Wang Sicong charges 666 yuan per hour for sparring games

Wang Sicong's

original title: The game sparring market reaches 10 billion Wang Sicong collects 666 yuan per hour

Source: Daily Economic News

Every reporter Xu Lianlian

With the development of the e-sports industry, e-sports sparring partners have become officially recognized professions, and the game sparring partners have gradually moved to the front of the stage. After the explosion of capital in the past few years, the platform's "Hundred Regiments Battle", and the entry of Taobao, Tiger Ya, and Douyu, game sparring partners are gradually moving towards a new pattern of platform competition.

"At first, I had a lot of time going abroad. I wanted to find someone to play with, so I wanted to find someone to play with. Later, I found that I could also take orders, so I started slowly." A post-00s post-00s nicknamed "Little Concern" told reporters that she is a game sparring partner from Seattle, USA. She has just entered her freshman year and has now changed from a small user to a popular game sparring partner god. Recently, she has not been idle either, taking orders whenever she has time to earn pocket money.

"Xiaoyou" is 19 years old. She told reporters that although she is a part-time sparring partner, the income she receives from the game sparring platform can cover her daily expenses in Seattle. Game sparring partners like "Little Worries" have a scale of about 3 million, and many of them are full-time sparring partners.

Du Mingjiang, vice president of Bixin sparring partners, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from "Daily Economic News" that as a growth market that is still in a stage of rapid development, the market size of game sparring partners has reached about 10 billion at this stage, and it is polarized. situation.

Someone spent 3.08 million yuan to find a sparring partner,

"Xiaoyou" is currently a part-time game sparring partner. When asked if she would make a game sparring partner a full-time career, she smiled and said that she was only a freshman and hadn't thought so far. "It would be very satisfying to use your hobbies to make money and buy some gifts for your parents."

Different from "Little Worries", Bixin nicknamed "Jiangang Frog" is a post-90s generation who has shifted his career focus to game sparring partners. Before becoming a full-time game sparring partner, she was an employee of a provincial TV station. She loved to play games in her spare time and accidentally came into contact with game sparring partners, and then made up her mind to quit what was quite a glamorous job in the eyes of outsiders.

"At first, the family still didn't understand it, but later the income from playing games exceeded the original income, and the family slowly accepted it." "Jiangang Frog" told reporters that she now simply receives orders every month and her income easily exceeds 10,000 yuan.

The soft and cute "Little Worry" and the neat "Jiangang Frog" are two different types of game sparring partners. Xiaoyou transformed his ordinary hobby into a profitable part-time job, which solved the problem of loneliness after immigration;"Jiangang Frog" used game sparring partners as a new career starting point. "Jiangang Frog" told the reporter of "Economic Daily News" that many people think that game sparring partners are the food of youth. She does not think so. In the future, she will find a more suitable career plan in the field of sparring partners.

It is understood that the income of game sparring partners at the top of the pyramid can reach more than one million yuan, and it is common for many people to earn more than ten thousand yuan a month. Previously, the sparring platform Yueyou once revealed that the monthly income of game sparring partners on the platform reached up to hundreds of thousands of yuan. According to the "White Paper on Game Spinning Partners" released by Bixin, nearly 1.5 million game sparring partners on the platform have made money, including an average monthly income of 7857 yuan for full-time and an average monthly income of 2929 yuan for part-time. Interestingly, the highest-priced game sparring god is retired IG team player Wang Sicong (Bixin nickname: ig.wxz), who charges 666 yuan/hour for sparring in "Genting Chess".

Du Mingjiang said that the income of sparring partners, who earn one million yuan a year, is relatively diverse, and order income is only one aspect; on the other hand, some game sparring partners with great potential and characteristics have the opportunity to be delivered to cooperative Short Video MCN organizations through the platform to expand their influence and bring more added value.

The above white paper shows that more than two-thirds of the users who are willing to find game sparring partners are born in the 1995s, and many users have amazing spending power. Take Bixin as an example. In 2019, the "golden father" with the highest order consumption on the Bixin sparring platform spent 3.08 million yuan looking for a god to accompany him to play games.

Du Mingjiang said that the younger generation has a more open consumption concept and popular mobile games have driven the growth of the game user base. Two major factors have jointly promoted the rise of the emerging industry of game sparring partners. "These users who need sparring partners want to win on the one hand and quickly gain a sense of victory in the game. On the other hand, they also solve their demands for companionship. After graduation, many young people rarely have the same chance to sneak up with good friends at any time as they did in school."

During exchanges with game sparring partners, the reporter noticed that whether they are born in the 1990s or 2000s, whether full-time or part-time, they regard "accompanying others to play games" as a normal career choice. From this perspective, game sparring partners have undoubtedly become one of the new career options in the Z era.

Sequoia, Qiming and other capital entry

game sparring platforms are a phenomenon exclusive to the China game market. After 2014, before the emergence of independent apps represented by Fish Bubble, game sparring partners mainly existed in some game guilds. Du Mingjiang introduced that from the perspective of capital, the period with more intervention is from 2017 to 2018, which is the first explosion period in the industry.

