Will Xiaohongshu be the next major platform for game promotion and distribution?

Written by Lan Jie

Edited by Qiao Qian

Female players who are seeking love and respect have embraced otome games. And otome game users who are looking for social recognition have flocked to Xiaohongshu to share their feelings and thoughts.

Otome games, abbreviated as otome, refer to games targeted at women that focus on romantic relationships. For otome game users, in addition to playing the games, they also expand their friend lists through WeChat and QQ, and buy limited-edition peripheral products on Taobao and Xianyu. Some user groups with fan characteristics will also go to the game's official Weibo account to "vote" for their favorite characters (which means fans use various methods such as liking, forwarding, and commenting to improve the ranking of their idols in various lists).

A notable phenomenon is that Xiaohongshu, whose user portrait highly overlaps with that of otome games, is gradually emerging as an essential App for otome game users - they may not use only Xiaohongshu as their social App, but it is likely that they will not exclude Xiaohongshu. Here, there is more space to deposit emotions and a better interactive atmosphere.

In 2024, the domestic otome game track is also very lively. The top game in the game circle, "Love and Deep Space", has topped the best-selling list on the mainland iPhone side several times since the second half of last year, surpassing Tencent's "Honor of Kings" and "DNF" mobile games, and even Douyin.

Behind the prosperity of domestic otome games is the growth of the female-oriented game market. Data from the growth consulting firm Frost & Sullivan shows that the market size of female-oriented games reached 95.8 billion in 2023, with a year-on-year growth of 11%, and the proportion in the overall game market size has also increased from 19% in 2018 to 32% in 2023.

Correspondingly, according to the data released by Xiaohongshu at the end of November, the search for female-oriented games in Q1-Q3 of 2024 increased by 304% compared to the same period in 2023.

It is no secret that Xiaohongshu is exerting efforts in game marketing, and otome games are becoming an excellent entry point.

Otome Game Users Prefer Xiaohongshu

A user who updates otome game fanfiction notes on the Xiaohongshu platform said that in a busy situation, she mostly only browses related content on Xiaohongshu, "The comment sections under the content I browse are generally in a good atmosphere."

In fact, many otome game users who use Xiaohongshu as their main social media will indicate that the reason for using it is that the atmosphere is good and there is a "human touch", which is related to the UGC ecosystem of the Xiaohongshu platform itself and the equalization of traffic.

A user named momo shared her "Cosplay Commission" (users pay to hire someone to cosplay as their favorite character for an offline date) experience on Xiaohongshu, recording in a thousand-word essay how she decided to take this step, how she discovered that the dimensional wall cannot be broken, and that she even needed to seek psychological counseling in the end. The counselor told her, "Love for paper people is not absurd, you are looking for a new way out."

This note has aroused widespread resonance, with more than 1,550 likes and 162 comments, and the screen is filled with long comments - everyone is touched by the delicate emotions in the note and expresses their resonance and understanding, "I'm crying crazily at night." And this momo has only 20 fans and has only published two notes.

According to publicly reported data, users with less than a thousand fans on Xiaohongshu have produced more than 90% of the note content and have received 50% of the platform's traffic. And unlike Douyin and Kuaishou, which distribute content based on the fan base, both influencers and ordinary users have the same initial traffic pool on Xiaohongshu, which makes the quality of the notes themselves more important. This allows the real sharing of ordinary users to surface more, and also ensures a good community atmosphere.

The more essential reason why Xiaohongshu can gather a large number of otome game users is that the user portrait of otome games and Xiaohongshu highly overlap.

According to the official data of Xiaohongshu, the gender ratio on the platform is 3:7, with 50% of the users being post-95s and 35% being post-00s. Correspondingly, according to the statistics of Aurora Big Data, otome game players are mainly women, with ages concentrated between 18 and 24 years old, and 90% of the users are under 30 years old, also mainly post-00s and post-95s.

In addition, the monthly active users of Xiaohongshu have now reached 300 million, which is approximately one-fifth of the population of China. It is an inevitable trend to cover otome game users and even other game users.

"The momentum of otome games makes Xiaohongshu quite potential." A person engaged in investment and flow work in the game industry told 36Kr. In terms of content marketing, Douyin, Kuaishou, as well as WeChat and Weibo are very mature platforms, "The top cannot be shaken, the middle is iterating, and the new (game marketing) middle platform may be Xiaohongshu."

When the game traffic pours down, Xiaohongshu is also taking the initiative.

Xiaohongshu's "Game Dream"

Searching for otome games as the keyword on Xiaohongshu, in addition to tags of top otome games such as "Love and Deep Space" and "Light and Night", tags of otome games with relatively lower heat such as "Painter of the Time" and "Moon Shadow Villa" are also included. In contrast, the tag classification of Douyin search only includes popular otome games.

The more detailed presentation of Xiaohongshu can make the placement of otome game merchants more accurate.

