In the past two days, a small game "The Sheep" that claimed to have a pass rate of less than 0.1% has made a hit on everyone's social platform. In just a few days, "The Sheep" has been on the hot search on Weibo 11 times, with a total of 2.5 billion views on the topic. Due to too

In the past two days, a small game "The Sheep" that claimed to have a pass rate of less than 0.1% has made a hit on everyone's social platform. In just a few days, "The Sheep" has been on the hot search on Weibo 11 times, with a total of 2.5 billion views on the topic. Due to too many participants, the game server crashed three times within 24 hours.

The reason why "The Sheep Is a Sheep" has become popular quickly is in addition to the "difficulty gimmick" of 0.1% clearance rate, it is also necessary to have the active interaction between netizens on social platforms.

Many big V bloggers came to try it out and posted their results. Some netizens claimed that they had "played more than 1,000 times a day"; then, creative materials and online jokes about "The Sheep Are the Sheep" began to be "washed" on social platforms, and the popularity of "The Sheep Are the Sheep" was ignited again and again.

"The Sheep is a Sheep" is popular

First watch the game itself of "The Sheep is a Sheep". Whether in terms of the rules of the game or the screen design, this game is not outstanding. The rule of "Sheep" is that you only need to place three block points with the same graphic in the picture into the slots below the interface, and the pattern will be eliminated.

But starting from the second level, since the number of blocks and overlapping layers will continue to increase, the difficulty of the game will increase exponentially. Many netizens said that the first level is "kindergarten level" and the second level is directly "college entrance examination level". They even joked that the game may not have a third level at all, after all, the development cycle of this game is only 3 months.

Although "The Sheep" is difficult to pass, players can also choose Buff to support it. For example, when the player reaches a "dead end", the system will prompt the player to choose to watch a 30-second ad in order to get a chance to go backwards.

's super-level difficulty can often stimulate players' desire to win or lose. In order to get good results, many players "show their friends" and want to complete the level at all costs. Some netizens said that they have played thousands of times and watched more than 900 advertisements.

For the popularity of "The Sheep", industry insiders believe that there are several key points. "Perfect level difficulty" is the first step to attract players to the pit. The game producer cleverly increases the difficulty of the game, which will appropriately arouse negative emotions among players. At this time, combined with the popularity of social platforms, players will be guided to interact with "sending Weibo complaints" and "repeated challenges", and ultimately, they will not hesitate to "read advertisements" and "spend money" to complete the challenge.

From this point of view, it is better to say that the game is better at capturing player psychology and ignite the popularity of social platforms than to say that the game is better at capturing player psychology and ignites topics on social platforms.

Judging from the fact that almost all social platforms such as Weibo, Moments, , Douyin, , etc. have been participating in the topic during this period, and all bloggers and big Vs are actively trying it out, if there is no topic hype behind it and no expert marketing participation, it is almost impossible to create the current popularity.

Take several topics on Weibo hot searches as an example. If topics like #电影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影影� Some short video titles include celebrity names, but the content of the video has nothing to do with celebrities. Obviously, this is just a keyword to refresh traffic.

mini-games leverage big profits

It is not difficult to see that behind "Sheep and You Sheep" is actually just a "traffic feast". Putting aside the blessing of traffic, "Sheep and You Sheep" is actually just a common "three matches": a classic game where three or more elements can be eliminated.

In terms of development difficulty, it naturally cannot be compared with games such as Honor of Kings, which has long dominated the game list. However, such a simple "match three game" also has its own unique charm.

For example, the longest " Happy Cure Le " in the "three matches" game has been released for 8 years, but it is still popular. In the list of IOS game downloads in the past year, it has always been in the top ten in the total download list, and has almost always dominated the top of the IOS "puzzle decryption" revenue.

In addition to "Happy and Elimination", there are several "match three games" in China that once achieved the top spot, such as "bingo" developed by Lemon Micro-Fun , and " Days Love Elimination " developed by Tencent . According to the official game, the registered users of the above three games are 870 million, over 200 million and 150 million respectively. The number of registered users of most "match three games" is simply added. Not counting users who play several games at the same time, the data is 1.3 billion. It can be said that most Chinese users have played "match three games".

Moreover, the "match three game" is not only popular in China, but also deeply loved by gamers in European and American countries. According to GameRefinery, Elimination Games is the largest segment in the United States and the United Kingdom, accounting for 19% of all games, accounting for about 27% and 24% of overall market revenue.

