txolops Chapter 322 Terrifying Online Time and Retention Rate
Chapter 322 Terrifying Online Time and Retention Rate
On the way back, Shen Yuege remained silent.
Lu Ran sat in the passenger seat with his right leg resting in front of him, glancing at her sideways.
Her expression was calm, but her fingers tapped lightly on the steering wheel, as if she was thinking about something.
"What's wrong?" Lu Ran asked. "Are you unhappy because you won the game too quickly? Did you feel like you weren't involved enough?"
Shen Yuege did not answer.
The car stopped at the traffic light. She turned to look at Lu Ran, her lips moved as if she wanted to say something but then stopped.
"What's wrong?" Lu Ran felt a little uneasy under her gaze.
"You're Ashe, I'm the healer." Shen Yuege finally spoke, her voice not loud, but each word was pronounced very clearly.
Lu Ran was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but laugh.
"What are you laughing at?" Shen Yuege glared at him. "Are you doing this on purpose?"
"I didn't mean to." Lu Ran raised his hands in surrender. "I just answered casually, I really didn't think that much about it."
"Just a casual answer?" Shen Yuege clearly didn't believe it. "You can just say something like that casually?"
"Then what do you want me to say? You asked me 'You're Ashe, I'm your healer,' and I answered 'love.' Isn't that because what you said was ambiguous?"
"Was what I said ambiguous?" Shen Yuege's voice rose slightly. "Believe it or not, I'll kick you out of the car and make you limp back home!"
Lu Ran was now under someone else's roof, forced to bow his head and dare not utter a sound.
The light turned green, and the cars behind honked their horns.
Shen Yuege turned around, stepped on the gas, and the car continued to drive forward.
Lu Ran leaned back in his seat, unable to suppress the smile on his lips.
He could tell that Shen Yuege wasn't really angry.
If she were truly angry, she would have slapped him long ago; she wouldn't have held back until now.
What angered her wasn't that Lu Ran had taken advantage of her.
Rather, she didn't realize it at the time.
Only afterward did I realize that this feeling was even worse than being taken advantage of on the spot.
Just like when you lose an argument and only think of how to refute it when you get home, Shen Yuege is now experiencing that feeling of frustration to the fullest.
"Yuege," Lu Ran called out.
"what?"
"If you really mind, I won't say it again."
Shen Yuege didn't speak. The car sped along the elevated highway, and the city night view outside the window rushed past.
After a while, she suddenly spoke up: "I don't mind."
Lu Ran was taken aback for a moment: "You don't mind?"
"I don't mind." Shen Yuege's voice calmed down. "You're my husband, so I'm not at a disadvantage even if you take advantage of me. I'm just angry at myself for not realizing it at the time."
She paused, a hint of annoyance in her voice: "You know, after you said that, I seriously thought about it for a long time, trying to figure out what 'love' meant. I thought you were confessing your feelings to me. It took me a while to realize what you were talking about."
Lu Ran finally couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"You're still laughing!" Shen Yuege reached out and slapped his arm. "It's all your fault! If you hadn't said those things, would I have thought about it for so long?"
"Okay, okay, it's my fault, it's my fault." Lu Ran rubbed the spot where he had been slapped, unable to stop smiling.
The car drove into the underground parking garage of the residential area. Shen Yuege parked the car and took out a wheelchair from the trunk.
Lu Ran moved from the passenger seat to the wheelchair, a move he already performed with practiced ease.
Shen Yuege pushed him toward the elevator, and after walking halfway, she suddenly spoke again: "But seriously, your game is actually quite fun."
Lu Ran looked up at her: "You think it's fun?"
"Hmm." Shen Yuege nodded. "Although I'm not very good at it and my skills aren't up to par, the feeling... how should I put it, is that once you start playing, you want to play another game, you just can't stop."
"Didn't you used to not play games much?"
"That was before." Shen Yuege pushed the elevator button. "The games I played before were either too boring or too difficult. Although your League of Legends is also difficult to learn, it's really fun once you get into it. Especially the hero models, they're so beautiful. The Soraka I chose has blue skin, horns, and a staff in her hand, like an elf. And Sona is so pretty too."