In July last year, after the new character "Qin Che" of "Love and Deep Space" was launched, it detonated the otome game circle. Subsequently, the official launched a creative incentive plan on Xiaohongshu. Netizens on the platform shared that, "I didn't expect that even if each note only received a dozen likes, I could still get money." There were also people replying in the comments that they had earned five or six thousand in this game. Otome games including "Love and Deep Space" are regarding Xiaohongshu as an important publicity and distribution position.

The four male leads of "Love and Deep Space"

In November last year, Xiaohongshu's business dynamics also clearly expressed the platform's potential and investment invitation willingness in female-oriented games, and announced a three-digit growth in notes and content.

Although Xiaohongshu has an advantage in the otome game track, its ambition for games is not limited to female-oriented games.

In July 2024, Xiaohongshu participated in China Joy, the China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference, one of the most important game exhibitions in China for the first time. At that time, Xiaohongshu set up the "New Game Land" at the China Joy site and also held a closed-door private sharing session for the game industry on July 26 to release Xiaohongshu's game industry solution.

At that time, the official Xiaohongshu stated that games are becoming a new driving force for the growth of community content on Xiaohongshu, and shouted the slogan "New Game Land, New Ecological Breakthrough".

During the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, Xiaohongshu Games collaborated with "Teamfight Tactics" to hold the first women's tournament offline. In September, Xiaohongshu's business dynamics also released the news that in the first half of 2024, the search for simulation business games increased by 116% compared to the same period last year.

In addition to sending out clear investment invitation signals to game manufacturers, Xiaohongshu is also exerting efforts on the C-side.

The game data tracking platform DataEye monitored that since October 2024, Xiaohongshu has increased the placement of game materials, and with 543,000 sets of pan-entertainment industry placement materials in October, it topped the list, surpassing Douyin. It contains a large amount of game content, mainly games with large DAU, such as "Meta Dream Star" and "Honor of Kings" under Tencent, which helps the platform attract more game players.

The aforementioned industry insider also told 36Kr that the number of male users on Xiaohongshu is increasing, and more and more game categories want to enter the market, including some games under Tencent and NetEase that do not have a clear gender orientation. NetEase has even started to poach Xiaohongshu's game operations.

Potential Does Not Equal Strength

Xiaohongshu's ambition for games is not limited to otome games, but based on the current situation, the platform's attraction to other games is still relatively limited.

A person in charge of investment and flow at a domestic top game manufacturer told 36Kr that the manufacturer will consider Xiaohongshu when making placements because they think Xiaohongshu has target users, such as female users and users with a stronger ACG attribute, but Xiaohongshu is not important enough to be a strategic layout.

When it comes to the execution level, another industry insider said that when they receive orders for talent placement, they almost never consider Xiaohongshu. Because when distributing on Douyin, the budget given by the client is usually several hundred thousand. In contrast, the orders for Xiaohongshu are usually only a few thousand, leaving no space to make money, and few KOCs (Key Opinion Consumers) are willing to accept it.

Therefore, they recognize Xiaohongshu's potential but are not willing to exert too much effort on this platform. Sometimes choosing to distribute on Xiaohongshu is also because they received a packaged order, that is, asking a talent to publish marketing content on multiple platforms, and Xiaohongshu is included. This industry insider said that there are reasons for the late exertion of the platform and the late entry of manufacturers, "But 98% of the reason is still that the turnover is too small."

In addition, more than one industry insider told 36Kr that the game traffic pool on Xiaohongshu is almost the smallest among all content social platforms, and in the general environment where ROI and CPM (Cost Per Mille) visualization are required, the data of Xiaohongshu is not easy to recover.

Perhaps also because it is aware of its limited traffic advantage, a person close to Xiaohongshu said that in addition to the "pure buying volume effect thinking" and the "high-end brand promotion" in game publicity, there is another possibility, that is, seeding. Through word-of-mouth to convey the product value, stimulate user demand, and influence consumption decisions. He said, "At the current stage, Xiaohongshu is not very suitable for directly using buying volume advertising materials + CPA, ROI and other indicators to view the final marketing effect."

Not to mention the specific seeding effect of Xiaohongshu on games, under the shadow of the large traffic and short conversion link of Douyin and Kuaishou, it is not easy for Xiaohongshu to open up a new settlement path.

Previously, 36Kr also reported that for a long time, merchants wanted to know exactly how the "seeding" effect on Xiaohongshu is, and they could only find out by checking the search growth on other platforms such as Taobao and JD.com after the placement.

In addition, although Xiaohongshu is indeed gradually becoming an excellent publicity and distribution position for otome games, the efficiency in expansion and conversion is questionable. More often, existing otome game users share and interact in the relevant circles of the platform.

Just as an otome game user said, she often uses Xiaohongshu to browse otome game content because Xiaohongshu is the social media she uses the most. In fact, "I don't have much feeling for the publicity and distribution of games on Xiaohongshu."

A more open ecosystem and expanding the game track are the definite directions for Xiaohongshu, but before that, Xiaohongshu needs to verify that it can turn potential into strength.