Bossy, sweet pet, abusive love, revenge, various refreshing dramas in less than 5 minutes per episode, making the audience exclaim "cliché, tacky, and addictive." In 2023, this type of fast-paced, plot-twisting short drama created a 20 billion yuan content market on short video platforms, half of which is targeted at female audiences.
The strong purchasing power of the female market has always been a battleground for businesses. Now, the supply side is not only limited to beauty and baby products, but also includes products that provide emotional value, in addition to film and television, there are also games. According to SensorTower's report, from January to August 2023, the revenue from mobile games favored by women exceeded 11.2 billion US dollars.
In China, the dominant position in the female gaming market has always been occupied by the game company Pionex, which once attracted 100 million registered users with the love management game "Love and Producer" and will launch a 3D version of the "Love and" series new game in 2024.
Just as Pionex's new product was unveiled, at the end of 2023, a game production company called SleeplessAI, claiming to be "formed by the former core team of Pionex," combined AI with Web3 and launched the "HIM" chain game for women. It received 36,958 test applications within just 1 day of public testing.
This Web3 game, which focuses on "raising an AI boyfriend," has created a concept of "Love To Earn," aiming to let players "spend money but also make money." This means that your virtual boyfriend who accompanies you might end up becoming a "wage earner"?
Although the game's attributes are slightly weak, the appearance of "HIM" marks the beginning of the attention of chain games to the emerging Web3 female market, and the Web3 game track is becoming more and more diverse.
"Boyfriend Raising" Type of Web3 Games
In the Web3 market, the chain game "HIM" targeting female users is showing the potential for explosive sales.
Currently, the Discard community of "HIM" has accumulated nearly 50,000 members. On the day of public testing, 36,958 people applied for testing. On the NFT market NTPrompt, the daily independent active wallet (UAW) number of "HIM" 's Genesis NFT series reached as high as one million, and even topped the list at one point.
"HIM" targets female players and provides more than 10 virtual boyfriend images. Each "boyfriend" has his own personality, reportedly driven by AI, and players can interact with them, share daily life, and the text and images input by the players can be understood and responded to by the "AI boyfriend."
"HIM" currently offers 10 virtual boyfriends for players to choose from
The popularity of "HIM" in the Web3 market is partly related to the fact that the game token "AI" was listed on the globally renowned cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The exchange provided early circulation of the token AI through its token distribution platform Launchpad. Another reason "HIM" is attracting attention is that its development team, SleeplessAI, is claimed to be formed by former employees of Pionex with many years of game development experience.
When it comes to female games, the game development and publishing company Pionex is considered the top in the domestic market. The "Warm" and "Love and" series produced by them are deeply familiar with the preferences of female players. Among them, the love management game "Love and Producer," which was launched in December 2017, generated nearly 300 million yuan in revenue the following month.
"Love and Producer" also successfully introduced the concept of "otome games" from the Japanese game market to China. This type of love simulation game, which targets female audiences as the absolute target group, revolves around a female protagonist and multiple male characters, and the gameplay mainly involves card turn-based combat. The cards that enhance the abilities of the game characters are the main consumer goods of these games and also the profit point for game companies.
There is no doubt that unlocking the plot of otome games requires "spending money," and Pionex games have been jokingly called "Pionex dogs" by players due to their high spending. Now, with the addition of AI chatbot functionality, "HIM" has put on the "battle armor" of Web3 and launched the slogan "Love To Earn." The team seems to want to overturn the model of their "former employer."
"HIM" introduces the concept of "Soul Binding Token (SBT)" of the Ethereum blockchain Web3 identity system. Once a player selects a boyfriend character in the game, it becomes the player's exclusive SBT (Soul Binding Token). This type of token emphasizes ownership but cannot be traded.
After binding, players can interact with their "boyfriend," and the large language model in "HIM" provides emotional value through interaction with female players. Of course, you still need to "raise" them, and you need to buy food and clothing for your AI boyfriend in the in-game store, all represented by NFTs. Creators can also design various NFT accessories for users, forming a market closed loop of player-platform-creator.
"HIM" proposes "Love to Earn," one way of which is to chat with the virtual boyfriend and raise them to earn virtual assets in return. Chatting is easy, but if you want to level up faster, you need to recharge virtual assets to purchase items to cultivate your "boyfriend's" skills, and these assets can be bought and sold in the secondary market for cryptocurrency assets.
In addition, you can also have your "boyfriend" participate in competitions, and through staking the game governance token "AI" for voting to gain popularity, the winner will receive more cryptocurrency asset rewards. These items on the secondary market all mean "monetization."
Selecting-owning-chatting-dressing-benefiting, the gameplay of "HIM" integrates the core of otome games with Web3 gold farming. Coupled with the AI that can converse, it seems more "profitable" than traditional female love management games, but can it really capture female users?
