How Line made its users play games 100 million times a day
Good afternoon, dear harazhiteli. For two years now I have been leading the agency for the promotion of mobile games and applications. We often promote games in Asia and, accordingly, come across various tools, interesting cases and features that we plan to share here.
Today I would like to tell you about how one of the most popular instant messengers in the world Line made its users play games 100 million times a day. If you have not yet encountered any information about this messenger, then, for starters, I will present you a brief intro production with the main differences.
So, Line - the most popular Japanese mobile messenger with Korean roots (analogue of WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, KakaoTalk, Skype), is now managed by the Japanese company Line Corporation. It was launched in July 2011 and is now used in 230 countries. Initially, Line did not differ from its counterparts, including a fairly standard set of functions (free and in-apps) for such applications. The main difference is the stickers - 99 level emoticons, cute pictures, often associated with some event, celebrities or specific emotions. For instance:
In August, the company announced its revenue of 132 million US dollars, which was an increase of 348.9% compared with the previous year and by 45.3% compared to the previous quarter. This made Line the most successful messenger among analogues.
Now the total number of Line users is more than 300 million. Mostly these are users from Asia, the application is also actively gaining popularity in the Spanish-speaking regions, and currently its main efforts are directed to India, Turkey and Western Europe, including France, Germany and Italy.
Actually, the most interesting thing is how in such a short time the company achieved such results. According to Darin Hwang, Global PR Line Global Manager, the key components to the success of the application are:
As a result, it turns out that Line’s success formula is based on a mix of fun and convenience in everything.
100000000 - this is the total number of times games on the Line platform were launched in just one day. And this means that every minute the games were launched, no less than 139,000 times.
How?
It's simple, in November 2013 the company celebrated the anniversary of the launch of its own gaming platform - Line Games (in my opinion the most important secrets of Line's success), which allows you to play and compete with your friends. Now it has 39 different games.
Separately, it is worth noting that you should not confuse Line Games with Line Play and Line Play games
Line Play is a game - a virtual world that positions itself as: “Express yourself through your avatar while traveling with friends and chatting”. NHN Japan was released in November 2012 as a separate component of the Line services ecosystem: coupons, horoscopes, music, films, cards, purchases, news, comics, weather, it is successfully integrated with the messenger. But Line Play games are games integrated already with Line Play. Such integration makes it possible to play with your virtual friends, communicate with them and receive virtual items that can be used directly in Line Play. Over the year, the game has gained 13 million users in 210 countries, with 6.8 million living outside of Japan.
Returning to Line Games, in honor of the anniversary of the service, the company announced the launch of an interesting action. The main mission was the condition - to reach the figure of 100 million game launches within 12 hours. By the way, at that time on the platform, on average per minute, games were launched 250,000 times, or just 85 million per day.
These 100 million should be considered as follows:
Well, in return, all platform players received such a special issue of stickers:
Line promotion tools are similar to those familiar to us on Vkontakte, Facebook, Twitter. Those. The classic correctly built and prepared SMM even works. It is also worth noting that the Japanese react very sharply to poor translation, an illogical text from the point of view of the Japanese language, so I advise you to use netiva in your work. There are a number of unique features that not only stand out, but also work much more efficiently. So, in my opinion, there are several basic effective tools for promotion:
In the end, it is worth remembering that promotion in Japan and in Line is not a cheap pleasure, and given the very conservative and closed mentality of the Japanese, it is also not easy. Spamming the masses will not work. That is why it is worth approaching this carefully and seriously, because our “let’s try” can turn out very deplorably.
All images were taken from the official Line blog.
Today I would like to tell you about how one of the most popular instant messengers in the world Line made its users play games 100 million times a day. If you have not yet encountered any information about this messenger, then, for starters, I will present you a brief intro production with the main differences.
So, Line - the most popular Japanese mobile messenger with Korean roots (analogue of WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, KakaoTalk, Skype), is now managed by the Japanese company Line Corporation. It was launched in July 2011 and is now used in 230 countries. Initially, Line did not differ from its counterparts, including a fairly standard set of functions (free and in-apps) for such applications. The main difference is the stickers - 99 level emoticons, cute pictures, often associated with some event, celebrities or specific emotions. For instance:
Some statistics
In August, the company announced its revenue of 132 million US dollars, which was an increase of 348.9% compared with the previous year and by 45.3% compared to the previous quarter. This made Line the most successful messenger among analogues.
Now the total number of Line users is more than 300 million. Mostly these are users from Asia, the application is also actively gaining popularity in the Spanish-speaking regions, and currently its main efforts are directed to India, Turkey and Western Europe, including France, Germany and Italy.
