Southeast Asia is one of the hot regions for the export of gaming products, with many advantages such as population dividend and high internet coverage, but cultivating this fertile ground is not an easy task.
In this article, PASA will share some insights on the problems and current situation of gaming products in the Southeast Asian market, offering some export experiences from a product perspective.
There are two notable characteristics of making card games in Southeast Asia. The first is that payment is not very convenient; the second is that if local high-quality values are not adjusted, the payment rate will be low.
Let's now introduce some countries in Southeast Asia with large populations, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia.
Current Situation of the Gaming Market in the Philippines
Among Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia has the largest population, approximately 270 million, nearly 300 million, while the Philippines has 110 million.
The most famous company for casual gameplay in the Philippines is Play Joy, which originated from playing with casual gold coins.
However, the profit from casual gold coins in the Philippines is not particularly high. Even if Play Joy or other companies reach 10 million or 5 million downloads, the overall profit will not exceed 3 million. Therefore, Play Joy has turned the volume of casual gold coins into a domestic room card model, which is a kind of appointment mode, thus continuously increasing its profits.
Besides Play Joy, there is also a well-known company called Win Club that focuses on heavy-duty games. It mainly invests in bulk vest packages in the Philippines, about 15 vest packages, doing Slot replicas and skinning. Many practitioners in the Philippines are using this model.
Generally, a product using this model can make a profit of about 1 million per package. The main channels for traffic are not from Facebook and Google Play but from YouTube and other chat software.
Also, precision chatting is necessary because the user payment rate in the Philippine market is relatively low, so without precise chatting, users are not substantial.
Besides casual card games and heavy-duty Slot card games, blockchain games are also worth paying attention to in the Philippine market. Axie Infinity is a company serving the blockchain, with funding of about 5.8 million USD/40 million RMB.
Although the user base of blockchain games is not very large, about 500,000 to 1 million daily active users, their profits are particularly large, comparable to Honor of Kings. The main method of fission can be better understood through an example.
For instance, a financial model set in blockchain requires users to pay to join the game and then collect items. Local guilds in the Philippines will use this feature to help local civilians pay this money, allowing them to act as account nurturers or trainers, thus building up this scale.
The main strategies for deploying gaming games in the Philippines include the gaming matrix, room card appointments, YouTube, and precision chatting.
The gaming matrix is mainly a form used by Win Club, which involves bulk vesting on Google Play, launching a package every half month to bring in traffic, with each package attracting 300,000 to 500,000 downloads, and a total of 500 to 1000 downloads for a dozen packages, then repeatedly washing.
Room card appointments are mainly done by Play Joy, which is very representative of success. It directs online traffic to offline appointments, which is a significant breakthrough.
YouTube and precision chatting are strategies used by other companies deploying Slot or heavy gaming games. Since their product quality cannot compete with mainstream products, they opt for customer service precision chatting to build user stickiness, but the biggest limitation is that this traffic is easily poached.
The first product in the image above is from Play Joy, which has been updated many times and is currently a product form parallel to competition + gold coins + appointments.
The right side shows the product screenshot from Win Club, which adopts the strategy of continuously using keywords, which is also the mainstream gameplay in the Philippines, bringing in traffic and then generating profits through Slot.
Current Situation of the Gaming Market in Vietnam
The Vietnamese market is quite special in Southeast Asia because it requires a local license, not a domestic one. VNG is the largest company in Vietnam, also known as Vietnam's Tencent, mainly starting with casual card games.
Besides card games, Vietnam also has fishing games, with companies from Shanghai and Shenzhen in China involved, but the profit level is about two to three million per month, referring to the top companies in Vietnam's fishing games.
Most domestic companies facing the Vietnamese market encounter a restriction because it requires a license, and obtaining a Vietnamese license is particularly difficult.
Without a license, it is possible to be listed on Google Play and Apple, but once the ranking is high, it will be delisted because there is no license during the qualification review, and there may also be fines or even legal letters from local Vietnamese authorities.
Therefore, domestic companies do not adopt the general card game form in the Vietnamese market, and so far, there are no particularly large card games in the Vietnamese market, referring to daily active users, because the assessment standard for casual gold coins is daily active users, and profits should be considered for heavy gaming games or other categories.
