In SensorTower's latest edition of the global revenue list of Chinese mobile game publishers, Microfun has reached the 6th position on the list.

Microfun achieved this achievement with two synthetic elimination mobile games, "Gossip Harbor: Merge & Story" and "Seaside Escape: Merge & Story". The two won the first and third place in the global synthetic mobile game revenue list in November, and "Gossip Harbor" won the top 4 in the overseas mobile game revenue list.

Earlier, AppGrowing had tracked Gossip Harbor, which is a Merge-2 (2-in-1) game with gameplay that follows the classic cycle of "click to generate items - craft items - complete orders - earn coins - decorate". , but with the blessing of the plot with independent women as the main body of the narrative, the work is well differentiated.

Seaside Escape, which followed, although the gameplay was slightly adjusted, still followed the classic design of Merge-2 as a whole, but the theme changed from "a single mother running a restaurant" to "a framed female star returning to her hometown to revive the resort".

To a certain extent, the differentiation of the subject matter ensures the market differentiation between the two, and in addition to the product, Microfun has also adopted different purchase marketing strategies to ensure that it will not fall into a situation of "left and right hands fighting".

In the past year, especially in the second half of the year, Microfun has shown a strong growth momentum, which is not unrelated to Microfun's increased purchase volume from the perspective of the market.

AppGrowing International has seen a significant uptick in Gossip Harbor and Seaside Escape since the end of August. However, in terms of specific magnitude, Microfun chose to allocate more resources to "Gossip Harbor".

At the end of August, Gossip Harbor had nearly 1,000 ads per day, and then continued to climb, once exceeding 2,500 groups;

During the same period, Seaside Escape had less than 400 ads per day, and it did not exceed 1,500 on subsequent days.

In addition to the different delivery levels, the focus of these two products is also different from the perspective of the delivery region. In the past six months, the top Canadian and American markets have accounted for nearly 10% of the market, and together with France, Germany and the United Kingdom, these five developed countries in Europe and the United Kingdom have accounted for more than 40% of the market.

On the side of "Seaside Escape", in the past six months, South Korea has even surpassed the United States, and Japan has accounted for more than 9%, and the two developed Asian countries have surpassed the United Kingdom and the United States in terms of resources. It is worth mentioning that Mexico is in fifth place with more than 5%. It can be seen that the marketing strategy of "Seaside Escape" is to ensure the coverage of the mainstream leisure market in Europe and the United States, while actively exploring other developed regions and emerging markets.

Further specific to the creative ideas of materials, there are obvious differences between the two products. Gossip Harbor focuses more on the story, with much of the material centered on the idea of using the characters' tragic experiences to gain sympathy. For example, in the following material, the husband and wife divorced, the little girl looked at her father pitifully, but the other party replied with disgusted expressions and movements, and the little girl could only hug and cry with her mother; Then the scene shifts again, and the orphan and widow come to a dilapidated house on a rainy night.

It is worth mentioning that this kind of plot material often follows a two-choice gameplay show, helping the mother and daughter improve their current situation through choice, but in the end, it all ends up making the situation worse due to the wrong choice. Arousing the user's sympathy first, and then amplifying the emotion with the failure ending, can better stimulate the user's desire to download and try.

In addition to using the gameplay directly as material, some of the materials will emphasize the time limit to stimulate the user's desire to challenge. For example, in the following material, the synthesis gameplay is packaged as supermarket shopping, and the player needs to synthesize the items required for the shopping cart from the shelves within the specified time, otherwise the challenge will fail.

There are also some materials that are not limited to synthetic gameplay, such as the following video, which shows a kind of assembly line classification and elimination gameplay, picking out the items required by the left basket from the right, and the basket can be eliminated by meeting the quantity, and the game fails when the basket that does not meet the conditions touches the top.