From a vertical timeline, 2014 to 2015 was the "embryonic period" of the game sparring platform. At that time, the market size was only several hundred million yuan, and the competition was not fierce. In 2017, a number of related apps entered the game, which was dubbed the "Hundred Regiments Battle" by industry people. At that time, some media also called 2018 the "first year" of game sparring partners, and the head platform began to increase investment and optimize the model. In this process, some platforms gradually fell behind even if they received capital support due to their business philosophy.

In 2018, when capital was flocking to game sparring platforms, many platforms received considerable financing. Bixin Sparring Partner also announced tens of millions of dollars in Series A financing in 2018, led by IDG. Baoji E-Sports received 45 million yuan in Series A financing in 2017, led by Sequoia China. In 2018, it announced another US$15 million in Series A+ financing, led by Qiming Venture Capital. In 2018, Yueyou also announced a Series C financing of 200 million yuan, led by Tiantu Capital.

Entering 2019, the industry has moved from "fragmentation" to "platform" stage, and the polarization situation is relatively obvious. Many vertical platforms have not developed smoothly after receiving financing. Except for the head platform, other platforms have either disappeared or are struggling.

At this point, the war on capital can be said to be drawing to an end, which is the consensus of the game sparring industry. Du Mingjiang told the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that since 2018, Bixin sparring partners have maintained a relatively good state of large-scale profitability, and the user growth rate has also become faster and faster. Therefore, there is no strong demand for capital, and the management team will Focus more on business development.

In 2018, Bixin sparring partners once announced that the monthly flow of the platform exceeded 200 million yuan. Du Mingjiang did not disclose the current revenue scale of Bixin, but only told reporters that there was a significant increase in the data in 2020.

A senior industry person told reporters that for sparring platforms, they need to rely on popular games, which is also one of the bottlenecks in the industry. Hot games can open up the sparring market at once and bring new opportunities to the platform, but hot games are unpredictable. "Judging from the current situation, small players entering the market basically have no chance. Whether it is the difficulty of user acquisition, traffic costs and risk control, capital will no longer tilt towards small players."

What does the game sparring platform make money? In fact, its business model is not complicated. Simply put, the sparring platform is a matchmaking and trading platform. On the one hand, it is users in need, and on the other hand, it is a game sparring god who hopes to realize it through skills. The platform draws commissions from it, generally at a rate of 10% to 20%.

Game sparring became a giant battlefield

After the end of the capital enclosure, the industry entered a new stage of development. The vertical field has been decided and the giants have also seen the potential of game sparring partners. Many Internet giants have entered the game one after another. In 2019, Taobao launched the "Taobao sparring partner" channel. Later, Tentacles, Tiger Teeth, and Douyu also launched sparring partners. Industry competition has entered a stage of competition among giants.

Many head sparring platforms are optimistic about the entry of giants. Du Mingjiang told the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that from the current point of view, after the giants enter the market, their own growth rate is still upward. At present, there is no impact on traffic, because the market is big enough, and everyone can still continue to make this matter bigger. The entry of giants to accelerate the evolution of the industry will make it easier to educate users.

Due to the social attributes of strangers, the game sparring platform has been questioned. Some platforms that make quick money have some marginal behaviors, which has led to many sparring platforms being removed from the shelves, and some have disappeared.

Du Mingjiang recalled that when Bixin sparring partners first sponsored the IG E-sports Club, many people's attitude towards the game sparring partners industry was repulsive. Although from the perspective of game sparring partners, the platform creates the possibility of realizing skills for users and players, on the other hand, from the perspective of large game groups, there are still doubts.

"At least big platforms such as Huya, Douyu, and Taobao will cherish their brands and do a good job in sparring." The above-mentioned practitioners said.

For future development, on the one hand, the sparring platform should work hard to expand users, and on the other hand, it needs to be deeply cultivated in the field of e-sports. Data for the first quarter of 2020 released by Bixin sparring partners shows that the game sparring partner has added more than 1.02 million people in the past single season, and the cumulative number of registered users has exceeded 30 million. Du Mingjiang told reporters that he hopes to reach 200 million users in the next three to five years.

In the dimension of e-sports, cooperation with clubs needs to be strengthened. The sparring platform has benefited from the rapid development of e-sports in China. For example, when IG won the championship in the League of Legends S8, the LOL order volume doubled in the month of sparring. E-sports has also gradually been recognized by the mainstream media, which is also an opportunity that must be seized for the sparring industry.

Taking Bixin sparring partners as an example, 14 e-sports clubs have been sponsored. "I hope to use the positive image of the e-sports club to achieve precise user transformation, and at the same time make the sparring industry more and more mainstream. In the next five years, we will continue to invest at least 100 million to 200 million yuan in e-sports club sponsorship cooperation or cooperation in e-sports events." Du Mingjiang said.