The Rise of "Her Economy" in the Web3 Market
"HIM" not only needs to capture female users, but also female users in the Web3 market in order to profit, because the "fee" for the game is mostly virtual assets.
You can purchase the required cryptocurrency assets for the game with fiat currency, but entering the Web3 game through a "cryptocurrency wallet" is likely to be the first hurdle for Web2 players. Compared to female players of Web2 games, native female users of the Web3 market are more likely to become the first target users of "HIM."
The Web3 market has always been dominated by male users, and female users have been on the rise in recent years.
A survey by the cryptocurrency trading platform WazirX shows that the trading volume of female users on its platform has increased by 3.3% in a year. The trading volume of female investors in cryptocurrency assets has increased from 15.27% in 2021 to 18.57% in 2022. From this data, the number of female investors in the cryptocurrency asset market is increasing, but the proportion is still relatively low.
By 2023, a global survey report from another trading platform, Bitget, shows that in South Korea, Japan, and Turkey, the demand for cryptocurrency investment is higher among women than men. In South Korea and Japan, the proportion of women who hope to improve their personal lives through cryptocurrency investment is 49% and 41%, respectively, while for men, it is 45% and 30%.
In the past two years, female content has also been eager to occupy a place in the Web3 world. The most famous is the NFT work "World of Women." This NFT collection of female headshots hand-drawn by Middle Eastern artist Yam Karkai was launched in July 2021 and sold out within 10 hours after going online, with a total of 10,000 NFTs.
As of now, the total transaction volume of "World of Women" is 84,000 ETH, and the number of owners has reached 4,600.
Total NFT transaction volume of "World of Women" exceeds 80,000 ETH
SleeplessAI is targeting the rising Web3 female market. In fact, female-oriented chain games appeared as early as September last year. The game "Power of Women: Genesis" deployed on the Solana blockchain once occupied the top position in the overall ranking of games on the Google Play Store in the United States, making it the earliest Web3 female-oriented game to break through, and also laying the groundwork for this market.
There is huge untapped potential in the native market, and "HIM" also aims to educate Web2 users, providing these users with more familiar login methods such as email and phone numbers, while also providing a "free gold" mode on the mobile client. Of course, if you want to earn cryptocurrency assets through the game, you still need to learn how to open the door to the crypto world.
Currently, "HIM" is still in the testing phase, and many interesting gameplay elements are still under development. After attracting traffic, "HIM" needs to consider the user experience, especially when Web2 otome game market users enter. It's worth noting that whether in China or overseas, these users have already played quite mature otome games, and these games have even launched derivative products such as anime.
Even the widely acclaimed "Love and Producer" in China has been criticized by many players for not being exciting enough. Often, the games that are compared to it come from Japan, the birthplace of otome games.
One player criticized the 4 boyfriends in "Love and Producer" for being "limited in choice," "face-blind," and "voice-blind," while "Star Boyfriend" has twelve male characters, twelve zodiac signs, twelve appearances, and twelve personalities… that's three times the number of "Love and Producer"…
Currently, "HIM" offers 10 characters with 10 different personalities, with a Japanese style. It is reported that more "boyfriend" types will be added later, but from the current images provided, it also cannot escape being "face-blind," and can only hope that the AI large model can contribute to a different personality experience through interaction with the characters.
In addition, it seems that the plot is not the core of "HIM." It is essentially a collection of NFTs that can interact using natural language. If it is not considered a game, then it can only be a "money game" in Web3. It remains to be seen whether the "AI boyfriend" that players pay to raise can become a qualified "wage earner" and whether it can create economic value for players while chatting.
The label of the SleeplessAI team's Pionex game has evolved, and this year will launch a new game in the "Love and" series, with the boyfriend characters in this game evolving to 3D, attempting to capture the hearts and minds of female users with more three-dimensional virtual characters and plot. In comparison, "HIM" with AI support is still in the paper stage, and it is also expected to launch related derivative actions in the future.
Overall, the outstanding feature of "HIM" in the Web3 game market is the integration of AI and the emphasis on the value of the female market. In most Web3 chain games, when it comes to economic models and visuals, "HIM" has found a new traffic code, and the application that leans towards female users has made the products in the race more diverse. However, in terms of gameplay, it still has not departed from the logic of the NFT market and emphasizes the Web3 core of "Earn," and the game experience still needs to be improved.
It is reported that SleeplessAI has also launched a similar male-oriented product called "HER," with images of girlfriends with excellent figures in the game being very "otaku-style." This may also provide a window to observe the Web3 user group - in the cryptocurrency market, who is more willing to pay for "eyeballs," men or women.
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