Although the game is simple, its ability to attract money cannot be underestimated. According to the prospectus data submitted by the development company "Happy Fresh Fresh" in 2017, from 2015 to 2017, "Happy Fresh Fresh Fresh" revenue was 651 million yuan, 1.144 billion yuan and 1.458 billion yuan respectively.

"Bingo Elimination" also submitted a prospectus in 2019. The game achieved revenue of 46.2158 million yuan, 193 million yuan, 374 million yuan, 247 million yuan and 310 million yuan respectively between 2015 and 2019.

"Happy and Eliminate" once had an annual income of 1.4 billion yuan, what is the roughly concept? It is probably equal to the one-month revenue of domestic game revenue champion Honor of Kings. According to Sensor Tower store intelligence data, Tencent's "Honor of Kings" attracted about US$225 million worldwide in July 2022. One of the reasons why these mini games can make a lot of money in silence is that they can cover almost all age groups. Le Element once conducted a survey on the user group of "Happy Cure" and the results showed that its user group covers 18-50+ years old, of which 31-40 and 41-50 years old account for a large proportion.

. One of the reasons why "match three games" are popular among players of all ages is that although this type of game is simple, it has addictive characteristics. From a psychological point of view, it can cater to the players' potential compulsive psychology and can output feedback in a timely manner.

Young players use the "match three games" to pass the fragments of time, and for middle-aged and elderly players, the "match three games" are better used and can also help them pass the boring time. It is worth mentioning that in the "three matches", middle-aged and elderly users have significantly stronger willingness to pay than younger users. According to the survey data of "Happy and Flawless" shows that the per capita recharge amount of players born after 1960 is three times that of those born after 2000.

is calculated based on the scale of 800 million registered users. Even if each person only pays 1 yuan, the annual revenue is 800 million yuan. Not to mention that there are elements like "Advertising to assist in clearance" such as "Advertising to Help Clearance" that can also bring advertising revenue to the company.

Can "Eliminated Joy" last forever

However, "Happy Eliminated Joy" and "Bingo Eliminated Joy" respectively made IPOs, but they both returned in a miserable way. One of the reasons is that the proportion of individual game revenue to the company's total revenue is too large, which brings great uncertainty to the company's operations. Taking "Happy Fighting" as an example, games account for about 60% of the total revenue of Le Element.

In addition, the "moat" of this type of game is not high either. "Happy Elimination" and "Bingo Elimination" developed by Tencent have similar core contents, and even the animation effects are exactly the same. There have never been any doubts about their plagiarism of foreign games.

is precisely because of its strong substitutability and the game has no unique competitive advantage. The user growth of "Match Three Games" relies heavily on promotion and marketing. Taking "Happy Cure" as an example, according to its prospectus, the company's promotion expenses accounted for about 1/3 of the total revenue that year.

But even so, the profitability of this type of game is gradually declining. Taking "Bingo Canceling" as an example, its operating data in 2019 has declined significantly compared with its peak in 2017, and its revenue in the first half of 2020 was less than half of that in the whole year of 2019.

Moreover, the annual revenue of these games is not low, but the average payment amount for each user is not high. Taking "Happy Cure" as an example, the payment rate in 2017 was only about 6%. In other words, everyone is looking for fun in these "three matches", but not many people are willing to "kill money", and the high revenue is mainly due to the user scale. It is difficult for games to increase the average payment amount of a single user through game rules, which also means that once the user scale of the game begins to decline, the game will often experience an irreversible decline.

To this day, "Happy and Eliminate" can still rank among the top ten of the game download list. Perhaps their ability to make money is declining, but the "three matches" still has an irreplaceable charm in the minds of players.

They are easy to use and can also help players relieve stress. They do not have much requirements for players in terms of "krypton gold". More importantly, although the gameplay is similar, major developers will continue to add new elements to maintain the freshness of players. For example, "Happy and Elimination" launched a one-month Winter Olympics theme event during the Winter Olympics.

From this perspective, it is not easy to say whether "Sheep and Sheep" can continue to be popular after the traffic is reduced, but if it has maintained such a high "difficulty in clearing the level", it may turn many impatient players out. However, if this is just a capital plan, perhaps "The Sheep Again" has achieved its wish, how can we talk about the future? (Spiral Laboratory)

Edited by: Zheng Chuqiao