Recently, Huawei Game Center, in collaboration with the Wuhan Game Association, successfully hosted the HarmonyOS Gaming Industry Forum - Central China Edition in Wuhan. The forum brought together 58 gaming companies from the central China region, including Mobite, Weipei, Zhangyou, Grass Flower Interactive, Zhongchuan Interactive, and Shengtian Network, to discuss the latest developments in HarmonyOS gaming ecosystem construction, solutions for HarmonyOS native application game development, and successful case studies of HarmonyOS NEXT adaptation, exploring new opportunities for the gaming industry's development within the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
The General Manager of Huawei Terminal Cloud Gaming Center stated that leveraging the unique features of HarmonyOS NEXT such as the Harmony kernel, full-scenario distributed experience, and native intelligence, HarmonyOS will facilitate breakthroughs in self-developed gaming technology and the high-quality development of gaming content. It will provide players with diverse interactive experiences, offer partners continuous growth opportunities, present the gaming industry with a better choice, and support the realization of industry-driven innovation, high-quality content production, and sustainable, healthy development.
Cai Hongyi, President of the Wuhan Gaming Industry Association, mentioned that leveraging the advantages of HarmonyOS such as interconnectedness and security, it not only drives the technological advancement of gaming applications but also opens up broader imaginative space for game development and innovation. The gaming industry in Wuhan, known for its pioneering spirit and cultural vitality, will lead game enterprises in the central China region to fully embrace the HarmonyOS ecosystem. This will provide strong support for creating high-quality content and bring intrinsic momentum for sustainable and healthy industrial development.
Full-stack empowerment, HarmonyOS native app game development has industrial capability.
With the continuous development and improvement of the HarmonyOS ecosystem, from last year's HDC announcement of the HarmonyOS ecosystem game pioneer cooperation to this year's HarmonyOS NEXT Galaxy version developer preview open to developers, Huawei Game Center, together with upstream and downstream partners in the gaming industry, has completed the layout of the full-stack production and operation of HarmonyOS, making the gamification of HarmonyOS increasingly simple and efficient.
Currently, mainstream game engines such as Cocos and third-party plugins like Counting Technology have been adapted to HarmonyOS NEXT, supporting rapid construction and release of HarmonyOS native app versions for games. Additionally, the Petal Game Developer Service launched by Huawei Game Center fully supports HarmonyOS NEXT adaptation, providing developers with tools and services for game HarmonyOS-ification, empowering HarmonyOS native app development across the entire lifecycle, thereby enhancing production and operation efficiency. This further boosts the industrial capability of HarmonyOS native app game development. As of March 2024, more than 100 games have completed HarmonyOS native app development.
Completing game HarmonyOS adaptation in 7 days, exploring more possibilities for gaming scenarios.
As one of the pioneering partners in the HarmonyOS ecosystem cooperation, the Chief Technology Officer of DotBit shared DotBit Games' HarmonyOS-ification practice. "How to quickly and efficiently convert all code into HarmonyOS system language" is the primary challenge faced by many game developers in the process of game HarmonyOS-ification. DotBit breaks down this adaptation process into four main steps: game engine adaptation, HarmonyOS native capability adaptation, compilation and packaging adaptation, and performance testing. With joint debugging with the Huawei Game Center team, leveraging HarmonyOS's multitasking capabilities, and automated packaging solutions, game engine adaptation was completed in 3 days, HarmonyOS system language conversion in 3 days, and finally, efficient HarmonyOS native app development was completed in 7 days. By the end of December, DotBit swiftly completed the HarmonyOS native app development of 10 game products and adapted multiple functional modules such as privacy, login, and payment for HarmonyOS, accelerating the process of fully embracing the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
At the same time, Doubit Games continues to explore more possibilities in the gaming scene, making games more integrated into daily life and combining them with people's everyday behaviors, such as completing daily workouts and socializing through gaming. Take "Thread the Needle" for example, leveraging features like HarmonyOS NEXT native interconnectivity and distributed operation capabilities, players can control the game by moving their head with headphones, providing an innovative gaming experience while also exercising their shoulders and neck.
HarmonyOS empowers partners across all scenarios to tap into new growth and embrace new opportunities in the gaming industry. On one hand, based on Huawei's investment of over 7 billion RMB in the Yaoxing Plan, Huawei Game Center incorporates HarmonyOS ecosystem incentives into incentive policies such as the Star Alliance membership plan and the inheritance plan. Throughout different stages of HarmonyOS ecosystem development, partners are provided with incentives such as traffic resources, advertising services, and preferential revenue sharing, enabling game partners to explore new flows and business opportunities in the HarmonyOS ecosystem comprehensively in terms of technical support, ecosystem marketing, and financial support. On the other hand, backed by the brand new HarmonyOS ecosystem, Huawei Game Center provides game developers with a "联运+应用市场付费推广+鲸鸿动能" triple-driven large-scale cooperation service. Leveraging system-level scenario-based distribution entrances and scene-awareness capabilities such as HarmonyOS full-scenario and elemental services, it constructs a multi-dimensional Huawei all-media channel matrix, providing more traffic value and refined operational capabilities for game distribution, thus tapping into more commercial growth.
The head of distribution for Jiugong in Suzhou shared insights into the refined operation of their game "Fantasy Legends" in the Huawei Game Center's extensive cooperation. With comprehensive collaboration between the two parties, leveraging joint resources, bonus policies, and exclusive platform activities, the game center's cooperation empowerment, commercial promotion, traffic empowerment, and ecosystem development synergized seamlessly. This injected new growth momentum into "Fantasy Legends," boosting pre-launch excitement, stabilizing the initial release, breaking through existing user bases, and expanding into new demographics. This resulted in a 58% increase in annual revenue, empowering partners to fully explore incremental opportunities within the HarmonyOS ecosystem, and driving overall commercial growth.
As HarmonyOS continues to evolve and improve, it's opening up new opportunities for the gaming industry through its exploration of seamless software and hardware integration across various scenarios. Experts in the gaming industry in Central China delved into topics such as empowering game development through AIGC, transitioning from traditional user acquisition models, and exploring new opportunities in the realm of mini-games.
Harnessing Huawei's powerful AI capabilities embedded within HarmonyOS, a native intelligent foundation is being established. This facilitates rapid and efficient graphic rendering and performance optimization for games through the Ark Engine, thereby enhancing the efficiency of game development and testing. Within the HarmonyOS ecosystem, a comprehensive system-level entry point and a multi-terminal, all-scenario traffic matrix are being constructed, aiding in the transition of games from broad-based user acquisition to finely tuned long-term operations to achieve user acquisition growth.
Under HarmonyOS NEXT, meta-service capabilities are further enhanced, providing users with instantly accessible card-based experiences. Moreover, with contextual awareness integration, proactive recommendations are made through system-level multiple entry points such as negative one screen and XiaoYi suggestions, naturally becoming a source of traffic for fast games.
With more and more gaming partners joining the HarmonyOS ecosystem, Huawei aims to collaborate with them to build and share a wonderful HarmonyOS world. Leveraging its leading technological advantages and the all-scenario value of the HarmonyOS ecosystem, Huawei seeks to drive more breakthroughs in key technologies such as proprietary game technology and mobile application technology. This will help enhance the gaming industry ecosystem, stimulate innovation in gaming, and inject native vitality into the development of the gaming industry.
*Data Source: Huawei Statistics, as of March 2024.
