Body:
The gaming industry has always been known for its knack for creating new and exciting events.
As the importance of long-term operations grows, hosting unique and immersive festivals has become a highly sought-after strategy for content management. Not only do these events boost player engagement, but they also enhance brand image, drive traffic, and create synergies between products and marketing efforts. It's not just gaming companies that are eager to host such festivals; even major platforms are getting in on the action. Recently, Huawei Game Center's offline event IP, "Four Seasons Market," has undergone a major upgrade to become "Four Seasons Gaming Festival," marking a significant step towards platform-led event hosting.
From January to February, the Winter Gaming Festival partnered with seven highly acclaimed mobile games: "Three Kingdoms Kill," "Happy Eliminate," "Ghost Story," "Defense Radish 4," "Metaverse Star," "Naruto," and "Snake." These offline events took place in 27 provinces and cities, covering almost the entire country. On the first day of the event, the average daily active users of the seven games on Huawei Game Center increased by 35% compared to the previous day, successfully attracting and activating new Huawei users.
Colloquial Version:
Yo, the "Seasonal Games Festival" got beefed up this time! It's way longer, covers more ground, and features a bunch more games than any previous push, digital or in person. It's like a red carpet for gamers and developers to get up close and personal.
Professional Version:
Post-upgrade, "Seasonal Games Festival" boasts significantly extended duration, wider reach, and more diverse game offerings compared to both traditional offline marketing and the previous "Seasonal Market." Consequently, it establishes a more efficient and targeted pathway for in-depth interaction between players and products.
Content Enhancement:
Two months, seven games, and a strategic blitz during the lucrative Spring Festival period. Spring Festival has always been a battlefield for the gaming industry. Its deep cultural significance strengthens brand messaging by creating memorable associations. Furthermore, the dense concentration of holidays from New Year's Eve to Lantern Festival enables high-frequency marketing campaigns to capture user attention.
As the most competitive marketing season in China's gaming industry, the revamped "Seasonal Games Festival" partnered with an unprecedented seven games from January to February. Tailor-made promotions were developed in conjunction with the Spring Festival and key product milestones.
For instance, "Ghost: Legends" capitalized on the Year of the Dragon by hosting a "Dragon Year Festive Costume Pop-up Show" in Huawei stores. Not only did the event feature renowned cosplayers portraying Dragon Year characters, but live calligraphy by a master calligrapher added a touch of traditional Chinese flavor, creating a unique and celebratory gathering for fans.
During the eighth anniversary celebration of the "Naruto Shippuden" mobile game, the event space was set up in the Shenzhen Huawei flagship store in Vientiane World, which is nearby the main venue. This made it convenient for cosplayers to visit the store for parades and for players on-site to watch the live broadcast of the eighth anniversary finals on the LED screen in the store, experiencing the vibrant atmosphere of the event.
On the day of the Lantern Festival, Candy Crush Saga hosted an exciting offline competition at Huawei Smart Life Gallery, providing another option for offline gatherings.
Utilizing Huawei Smart Screen's "Smart Dual-Projection" feature, the game progress of the competing parties on their mobile devices was simultaneously projected onto the Smart Screen, attracting numerous players to gather in front of it to "duke it out." The fun of Candy Crush Saga thus extended from online to the offline realm.
Upgraded Winter Game Festival Drives Exponential Growth
The revamped Winter Game Festival has witnessed a significant surge in both game participation and duration. It enables targeted promotion of featured games through a range of customizable events, allowing them to stand out even amidst the intense competition during the Chinese New Year holiday release window.
Leveraging Huawei's extensive offline retail network, the expanded Winter Game Festival creates an immersive and celebratory atmosphere on par with online events, fostering a sense of ritual for the "Seasonal Game Festival" series. This subtly builds awareness among players and developers of the refreshed event's appeal.
Expanded Reach: Multi-City Coverage Fosters Offline Synergy between Players and Products
It's worth noting that creating a successful "Festival" requires a substantial user base. Huawei Game Center's decision to elevate its offline event into a "Seasonal Game Festival" stemmed from the recognition that players have embraced both the event's concept and Huawei Game Center itself on a large scale.
As an extension of the "gaming marketplace" that connects products and players, the "Game Festival" also embodies Huawei Game Center's broader vision of establishing an immersive promotional landscape with wider reach and unlocking more diverse collaboration opportunities between channels and games.
In the past, "Seasonal Game Fairs" typically extended to around five provinces or cities. However, this Winter Game Festival underwent a substantial upgrade. By engaging a more extensive network of Huawei offline stores, it achieved near-nationwide coverage. From Heilongjiang in the north to Hainan in the south, and from Xinjiang in the west to Zhejiang in the east, the festival spanned 27 provinces and municipalities, reaching virtually all corners of the country.
Benefits of Upgrading Event Scope:
Case Study: Winter Game Festival
Beyond being just party games, the expanded scope of the Winter Game Fest, tailored to various category features, enables collaboration scenarios to broaden and promotes deeper, more niche partnerships with other games. This is the unique advantage of Huawei Game Center and the "Seasonal Game Fest" and also drives the further in-depth expansion of offline marketing for games.
Commanding Half the Market Share, Will "HarmonyOS Games" Become an Offline Marketing Hotspot?
One notable change is that among the seven games participating in the Winter Game Fest, "Three Kingdoms Kill," "Happy Match," "Ghost," and "Defense Carrot" have begun development on HarmonyOS, commanding "half the market share."
Sure, here is the translation in a colloquial and professional tone:
Given that the consumer version of HarmonyOS Star River will be released in Q4 this year, it's not hard to see that the Winter Game Festival is actively promoting Harmony games and building broad user awareness in advance of the Q4 commercial release of Harmony.
For the game industry, which is struggling in the stock stage, Harmony itself means more increment. Therefore, since the full launch of the Harmony native application, more than 100 games have completed the Harmony native application development. More and more native games are being launched or completed, also due to the great value of Harmony in terms of innovation in the native game experience.
More and more developers see full-scene games as the next opportunity. Rooted in the "万物互联" gene, Harmony constructs a brand-new full-scene experience around native multi-devices, natural perception and innovative interaction, which can break the barriers between games and terminals, terminals and terminals, and innovate the current gameplay experience and marketing mode. During the Winter Game Festival, Huawei Game Center has demonstrated strong creativity and vitality in marketing with game manufacturers, and has shown great popularity in offline activities.
From the current players' response to the upgraded "Four Seasons Game Festival" after the upgrade, we can also see the general enthusiasm of users for new gameplay and the close attention of the whole industry to the trend of Harmony. It is foreseeable that new gameplay based on the characteristics of HarmonyOS NEXT may become another hotspot of offline activities in the future, which can help to explore greater market opportunities for offline marketing and is worth looking forward to.
But after all, the core value of the upgrade of Huawei Game Center's "Winter Game Festival" is to reach more potential users.
Whether it is the upgrade of the activity IP, the comprehensive upgrade of the activity scope and scale, or the possible creative publicity of Harmony games in the future, the purpose is to build a fast and deep interactive channel for players and products. It can not only bring large-scale traffic aggregation and help products achieve explosive growth, but also accumulate loyal users for offline activity festival IP, and help subsequent activities and actively participate in the long-term operation of products.
By then, the "Four Seasons Game Festival" will slowly carry more players' and games' emotions, not only confined to a virtual festival or offline publicity activity, but endowed with more meaning.
