Chinese angel investors advise Catizen: The next steps for the WeChat Mini Program reincarnation Mini App should be like this

Chen Yuexian, founder of Huobi Capital, who is known in the industry as the "two-dimensional catcher" and "angel investor who understands young people the most," recently reviewed the upcoming Telegram Mini App game Catizen on WeChat. He also discussed the future direction for cryptocurrency game developers as various WeChat game developers shift to Telegram.

The Success of Catizen: Transforming into a Platform to Monetize Traffic

Chen Yuetian first mentioned: "As an investor in the gaming industry, the most common question I am asked is: 'The success of a gaming company often depends on a popular game. However, the creation and production of such creative industries often involve huge uncertainties. Does this mean that investing in gaming companies and teams is actually worthless?'"

He stated that this is actually a question about the sustainability and replicability of products and business models in the gaming industry.

He mentioned that as the gaming industry becomes more industrialized, creating sequels to popular games is an effective way to prolong the lifespan of a company, and the success rate of sequels is also increasing. Another method is to shape gaming IP and continue to leverage the IP through other media forms, such as turning novels into comics, animations, movies, and TV series. TV shows can turn into games, board games, or novels. In the entire content industry, media formats are interchangeable.

Lastly, leveraging the users and traffic brought by popular games to establish a game distribution platform is what Catizen is actually going to do next.

He then disclosed his investment in Catizen and stated that the launch of Catizen Mini Game Center signifies that Catizen has transformed from a Telegram mini-game into an asset and application distribution platform within Telegram. While competitors are still hesitating to invest in Telegram Mini Apps, Catizen has already evolved into a distribution platform.

He mentioned that the entire Telegram mini-game industry is currently in the stage of going from nothing to something, from zero to one, and this is the time with the greatest traffic dividends. Only after completing this stage, should optimization be considered. From the perspective of a game investor, he believes that if one wants to develop popular games on Telegram now, there are only two options: collaborate with projects that already have a large user base to acquire users, such as Catizen, or improve quality. However, improving quality requires funding, and it is currently challenging to efficiently enhance quality based on the market conditions.

Web2 Competition Impacting Web3: Currently Similar to Web 2 in 2004

Chen Yuetian also evaluated several games in the Catizen Mini Game Center, such as tower defense, numerical card games, shooting games, and idle chest games. He pointed out that these areas had previously seen popular games with high DAU (daily active users) and high revenue during the era of mobile games. These games are easy to pick up and play, making them the most effective for user acquisition.

He also mentioned that based on past experiences, player demands will continue to diversify, and it is necessary to provide various casual gameplay options to retain players effectively. The selection of game types is sufficient to prove that the team understands the potential of mini-games very well and products that are able to dominate the market with great effort.

He noted that the experience of these 7 mini-games allows players to play each game for about 10-20 minutes. Based on the experience accumulated in China's Web 2 gaming industry, clearer data will only emerge after collecting user feedback.

Additionally, the Game Center homepage displays the number of players and provides an airdrop label for games with rewards. Currently, the games are displayed in English, but explanations and localized pages may be needed for players in different regions. Since these games come through Catizen's gateway, it is assumed that these users already have TON wallets, so payment should not be an issue.

He further pointed out that starting from the king of AFK games in Web 2, idle gameplay and reduced interactions have become the main appeal for mini-game players. Simple gameplay that does not tire players out allows them to easily enter the flow state of gaming, which is the main direction of game design. Therefore, products like AFK Arena, Crazy Knight, The Way of the Thousand Realms, and Monopoly Go are designed to provide players with simple operations, random rewards, and a sense of joy and achievement from level progression.

He expressed that as someone experiencing the third industry cycle, he feels that the Web 2 competition is impacting Web 3, and the maturity of products and business models is becoming increasingly important. If the cycle of 2021 is equivalent to the internet of the 2000s, then now it is already comparable to 2004. In theory, companies with gaming and SMS payment business models should have emerged by now.

Reflecting on Gameplay: Can Focusing Solely on Monetizing Traffic Still Produce Good Games?

The author added: Firstly, it is noticeable that Chen Yuetian, as an investor in Catizen, made a disclosure of interests, so we may need to adopt a more conservative attitude towards the content. Many game teams on WeChat faced fierce competition in Web 2 and thus migrated to Telegram, with Catizen being one of them. Besides understanding Chen Yuetian's views on gaming trends from the original text, we can also see that besides valuing the quality of the games, he admires Catizen for its first-mover advantage and its traffic monetization capabilities as a distribution platform. For new games, choosing Catizen as a distribution platform allows them to benefit from traffic, but as more games use this platform, competition remains inevitable.

Overall, we can see that simple game modes have become mainstream, but simple game modes do not mean that game teams can cut corners. In "Review: Black Goku Producer's Old Article 'Who Killed Our Games?' Is the Chain Game Industry Repeating the Same Mistakes?", we see the warning from the Black Goku producer.

In China's online gaming industry, the role of planners has gradually shifted from the original intention of "creating interesting games" to focusing on how to make players addicted and guide them towards consumption.

This also serves as a reflection on chain games, especially in the profit-oriented cryptocurrency circle, where many prioritize making profits over the gameplay itself. Users want to make money, teams want to make money, but they are unable to produce sustainable games, which is the current situation we are facing.