For heavy games, Vietnam has power banks, binary options, football reverse score betting, and some other quirky things. Power banks have a higher priority in Vietnam than in India, which reported a power bank incident in mid-year, and Vietnam also has related reports but people are still doing power banks.
Binary options are also daily reiterated by the local Vietnamese government, but many people are still playing. Football reverse score betting is the latest set of modes, a type of football betting.
Because local licenses are required in Vietnam, some products start to fission through H5 containing a bunch of categories. Vietnam's distribution will also prioritize finding H5 fishing products or other high-profit H5 products. At the same time, Vietnam also has appointment products, but they are not particularly large.
The first product in the image above is a Vietnamese card game, the second is a Vietnamese fishing game. Here's an experience to share: to judge whether the international market can do fishing or Slot, look at whether there are arcade game halls locally, or say there is an online item extension. If there is no physical extension, when doing the market, it is necessary to cultivate user habits, so this cycle will be particularly long.
The third product refers to Vietnam's comprehensive disk, which has a large volume, with a monthly profit of 20 million RMB.
Current Situation of the Gaming Market in Thailand
Thailand ranks fourth in population size in Southeast Asia, but more domestic companies are doing business in Thailand than in Indonesia because Thailand's payment rate is relatively high.
The main gameplay in Thailand is Domino and Texas Hold'em, which are suitable for offline play. The most famous casual product is from Boyaa, and currently, cosytime, a product under Boyaa, ranks first on the GP chart for Thai card games.
Zhijian and Zhonglian Changxiang are also doing card games, but they are not buying much traffic now. Zhiming Xingtong also invested in a company before, which did very well in Thailand, reaching a peak daily active user count of 500,000+ for casual card games.
Thailand's Slot profits are even higher, with the most famous companies being Huoyan and Xingchen. Most Slot products are done through agents and heads, with a small part using APIs, doing precision chatting, and the volume is very large. The scale of Thailand's top products is in the range of 5 million to 20 million, with the peak in Thailand reaching 20 million. Of course, these refer to the relatively green ones, and Thailand also has some extremely violent projects whose scale cannot be calculated.
The first product is Huoyan's fishing + Slot, the second is an API product, and the third is a casual gold coin product. These three types of products have different focuses.
In the Southeast Asian region, Thailand can be said to be a relatively mature system, without particularly complex user education, and Thailand does not require a license.
Current Situation of the Gaming Market in Indonesia
The top products in the Indonesian market have more than 10 million downloads, with casual gameplay mainly including Domino (Domino), QiuQiu (QiuQiu), Rummy (Ruumy), Gin Rummy (Gin Ruumy), Ludo (Ludo), etc. Rummy, which is popular in India, is also of great interest to many users in Indonesia, but compared to India, Indonesia's user base is relatively small, about 1/20 of the Indian market.
Medium games include Fishing, and heavy games include Slot.
Well-known companies in the Indonesian market include VNG (Vietnam's Tencent), as well as earlier companies like TopFun and Cynking.
Medium game companies include Huoyan and Tuyou, mainly doing a combination of fishing + Slot. Tuyou also did fishing in the Indonesian market before, but only initially invested a bit.
The earliest practitioners entering the Indonesian market mostly did card games and did not touch fishing and Slot. Five years ago, companies from Taiwan started doing Slot, such as Xingxiang, SpinX, etc., with download volumes in the Indonesian market reaching over 5 million and profits reaching 30 million+.
Indonesia also has a product called Domino Solitaire, which is a net-earning attribute of fishing + domino, with a monthly purchase volume exceeding 2 million. Of course, for fishing and Slot, the main thing is still the product model, because it is not difficult to buy volume from Indonesia, the difficult part is to make the cost and profit parallel.
A friend previously asked that Indonesia is a country dominated by Domino, which is a bit biased and not fully stated. In fact, most companies in Indonesia are promoting collections, not just single Domino, because the process data of single Domino is not very good, and collections need to be added to attract users and then monetize.
The second product is Domino Solitaire, a net-earning type of product, with a monthly purchase volume exceeding one million, and the payback period may be more than half a year. Regarding net earning, there are currently two types mentioned in the market. The first type is a relatively normal net earning, which circles users in, and users then monetize through advertisements. The second type of net earning is actually a financial disk, a financial project, but there are very few financial disks done in Indonesia.