Lu Ran laughed: "Your criteria for choosing a hero is just based on looks?"
"Otherwise what?" Shen Yuege said matter-of-factly, "I don't know anything about skill strength, of course I'll choose the one that looks good. That Garen is powerful, but he looks too rough, I won't play him."
The elevator doors opened, and Shen Yuege pushed him out of the elevator, stopping at the door to take out her keys.
"And," she said as she opened the door, "I've discovered one good thing about this game."
"What are the benefits?"
"It felt great playing with you." She pushed open the door and ushered Lu Ran inside. "You fight in front, and I heal you from behind. We have great teamwork. Unlike some games where everyone fights their own way, which isn't very interesting."
Lu Ran changed his shoes, leaned on the armrest, and walked to the sofa to sit down. Shen Yuege went to the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, brought them over, and sat down next to him.
"Do you think this game will be a hit?" Shen Yuege handed him a water glass.
Lu Ran took the water glass, took a sip, thought for a moment, and said, "What do you think?"
"I think it's possible," Shen Yuege said earnestly. "Although I only played a few games today, and they were all against bots, the feeling... it's that feeling of wanting to play more after finishing, which not just any game can give you. And the designs of those heroes are all different, each with its own characteristics. Just collecting heroes can keep you playing for a long time."
She paused, then added, "And today when I saw the tech team playing it at the company, the expressions on their faces... how should I put it, they were really into it. It wasn't the kind of play where they were just completing a task; they genuinely found it fun and were having a lot of fun. If a game can make even the people who made it enjoy it, then it must be pretty good."
Lu Ran leaned back on the sofa, looking at Shen Yuege's serious expression, and smiled: "When did you become so knowledgeable about games?"
"I don't understand games, but I understand people," Shen Yuege said. "Whether something is fun or not is the most intuitive feeling, and you don't need to understand games to judge that."
Lu Ran nodded.
Shen Yuege is right.
Whether a game becomes popular ultimately depends on whether players find it fun.
Data can be manipulated, and popularity can be bought, but the word "fun" cannot be faked.
Since even a game novice like Shen Yuege finds the game interesting, then this game seems to be pretty much going to be fine.
Meanwhile, Tencent's East China branch.
Chen Mo sat in his office, the computer screen in front of him displaying the first day's operational data for "League of Legends".
Downloads: 23 million.
Peak concurrent online users: 800,000.
Average user playtime: 106 minutes.
These figures, when placed among the first-day data of any major new game, are not particularly impressive.
Some of the major IP-based games produced by big studios have achieved over 100 million downloads on their first day.
Twenty-three million is only considered average.
But Chen Mo stared at these numbers for a long time, and the more he looked, the more he felt something was wrong.
It's not that the data is bad, it's that the data is too good.
The first-day data is better than that of a new type of game.
In particular, the average game time is close to two hours.
For a new type of game like this, the average playtime is more important than the number of downloads.
For most games, an average playtime of forty minutes is considered passing.
If it can last more than an hour, that's already pretty good.
As for games that last over 100 minutes, there are very few games in China that can reach that timeframe.
From this perspective, this game has had a fantastic start.
He picked up the phone on the table and dialed a number: "Have the data analysis department send me the user retention curve for League of Legends."
The data was quickly transmitted over the phone.
Chen Mo opened the file, looked at the curve, and his eyes slowly lit up.
The user retention rate is nearly 20 percentage points higher than the average level of similar games.
What does this mean? It means that most of the users who downloaded the game stayed.
Instead of uninstalling after playing two games, they played one game after another, averaging nearly two hours of gameplay.
This retention rate is top-tier in the new game.
The assistant knocked and entered, placing a cup of coffee on the table: "Mr. Chen, you haven't left yet?"
"No rush." Chen Mo picked up his coffee and took a sip. "Have you looked at the first-day stats for League of Legends?"
"I've seen it." The assistant nodded. "Twenty-three million downloads, with a peak of eight hundred thousand concurrent users. It's average, nothing particularly amazing."
Chen Mo put down his coffee cup and shook his head: "You only see the surface data."
The assistant paused for a moment, then said, "Surface data?"
