Author: Jaleel Jialiu
"The phrase that the Ton ecosystem is on the eve of take-off has been said for three years." This was a joke that was often made about the Ton chain some time ago. In the eyes of many people, Ton, as Telegram's public chain, was once among the top in the crypto financing rankings, but for many years it has always been like an airplane circling on the airport runway and never took off.
But today, as if to vent the anger for this joke, the mini-games on Telegram entered a prosperous stage.
"There are now at least a hundred mini-games running on Telegram, and more than 2,000 games are being prepared for launch by the end of this month. I guess Telegram itself didn't expect that this day would suddenly see so many mini-games pouring in," Zong Yue (pseudonym) said excitedly.
In the previous article "The domestic small and medium-sized game manufacturers who are stuck in the bottom of the box are being saved by the TON chain", we discussed the development of the Telegram mini-game market from the perspective of game developers. However, developing game code and technical services is completely different from successfully operating and making profits on TON.
How do developers of Telegram games make profits? Will anyone really pay for Telegram games? With these questions in mind, I talked to more game developers.
Traffic business, the Chinese dominate the area
When discussing how Telegram mini-games can make money through hybrid monetization models, selling traffic ads is one of the important ways.
In addition to working on his own projects in the cryptocurrency circle, the 30-year-old Zong Yue is also a middle-aged man who loves to play games. He believes that he has a deep understanding of the gaming industry. He pointed out that most of the revenue from small games on Telegram comes from advertising revenue from other projects rather than player recharges.
"Most of the domestic game market is this kind of business. For Chinese people with Internet thinking, this is their dominant area." In fact, it is better to say that the current Telegram traffic business is booming rather than saying that Telegram mini-games are booming.
If you are a newly established project party and need a traffic platform to help the project party get more exposure and real traffic, what methods will you use? Finding cryptocurrency media may be one way, such as BlockBeats.
Another method that was widely used before is to find some mainstream web3 task platforms. However, according to Zong Yue, after testing their traffic channels, these platforms now have almost no real users. "Basically, studios are doing it, and few individual users use these task platforms."
Newly established projects need a traffic platform to gain exposure and real traffic, and Telegram mini-games just provide such a platform.
Most Telegram mini-games are the same kind of business as these web3 task platforms. The core of the business is to make money by accepting advertisements from project owners. They are in the traffic business, so they have created a lot of competition for traditional web3 task platforms.
Zong Yue pointed out: "Even if the flow and traffic were good before, the prosperity of Telegram mini-games may indeed lead to the elimination of traditional web3 task platforms, unless they also go out to do BOT and eat up this part of the market."
Not only the project owners, but also smart VC investors have set their sights on TON’s traffic gold mine and have personally invested in it. Vertex Capital is one of them. Investing in a project does not mean that everything is fine. Most investors also have post-investment businesses, including helping projects to incubate and provide resource support.
Therefore, in order to activate users of different projects, especially NFT projects and metaverse projects, such as HAPE and Meet48, Vertex Capital is developing a Mini game Token Hunter on Telegram.
Token Hunter game beta
Like most VCs, Vertex Capital is also optimistic about the market for Telegram mini-games. "Although it is currently dominated by wool games, from a technical point of view, Telegram mini-games are very similar to WeChat mini-games and can fully support some exquisite games."
It is said that VCs cannot get involved in the TON ecosystem, but Vertex Capital has used another way to get involved. Their needs are very clear. The game functions do not need to be too deep, but should be simple and interesting, easy for web2 users to enter, and the development process should be easy to iterate. It seems that there is no better channel than Telegram mini-games.
"Furthermore, Telegram has lower audit compliance costs, and its game market is likely to surpass the WeChat mini-game market. This means that it will have hundreds of millions of active users per month and tens of billions of annual market revenue," said a relevant person in charge of Vertex Capital to BlockBeats. They believe that with the user base of Telegram, many new project parties will have a huge potential user base.
Will anyone really spend money on TG mini-games?
At first, I was skeptical about whether players would top up money in Telegram mini-games, but my conversation with Sleepy changed my mind.
"Everyone thinks that Telegram mini-games are for people who take advantage of free stuff and airdrops, but in fact, this is an information cocoon and a misunderstanding." Sleepy is the founder of NFT Weirdo Ghost Gang (Little Ghost), which was founded and operated at the end of 2021. It is one of the well-known web3 NFT brands in the Chinese-speaking region. Recently, they officially announced their own Telegram mini-game "OUTA", which is expected to be launched in August.
Unlike the business of selling traffic in Telegram mini-games, Sleepy wants to provide a game that can better carry the IP for the holders of the Little Ghost NFT. He is also confident in the possibility of players recharging the game. "Other project parties we have contacted before said that the number of users who play games and pay for them far exceeds their expectations."
Some of OUTA's official game announcement screens
For example, Scarlett, an investor of Pluto, the publisher of Catizen, revealed that through the paid purchase module for game props, Catizen has achieved more than $16 million in revenue and more than 500,000 paying customers (Atomic Wallet). This shows that players are willing to pay for virtual items and value-added services in the game.
"In addition to Catizen, some leading projects generate revenue through advertising, with monthly turnover reaching 1.8 million US dollars. This is a considerable income that can help them stabilize the market and extend the life of the game." The person who said this was Jeremy, who has two Telegram mini-games under his command, QGame and PalMiner, which are being launched.