However, the most popular material in recent times is the following kind of play: replacing a certain column of mahjong with the redundant mahjong of a known pattern, and making each column of mahjong unify the pattern through this cycle. As you can see, the video below also includes live-action and PVP confrontation elements.

The following material is also the same gameplay logic, but the color is used as the matching condition, and a man who wants to climb the ladder to get close to the beauty above is added to the left side of the screen, and the correct match for the man will climb up, and vice versa, and finally it will not surprisingly end in failure.

Whether it is actively exploring emerging markets in Japan, South Korea and third world countries, or releasing various buy-in materials similar to sub-gameplay, Seaside Escape's attempt to seek new increments from the marketing aspect, and it is also a reflection of its staggered competition with Gossip Harbor in the same field.

According to data.ai data, the total in-app purchase turnover of synthetic games in 2023 has reached $975 million; According to AppMagic, in May this year, the monthly turnover of Merge-2 games in the global market reached $60.5 million, an increase of 107% year-on-year. On the whole, although the scale of this market is still relatively small, the growth rate is obvious, the potential is huge, and of course the competition is not small.

Despite holding two top products on the track, Microfun still chooses to work hard in this track. Through AppGrowing's international version of "Global Distribution Insights", we can see that Microfun also has a new synthetic game "Flambé: Merge and Cook", but it has not yet started large-scale buying.

This new product still uses the Merge-2 gameplay, and unlike "Gossip Harbor" and "Seaside Escape", the name suffix does not emphasize "story", but highlights "cook" related to the theme of restaurant management.

"Flambé: Merge and Cook" does weaken the presence of the plot and focuses more on synthetic gameplay, and it is not clear whether the plot will be strengthened in the future, but for now, starting from the subject matter, it should be the main direction of this new product to break through.

Diandian Interactive also set its sights on the synthesis track, and its "Tasty Travels: Merge Game" is also a Merge-2 gameplay, still following the cycle of "click to generate items - synthesize items - complete orders - earn coins - upgrade buildings", and the theme is a combination of travel + food.

Merge Restyle, which recently launched in Polk City, is also a Merge-2 mobile game. After entering the game, there will be a short animation, describing the heroine catching rape in bed and then running away in anger, the routine is a bit similar to "Gossip Harbor", but there is no further development of the plot later. This product uses home decoration and pet companionship as a selling point, and the essence is to explore the possibility of theme differentiation.

Metacore Games, which has reached the top of the synthesis track with "Merge Mansion", has also recently launched a Merge-2 mobile game based on the revival of shopping malls. Earlier, Metacore Games also launched a Viking-themed Merge-2 mobile game "Merge Vikings" that incorporates COC strong confrontation gameplay.

Unlike Pocket Shock, which only uses the "crafting" mechanic, Merge Vikings takes a more radical approach to Merge-2's gameplay loop. Players can tap to generate items and then craft them to obtain high-level items to complete the mission. It is worth mentioning that in-game soldiers and defensive structures can also be obtained through spawning and crafting.

"Merge Vikings" adopts this kind of theme packaging and gameplay integration, obviously trying to break through the existing audience positioning of the synthetic category, which is very reminiscent of Sanqi Mutual Entertainment's "Puzzle & Survival" - it also integrates match-3 and the slightly hardcore doomsday survival theme with SLG, successfully achieving a breakthrough in the circle.

Overall, Merge-2 has become the mainstream gameplay in the synthesis and elimination category. In the face of competition, most manufacturers still choose to start with the differentiation of the theme, and prefer the theme with simulated business elements. However, the integration of gameplay is also likely to become the next exploration direction of this category, by combining casual gameplay with medium-heavy gameplay, so as to jump out of the original circle of competition.

The casual category has always been a major category in the overseas mobile game market, and the match-3 has occupied a dominant position, but it has also been oversaturated due to fierce competition. Now the rise of synthetic elimination shows another possibility, and those manufacturers who want to conquer the leisure category may be able to focus a little on this rapidly expanding track.

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