In 2024, China’s gaming market experienced a long-awaited recovery—policy relaxation led to a steady increase in the frequency and number of game licenses, potentially reaching a five-year high. Phenomenal games like ‘Black Wukong’ have achieved significant milestones, refreshing the scale of China’s gaming market and greatly boosting industry confidence. AI technology has been widely and deeply applied in the gaming industry, and the rapid rise of mini-games further activates the market’s innovative potential.
As the year draws to a close, the call for a new journey is about to sound. In 2025, what opportunities will be ignited in the gaming industry? How can game developers, publishers, and marketing platforms collaborate efficiently to create blockbusters and drive industry growth? On December 12th, Ma Yi, General Manager of 360 Smart Business Industry Division I, was invited to attend the 2024 China Game Industry Annual Conference Industry Development Forum hosted by the National Press and Publication Administration, with the theme ‘Focusing on a New Industry Journey, Guarding a Healthy Future’, and shared insightful opinions.General Manager of 360 Smart Business Industry Division I, Ma Yi, continues to delve into the value of PC gaming to perfect the gaming distribution and marketing map. The stable development of browser games, major companies’ increased investment in client games, and the explosion of cross-platform games indicate that PC marketing value is in the process of returning. Ma Yi pointed out that as the trend of game refinement deepens, the stronger device performance, more immersive audio-visual experience, and richer operational space on PC represent users’ ultimate pursuit of gaming experience. As competition in the gaming industry intensifies, ‘cross-platform’ has become the optimal solution for game developers to find new territories and tap into new quantities. Against the backdrop of the移动互联网’s traffic dividend reaching its peak, PC, as a value lowland, is being re-examined and re-evaluated for its marketing value, potentially holding the ‘ultimate secret’ to breaking through the customer acquisition bottleneck in the gaming industry. With years of experience in PC and in-depth observation of the gaming industry, 360 continues to improve the PC business field, building a marketing chain that covers the entire lifecycle of gaming products and creating a growth loop. As the first PC media, 360’s full product suite has a monthly active user base of over 500 million, covering mainstream PC users, including high-value gaming populations who have high demands for game quality and are willing and able to pay for it. The advantageous traffic resources and marketing products that penetrate all scenarios of user PC usage have laid a solid foundation for 360 to assist in the distribution, buying, and marketing of gaming products on the PC platform. Based on years of in-depth cooperation with gaming industry manufacturers, 360 Smart Business tailors personalized marketing strategies according to the characteristics of different game categories such as client games, browser games, console games, and PC mini-games, closely integrating manufacturer traits and marketing demands, and accumulating full-chain marketing tactics for different game types, covering the entire lifecycle of game marketing.
In May of this year, the national-level PC application distribution platform, 360 Software Manager, welcomed a refreshed upgrade. It innovatively launched the ‘Game Reservation’ feature, optimizing the ‘last mile’ conversion process for client-based games and addressing user loss issues during the download and installation process with a lightweight service model. By opening up diversified co-operation and operation modes such as CPT, CPS, and SDK, 360 Software Manager collaborates with the 360 Dot Jing platform’s full matrix of marketing products, with 360 navigation, 360 browser, and 360 search serving as the three-tiered rocket escort. This supports the entire lifecycle of game products, from cold start to global promotion to sustained growth, meeting the marketing needs of games at different stages of development. In the second half of 2024, 360 Smart Business fully supports the efficient PC conversion of annual blockbusters such as ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ and ‘Delta Force Operations’, turning traffic advantages into industry productivity and completing the marketing puzzle for multi-platform and single-player products on the PC segment. Ma Yi pointed out that with the advancement of AI technology in the gaming industry, by 2025, the gaming industry will see the emergence of more categories and high-quality web games. For the web game industry, 360 will actively explore potential new games and assist in rapidly forming a conversion closed loop through targeted support, stimulating the potential of the web game market. Additionally, based on the judgment of industry trends, next year, PC game works and three-end interconnect games will also迎来 explosive growth. 360 will take on the heavy responsibility of PC game distribution, integrating advantageous resources and customizing innovative strategies to ignite key moments such as game exposure, reservation, launch, and version maintenance. It will closely follow the target user groups and assist game manufacturers in building game influence. Industry facilitators and industry leaders fully exert their strength to activate the PC marketing power of the gaming industry. Traditionally, the marketing investment in the mobile gaming industry has far exceeded that of the PC side. However, in the past six months, industry practitioners have observed a significant increase in both the number of users of PC mini-games and the marketing expenses of various manufacturers on the PC side. Ma Yi pointed out that the PC mini-game ecosystem has become a key commercial proposition for the gaming industry. As an industry facilitator, in 2024, 360 Smart Business fully opens up the advertising chain, customizes exclusive models, optimizes the experience chain, supports advertising funds, and provides traffic support, building a sustainable business ecosystem for PC mini-games. Compared to mobile, on the one hand, PCs have more powerful performance, capable of supporting larger and more complex mini-games, reducing startup load time and providing a smoother gaming experience, bidding farewell to lag.
On the other hand, when playing mini-programs on mobile devices, users need to frequently switch between chat and game screens to avoid missing important messages. On the PC side, chat and game windows do not interfere with each other, allowing users to open three or even ten mini-programs simultaneously. The superior gaming experience on PC will drive a large-scale shift of mini-game players to PC.
360 Smart Business will continue to delve into the ecosystem of mini-programs on PC, enhancing user experience while deepening platform cooperation and innovating business models to bring more traffic and revenue growth opportunities for developers. On the other hand, as an industry leader, 360 Smart Business will focus on exploring the extensive application of AI large models in the industry and their integration with business. In November, 360 launched a new AI search product – Nano Search. Relying on more than a decade of deep cultivation in search engine business, 360 has accumulated a vast amount of data and content, creating an AI search chain suitable for the gaming industry through AI transformation. For instance, in the application of the gaming industry, Nano Search is suitable for scenarios such as strategy queries, operation skills, and UGC content creation, assisting players in enhancing their gaming experience in all aspects. By widely collecting data on player preferences for game types, specific game names, prop needs, and platform tendencies, and analyzing and processing players’ real intentions and needs, Nano Search can accurately construct user profiles, enhance the precision of ad targeting, and present more ‘natural’ ad content in the form of Q&A. As 2024 draws to a close, facing the upcoming opportunities and challenges, Ma Yi has expressed sincere wishes for the gaming industry. She pointed out that, on the technical level, the application of AI technology in the gaming industry is worth further anticipation, as it will greatly stimulate the industry’s innovative potential, not only in optimizing NPC behavior in games and improving game development efficiency. In terms of content, with ‘Black Myth’ as a successful benchmark, relying on the rich heritage of Chinese traditional culture, game content will be greatly enriched. We look forward to game manufacturers creating more game culture brands with Chinese characteristics and cultural influence, making games an important carrier of cultural output. As a marketing media, 360 Smart Business will continue to enhance platform capabilities, respond to policy requirements and industry development trends, deepen the construction of PC-side commercial ecosystems, and work with multiple parties to create a harmonious and healthy environment, safeguarding the growth of the gaming industry.