“The blockchain gaming industry has always had a selling pressure problem, and the NFT market has almost collapsed. Many games have disappeared due to selling pressure, but the recharge channels in the game can partially alleviate this selling pressure.” Before working on Telegram mini-games, Jeremy also had a background in NFT projects.
Jeremy also pointed out that in order to attract more Web2 users to the game, the original intention of making the game is to make it more attractive and playable. Users recharge through game experience, rather than just recharge for airdrops, which can solve some of the selling pressure.
Talking more deeply about the topic of game players' recharge, Sleepy believes that today's Telegram mini-games can better help manage players in different levels, but it is difficult to do this according to the traditional blockchain game model. For example, users are divided into pure free players, light krypton gold players and heavy krypton gold players. "There is no difference between these players, they are all contributing to the game. But many projects try to convert light krypton gold users into heavy krypton gold users. I think this is difficult to achieve because these two types of users are essentially different."
The traditional blockchain game model restricts the participation of light krypton gold players, because many projects require the purchase of "shovels" to play, and these "shovels" are usually expensive. In contrast, the price of props in Web2 mobile games is relatively low. For example, a skin in Honor of Kings is about $5, while the price of many blockchain game props may require dozens or even hundreds of dollars, which undoubtedly hinders the participation of light krypton gold players.
In contrast, small games can better attract these light-paying players to participate, and achieve the "Twisted Tangle" mentioned above. By accumulating small payments of $0.99 or $1.99, they can also achieve the goal of making a mountain out of a molehill and making small profits but quick turnover.
As a player who has recharged thousands of dollars in Telegram mini-games, Zong Yue is also optimistic about and agrees with the recharge prospects of Telegram mini-games. "Although the playability is a little worse now, to put it bluntly, everyone is recharging for airdrops, but we will soon see some more addictive mini-games."
Hybrid monetization will be the mainstream in the future
Today's Telegram mini-games are comparable to WeChat mini-games, which has been deeply rooted in people's minds. Therefore, most of the current Telegram mini-games can also learn from the monetization model of traditional mini-games.
The visible trend is that traditional mini-games are trying mixed monetization to increase revenue sources, which means increasing the original single revenue channel into multiple channels.
Casual games that used to monetize only through advertising may also suddenly explode into krypton gold casual games. Zynga's "Twisted Tangle" is a typical case. As a puzzle knot game, it accumulates small payments to accumulate a lot. There is no $648, only $0.99 or $1.99 to buy gift packs through advertising. Accumulating small amounts into a tower, small profits but quick turnover, the in-app purchase income has soared, and the monthly turnover is nearly $30 million.
Not only casual games, but also hardcore games are trying to take the hybrid monetization path. Many hardcore games are also trying to monetize through advertising. It is also a trend to add some ads to non-paying players. It is all business, and there is nothing to be embarrassed about.
In the game industry, especially in the Web3 industry, it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy online games, and hybrid monetization has become an important means to convert non-paying players into paying users. Telegram mini-games are inherently capable of this and can help significantly increase profits through a combination of advertising and in-app purchases.
This can also be seen in Telegram games. According to statistics, Notcoin's monthly revenue exceeds $300,000, and Catizen (one of the most popular TG games) has a total revenue of more than $16 million, including advertising revenue and player recharges. Then another question arises: with such impressive revenue, will these projects still issue coins?
Issuing coins is an art
“Most projects will issue coins. They will.” Zong Yue said firmly.
In Zong Yue's opinion, although many Telegram mini-games now have excellent revenue and wide traffic, the traffic business is a structural business with a time window, so projects that do not issue coins are short-sighted.
Issuing coins is also an art. "Many Telegram games have not yet been listed. One possibility is that they are negotiating with large trading platforms. There are many tricks involved. Another possibility is that they do not even have channels and resources, and are not familiar with coin listing management. They are simply dragging users to PUA."
In the latest podcast and article, Sleepy also discussed in detail their views and strategies on coin issuance. His attitude towards coin issuance has undergone a significant change. Initially, Sleepy and his team were resistant to coin issuance, mainly due to compliance issues and the long-term impact on project development. Sleepy believes that coin issuance is a double-edged sword. Although it can accelerate project development, it can also cause a project to collapse quickly if used improperly.
They believe that only infrastructure projects are suitable for early coin issuance, because these projects have a long verification cycle and it is difficult to maintain long-term development without tokens. However, for consumer, IP and application projects, Sleepy believes that issuing coins in the early stages of the project may become a burden, because these projects need time to verify market acceptance.
After a period of development, Sleepy's business model gradually became successful, and they began to consider how to use tokens to motivate community members. They realized that many Telegram users were willing to pay for content, and the number of users who spent money on games was far more than expected. This changed their view on issuing tokens, believing that issuing tokens at the right time could promote the further development of the project.
More and more project owners and VC capital are joining this ecosystem, showing the huge potential of this market. Despite facing many challenges such as game playability and not "crashing" after the tokens are issued, Telegram mini games are gradually proving their market value with profitable revenue and huge traffic.
Perhaps in the near future, we will see a truly large-scale Telegram mini-game on TON, or perhaps it has already appeared in our field of vision, but people have not yet really realized it.