Actually, the most interesting thing is how in such a short time the company achieved such results. According to Darin Hwang, Global PR Line Global Manager, the key components to the success of the application are:
- A huge number of cute stickers (stickers) expressing the most diverse emotions often replace whole sentences in dialogs.
- Real Line toys and other related branded products.
- User-friendly interface and various unusual ways to find friends (shaking or QR code).
- The opportunity to buy special design stickers at Line Shop for symbolic prices.
- Official profiles of favorite celebrities that allow you to communicate with them, and brand pages providing their latest news.
As a result, it turns out that Line’s success formula is based on a mix of fun and convenience in everything.
How Line made its users play games 100 million times in 12 hours
100000000 - this is the total number of times games on the Line platform were launched in just one day. And this means that every minute the games were launched, no less than 139,000 times.
How?
It's simple, in November 2013 the company celebrated the anniversary of the launch of its own gaming platform - Line Games (in my opinion the most important secrets of Line's success), which allows you to play and compete with your friends. Now it has 39 different games.
Separately, it is worth noting that you should not confuse Line Games with Line Play and Line Play games
Line Play is a game - a virtual world that positions itself as: “Express yourself through your avatar while traveling with friends and chatting”. NHN Japan was released in November 2012 as a separate component of the Line services ecosystem: coupons, horoscopes, music, films, cards, purchases, news, comics, weather, it is successfully integrated with the messenger. But Line Play games are games integrated already with Line Play. Such integration makes it possible to play with your virtual friends, communicate with them and receive virtual items that can be used directly in Line Play. Over the year, the game has gained 13 million users in 210 countries, with 6.8 million living outside of Japan.
Returning to Line Games, in honor of the anniversary of the service, the company announced the launch of an interesting action. The main mission was the condition - to reach the figure of 100 million game launches within 12 hours. By the way, at that time on the platform, on average per minute, games were launched 250,000 times, or just 85 million per day.
These 100 million should be considered as follows:
- Only game launches on Line Games were considered, excluding LINE PLAY and LINE PLAY game;
- 1 start was counted as one press of the PLAY button. The launch of games that do not have such a button was counted only once, regardless of how many times the game was launched during the action;
- Stickers could be received the day after the promotion and only if the Line POP game was installed. Otherwise, you had to install it.
Well, in return, all platform players received such a special issue of stickers:
How to advance in Line?
Line promotion tools are similar to those familiar to us on Vkontakte, Facebook, Twitter. Those. The classic correctly built and prepared SMM even works. It is also worth noting that the Japanese react very sharply to poor translation, an illogical text from the point of view of the Japanese language, so I advise you to use netiva in your work. There are a number of unique features that not only stand out, but also work much more efficiently. So, in my opinion, there are several basic effective tools for promotion:
- Официальный аккаунт.
Бывает двух видов: Корпоративный и Аккаунт Знаменитости. Их самой эффективной и полезной фичей является то, что такие аккаунты, кроме всего прочего, дают еще и возможность отправлять личные сообщения своим фанам. Единственное, стоимость такого аккаунта составляет 2 млн. йен (19420 USD) + 1,5 млн. (14565 USD) ежемесячно. Немало, но оно того стоит. В этом немного легче компаниям, у которых есть розничные магазины в Японии, их ставка за аккаунт составляет – 5250 йен (51 USD) в месяц.
Данной возможностью уже воспользовались такие компании как: Coca Cola, Pepsi Lawson Inc., Nippon Television Network Corporation, H&M, Groupon, McDonalds, KFC и другие. Из мировых звезд – Katty Perry, Paul McCartney, Avril Lavign, Backstreet Boys, Kesha и другие.
- Stickers
This is the most viral tool in the messenger. New stickers diverge at lightning speed. You can sell your original stickers in the sticker store, or you can release a free series, thus organizing a promotion for your business. This service costs 10 million yen (97102 USD).
They were released by Paul McCartney, Katty Perry, FC Barselona, Real Madrid, Disney others.
- The official accounts in Line Play or what they are called in the game are rooms.
This tool is only gaining popularity. For example, Hello Kitty's has been visited 33.9 million times since July 13, and Panasonic’s room has been visited 7 million times since March 29.
- Line Games is extremely effective for developers and indie teams in that Line can act as the publisher of your game. Of course, the pre-game will undergo a rigorous audit of ideas, design, gameplay and monetization. And if all is well, then he will publish it under his own name (Naver - in the App Store and Line Corp - in Google Play), which means millions of users over several months.
In the end, it is worth remembering that promotion in Japan and in Line is not a cheap pleasure, and given the very conservative and closed mentality of the Japanese, it is also not easy. Spamming the masses will not work. That is why it is worth approaching this carefully and seriously, because our “let’s try” can turn out very deplorably.
All images were taken from the official Line blog.