal production will be inhibited, and some games may take the path of specialization and commercialization. In this way, copyright Problems will naturally arise. Personally, I think it’s more realistic to talk about copyright in mini-games than advertising. In any case, any policy risk will lead to a huge increase in the cost of small game websites. I don’t know if 28 Games has foreseen such a risk.
Whether my above thoughts make sense or not, everyone is welcome to comment. You are also welcome to communicate with me through QQ: 1304347517. I hope that the negative factors I mentioned will not overwhelm the confidence of someone who has just become or is about to become a small game webmaster. In the face of any difficulty, there are always opportunities. Those who can seize this opportunity must be capable webmasters and powerful websites.
I wish this friend of mine can become a capable webmaster, and I wish 28 Games can become a powerful website!
The author's personal space is near the water. This article only represents the author's views and has nothing to do with the position of Webmaster.com.