Current Situation of the Gaming Market in Malaysia
Malaysia is openly doing Texas Hold'em and Rummy, as well as domestic variations of fighting landlords and mahjong, which involve changing some rules. In addition to casual gameplay, there are also Slot and intermediate products.
Because there are more Chinese in Malaysia, there are hierarchical agents, credit plates, and cash nets.
In the casual mode, the most well-known is Jiuyou, although the volume is not large, about 1 million+, but the coverage is large. Besides Jiuyou, there are also Xingxiang and Gamesofa, mainly doing the Malaysian market are companies from Taiwan and Shenzhen.
The main market in Malaysia is dominated by Slot, with Slot having a volume of over 10 million. Some card poker businesses are room card models, meaning that users pay an entrance fee of one dollar, and four users each pay one dollar to enter the factory, while the organizer can extract a corresponding proportion from the four dollars, equivalent to the platform's money given to investors.
Malaysia's top three poker rankings are two adopting the room card model.
The first one above is Jiuyou's product in Malaysia, besides Rummy, there are also some poker mahjong, which can also make appointments. The one below is the product launched by Xingxiang IGS in Malaysia. Compared to mainland companies, Taiwanese companies are more persistent in Southeast Asia. They will customize a product named by the channel and localized for each country, subtly influencing over a particularly long period, up to 8 years, while most mainland companies doing Slot in Southeast Asia are two to three years.
Current Situation of the Gaming Market in Myanmar
Compared to the aforementioned five countries, Myanmar is quite special because there is still conflict in Myanmar, so most companies doing business in Myanmar often experience intermittent drops in daily active users or profits. Currently, only a few casual card games are rooted in Myanmar.
Basically, only companies from Shenzhen are doing the Myanmar market, as well as Vietnam's VNG, which mass deploys casual gameplay products in Southeast Asia as a routine of VNG.
Of course, Myanmar also has domestic arcade games, Slot, and fishing, because there are more Chinese in Myanmar, mainly Chinese and some Burmese users.
The top products in Myanmar have a maximum download volume of over 1 million+, with profits of about 2 million. However, Myanmar's conflict, political instability, and other factors often lead to power and internet outages, affecting product daily active users and operational data. It might just run a scale of 500,000, and after a break, it becomes a standalone game, and the scale of 500,000 also becomes 200,000.
The two games above are made by companies from Shenzhen, including arcade games mainly made by companies from Shenzhen, and Taiwanese companies will not specifically do it because Myanmar's population base is too small.
Current Situation of the Gaming Market in Cambodia
From the perspective of gambling history in China, Cambodia is on par with the Philippines, but from the perspective of the local market, Cambodia is much worse than the Philippines. The first reason is its population base, and the second is its user payment. The largest user download volume in Cambodia is only 1 million, and others are generally in the range of 300,000 to 500,000.
Cambodia is quite special in that most mobile products were launched online in 19 years because the Cambodian authorities strictly control them, with a small part of Chinese practitioners turning to the local market. From the products, it can also be seen that the localization adaptation and changes of Cambodian market products are not particularly many, and the local products are mainly based on the general attributes of heavy gaming gameplay.
These two are the most well-known games in Cambodia. From the interface screenshots, they are actually similar to the Win Club in the Philippines, using the same logic.
For some small countries and countries with low payment rates, there is no localized adaptation. They prefer to bring in direct traffic and monetize this traffic through more easily monetizable Slot.
Currently, the Cambodian market also does not meet the standards of refinement and beautification. Cambodia has only over 10 million people, and considering the network adaptation rate, the maximum scale is only 5 million to 10 million, equivalent to a prefecture-level city in China, so not many are particularly interested in this market.
Southeast Asia also has two countries, Singapore and Laos, because the population base is relatively low. Currently, there are no particularly well-known products. The products played by the locals are all projected from other countries or China.
Singapore has a population of 5.6 million, and Laos has 7.12 million. Considering the network adaptation rate and the exposure of local mainstream channel media, the total exposure may not exceed 2 million, which is particularly low in terms of cost-effectiveness.
The gambling industry actually values cash flow the most, and its monetization cycle generally does not exceed two months. Huihuang also understands and knows this category well and can also provide corresponding services. Interested friends are welcome to have in-depth exchanges because only in-depth collisions can produce some valuable things.
