At its current revenue, the game’s earnings could completely cover its development costs in less than half a month.
It’s important to remember that this isn't two years from now, when mobile games in the ACG genre with monthly revenues exceeding 100 million would dominate.
Comparatively, two years ago, Honkai 2’s monthly revenue after launch was just over 10 million yuan!
But what kind of marketing did Honkai 2 have back then?
And what about Chu Chen’s Final Battlefront? Moreover, this is just the first day since launch, and the number of players might continue to surge in the coming days.
“Holy crap! 500,000 on the first day! A monthly income of ten million isn’t just a dream!”
“We’re rich! We’re rich!”
“Chen Zong is awesome!”
Everyone’s expressions were relaxed, but next to Chu Chen, a particularly round programmer had a subtle look on his face.
It was Xiong Rui, the one among the programming team’s “Three Bears” whose physique most closely resembled the word “bear.” He had been grinning foolishly just moments ago, but now the smile on his face was frozen.
Xiong Rui, with his large build, was squeezed to the front and saw everything most clearly.
“Penetration rate… 0.4%? Is it that low?”
Xiong Rui scratched his hair, which was a bit greasy from staying up late.
He wasn’t ignorant; on the contrary, as one of the core programmers, he was quite knowledgeable about game data on the market.
The registration numbers and online player count definitely showed the potential for a hit.
But why was the penetration rate so low?
“Doesn’t this perfectly meet our expectations? Come on, I’m treating everyone to barbecue! Oysters and pork kidneys, order as much as you want!”
Chu Chen understood Xiong Rui’s concern.
The payment data did indeed look a bit strange.
Because under normal circumstances, even a mediocre online game in China would have a first-day payment rate between 2% and 5%; for ACG games, with emotional bonuses, it could be even higher.
For example, Honkai 2’s early payment penetration rate was between 10% and 15%, and even Warship Girls, which didn’t push for spending much, had a payment rate between 3% and 5%.
From this perspective, 0.4% was simply too low, even abnormally low.
Yet, at the same time, Final Battlefront’s payment amount exceeded the average.
Taking Honkai 2 as an example again, its ARPPU in the first year was 114 yuan; it wasn’t until the honkai impact 3 era that miHoYo’s ARPPU exceeded 300, and during the Genshin Impact period, it once reached a terrifying 600.
This is because starting from the honkai impact 3 era, miHoYo implemented a heavy-spending model: high gacha costs + constellations + weapons, which meant most players either didn’t spend at all or spent heavily.
And now, Final Battlefront’s data also shows this trend.
On one hand, based on a relatively saturated welfare and new player acquisition strategy, most ordinary players have no need to spend money, especially considering the foreseeable future.
Final Battlefront, like Warship Girls, allows players to collect everything over time, providing an identical experience for both ordinary and paying players.
But on the other hand, for the true “whales,” they don’t care about anything else; they want to complete their collection now! Immediately! Right away!
As the saying goes, don’t try to guess a whale’s mind.
Even though Final Battlefront’s gacha costs aren’t high, basically 1.5 per pull, and even bundles offer discounts, don’t forget that Final Battlefront also has many characters.
This isn't a 3D game; the initial version of Final Battlefront has nearly 50 characters, including 30 five-stars and 20 four-stars.
50 five-stars, even without considering duplicates, would be a bit exaggerated to try and pull all of them by force.
So, the data ultimately presented to everyone was one of low penetration and high average spending.
But still, the same old saying.
The current data aligns with Chu Chen’s expectations, so he doesn’t plan to change anything or try to boost the excessively low penetration rate to gain higher revenue.
Chu Chen is well aware that what Starry Sky needs right now is not to exhaust the game’s lifespan for explosive profits, but rather to expand its user base through high reputation and low profit margins.
This was the strategy he settled on after much deliberation.
After all, only when the user base grows can Chu Chen’s next strategy of small profits but quick turnover take effect, and the emotional payment model—that is, the methodology of making players like characters and then monetizing through them—can become a reality.
Essentially, the mainstream Chinese games currently treat players like pigs to be slaughtered, adopting a method of first attracting pigs with free gimmicks, and then mercilessly butchering them in various ways.
The ultimate result of this approach is quite simple: a large number of players will quickly churn.
After all, people aren't really pigs.
What Chu Chen wants to do is treat players like sheep or cats, earning profit by grooming them.
Don't think this model is slow to make money; you have to understand that as the user base increases, not only can ordinary players’ low spending generate terrifying revenue (like Honor of Kings’ 6-yuan skins),
More importantly, when there are more ordinary players, heavy-spending players will follow.
Just like Final Battlefront at this very moment.
Even though playing the game normally guarantees a five-star character every 5 days, there are still whales who insist on spending money to complete their entire collection in one day, then post it in the community to be hailed as a tycoon by thousands.
For whales, the more ordinary players there are, the more comfortable they feel spending money.
Their payments are for a different kind of emotional gratification.
I won’t elaborate on that here; for now, let’s just enjoy some skewers!
~~~
While Chu Chen was reviewing this data, under the same starry sky, another person was also working overtime.
This person was Chen Mo, an editor at Youmin Forum.
As a gaming website, most of Youmin’s early posts were reposts and sponsored content, but in recent years, with the decline of traditional domestic online games and the rise of mobile games, Youmin Forum entered a period of transformation.
After all, the era of making money simply by posting GG for online games, selling media activation codes, and attracting traffic with activation code events was gradually fading.
Players now demanded more refined and authentic content.
So, in the last two years, even if many games didn’t pay for GG, Youmin would still jump on the bandwagon and write articles, especially for single-player games.
Whether it was games already released, like this February’s XCOM 2, or those soon to be released this year, such as Battlefield 1, Civilization 6, Titanfall 2, Watch Dogs 2, and Final Fantasy 15, Youmin wrote many articles about them.
Chen Mo was also one of the main editors for these articles.
However, tonight, he had already been about to go to sleep when he was pulled back to work.
It was a call from his editor-in-chief, who said the boss needed him to write an urgent draft before tomorrow morning.
“No! Can’t I just get a good night’s sleep and write it tomorrow?”
“The client is in a hurry…”
“Sigh, this is writing. The client may be in a hurry, but they can’t keep me from sleeping.”
“They’re paying more.”
“How much more?”
“I can’t tell you that, but if you finish it tonight, I’ll give you a 1000-yuan red packet…”
“Really!?”
“Really!”
“What’s the game called?”
“Final Battlefront.”
Even with a big red packet, Chen Mo, who had gotten out of bed, originally just planned to play casually, take a screenshot, use a template, and insert the points the client wanted to see, then be done with it.
After all, there had been many such ACG games recently.
Most of them were just reskins, with gameplay amounting to simple character matchups, so there wasn’t much to praise.
However, when Chen Mo actually opened the game and started playing, he felt something was off.
“This… this is quite interesting.”