"Yes." Chen Mo leaned back in his chair and pointed to the user retention curve on the screen. "Look at this too."
The assistant leaned over for a look and frowned: "This retention rate... is significantly higher than the average."
"A significant increase?" Chen Mo laughed. "It's almost twenty percentage points higher. Do you know what that means?"
The assistant thought for a moment and said, "Does that mean the user engagement is very high?"
"It's not just about being strong." Chen Mo stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the night view of Shanghai outside. "It means this game will have a lot of staying power. Many games that look amazing on their first day rely on massive advertising. Users download it, play a couple of rounds, find it boring, and uninstall it. The numbers look good, but they can't retain players."
He turned to his assistant and said, "League of Legends is different. Its first-day stats weren't explosive, but its retention rate was shockingly high. What does that mean? It means that users didn't stay because of the advertising, but because the game itself is fun."
The assistant nodded thoughtfully.
"If a game has a high retention rate on day one, its growth curve won't be flat." Chen Mo walked back to his desk and drew a steep upward curve on the screen with his finger. "It will go like this: eight million on day one, ten million on day two, fifteen million on day three. Before long, the concurrent online users will exceed five million."
He looked at his assistant and said with certainty, "This game is not simple."
The assistant was silent for a moment, then asked, "What about our previous cooperation decision...?"
"You did the right thing," Chen Mo said. "And even more right than I thought."
He sat back down in his chair, reopened the official website of League of Legends, and looked at the character illustrations and backstories of the heroes on the page.
From a product perspective, the design concept of this game is very advanced.
The five-on-five battle mode is currently a blank in the market.
The heroes are also very distinctive, with each hero having their own role and gameplay, and there is no obvious homogenization.
What Chen Mo values most is that this game is highly competitive and entertaining.
This means it can host events, broadcast live, and form a complete ecosystem.
Once this ecosystem is established, it will be very difficult for users to leave.
"Mr. Chen," the assistant said from the side, "the data analysis department asked if we should sync the data from League of Legends with Weibo. According to our previous cooperation agreement, we have some data sharing agreements with Weibo."
Chen Mo thought for a moment, then shook his head: "Not for now."
The assistant hesitated for a moment: "No need?"
"Yes," Chen Mo said. "We will fulfill our obligations regarding previous collaborations. But there's no need to proactively synchronize data. If Weibo asks, just say the data isn't stable yet, and we'll discuss it once it is."
The assistant nodded and wrote it down in his notebook.
Having followed Chen Mo for so many years, he understood the meaning of those words very well.
Chen Mo's attitude towards Weibo has changed.
Tencent previously partnered with Weibo because they shared common interests—both wanted to suppress TUTU's growth.
But now TUTU can no longer be suppressed, and the momentum of "League of Legends" is also very strong. Joining Weibo in blocking TUTU will not benefit Tencent at all.
Instead of continuing to be tied to Weibo, it's better to choose a different side.
"There's one more thing," the assistant said, flipping through his notebook. "Sakura Games sent another email, asking when we can give them a definite answer. They said that their 'Samurai Warriors' and 'Ninja Gaiden' will soon be available in the Chinese market, and if Tencent is willing to cooperate, they can give Tencent priority cooperation rights when they launch them."
After listening, Chen Mo's lips curled up slightly: "Priority cooperation rights? They certainly know how to make empty promises."
"So how do we reply?"
"Reply to them that it's still under discussion and we'll get in touch if there's any progress." Chen Mo paused, "And also tell them that our current focus is on the collaboration with Tutu Technology, and the Sakura Games matter will have to wait."
The assistant jotted it down in her notebook and then asked, "Was that too direct?"
"We need to be direct," Chen Mo said. "Let a trusting dog know that Tencent now has better options. If they want to cooperate, they need to offer more sincere terms. The terms they offered before are no longer sufficient."
The assistant nodded, turned and walked out of the office.
Chen Mo sat alone in his office, reopening the official website of League of Legends and flipping through the pages one by one.
The impact of this game on the Chinese gaming market may be greater than anyone imagined.
And he wants to ensure that Tencent is in the right position.
...