The Influence of Social Attribute in Games on Consumers - The Example of The Phone Game "Honor of Kings"

. With the continuous development of the gaming industry, more and more manufacturers are joining the competition in the gaming industry. This study takes "Honor of Kings" as an example and proposes a novel factor that influences game consumers - social attributes. The study focuses on two aspects: 'Why it has social attributes' and 'How social attributes affect consumers'. It gives players an understanding of the concept of social attributes and provides game manufacturers with a novel direction to improve the revenue of their games.


INTRODUCTION
In the year 2022, games have become an essential part of people's lives.The gaming market is constantly flooded with games of all kinds, and everyone has different needs for games (i.e.what they want to get out of them).Some people want the adrenaline-pumping thrill of competition, others want to experience a period in the life of a character in a game that makes a difference, and some want to satisfy their social needs through gaming.
In recent years, due to the increase in the influence of China's online games and the rapid growth of the domestic economy, the online game market system has been further improved and expanded, showing a rapid development trend.According to the analysis of survey data, the high popularity of smart terminals in 2016 led to a surge in Chinese handheld game users, with the total number of users reaching 523 million, [8] while the time spent by mobile phone users in mobile games is also growing.According to the market research on user payment, 75.6% of internet users have experienced handheld games, of which 53.2% have paid for handheld games, in addition, 44.8% of internet users can accept a payment amount of less than RMB50.[2] This article will focus on the recent years.This article will focus on the recent fire of the handheld game " Honor of Kings" to analyze what it brings to consumers to make it a breakout game.During the rapid development of the Internet, the handicraft market is very competitive, and a variety of new handicraft games are emerging, but "Honor of Kings" always occupies half of the handicraft world.According to the most recent official statistics of the game, that is, on 25.12.2019,there were 640 million players in total.According to Aurora's statistics, as of March 2020, Glory of Kings remains the mobile game with the most users reached, with a penetration rate of 17.7%.[8] First of all, I would like to introduce myself, I consider myself is a senior game enthusiast, and because the type of games played is very diverse, so it is more convenient to compare the advantages and disadvantages of different types of games and different experiences, " Honor of Kings" this game I have been playing since 2016, is already 6 years of old players, 2016 "Honor of Kings" the scale and influence of completely It is not possible to compare with today, I also considered to watch this game step by step up.The reason this game is hot, some say it's the beautiful game graphics, some say it's the interesting gameplay, they all have a point, but many games can do both, and what really separates "Honor of Kings"from other games -The Strong Social Attributes.
This claim is not an empty and unfounded one.The publishing company for "Honor of Kings"is Tencent, one of China's leading internet giants, which has used the huge user base of both QQ and WeChat to register and promote the game, making it a national game that everybody knows about, and making social attributes ubiquitous in the game.The login method for Tencent games can only be chosen from QQ or WeChat.This login setting also reflects the influence of Tencent's official platform from the side.This semi-compulsory model is a linkage of the three Tencent products.It also brings convenience to those users who do not yet have other ways of registering and logging in.From the very beginning, Tencent's games have a large pool of potential users, and win at the starting line compared to their contemporaries.

From the point of view of attracting consumers to join
In the beginning, the game was mainly played by fans of Moba game, MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) is a multiplayer online battle arena game.In a MOBA game, players are usually divided into two camps of equal numbers and control their chosen characters in the same interface.As the game progresses, players fight, upgrade and buy equipment to increase their combat power, and win the game by killing the enemy and destroying the opponent's home base.[6] But with the slogan "Bring your friends and family to play " and the fact that a game lasts for about ten minutes, It has become a way for people to "relax" after a stressful school day.At the same time, it has reduced the difficulty of playing and weakened the differences between players' levels.In today's fast-paced and fragmented era, it is less accessible, less difficult and more convenient, thus attracting the attention and participation of more players.[4] the game once became a representative of people passing their time.So one by one, there are increasingly non-Moba fans in the game and diverse composition.
To the author's surprise is the fact that female account for 40% of the game's players, and Moba games have always been one of the more competitive genres.By lowering the difficulty of the game, the extremely low registration threshold of being able to register via QQ and WeChat, the synchronization of game friends with WeChat friends, and the large number of women's leagues with high prizes, "Honor of Kings" has attracted a large number of female players.Even if you don't play the game, you might download it because you want to see how your friends are playing, and the addition of female players brings in a large group of non-Moba fans (such as male friends and girlfriends), creating a very good virtuous circle, and the game community continues to expand.When the gaming community has reached a large size, there is a social psychology involved -The Effect of Sheep Flock."The Effect of Sheep Flock" originally refers to a phenomenon in which animals move in herds for migration, foraging and other activities; extended to the human sphere, the herd effect refers to the degree of consistency in perception or behaviour exhibited by individuals within a group without the need for centralised coordination, simply through learning and imitation, and following the ideas or behaviour of the masses, also known as the "conformity".According to a survey by Jingxin Si, "35.79% of players started playing the game so they could play with their friends and so they wouldn't fall behind.[7] Many players choose to join the game in order to be able to communicate with their friends around them in a timely manner, hoping to have common topics of interest with them and maintain their friendship with each other."Honor of Kings", on the other hand, has turned into an advanced version of a social media platform that not only inherits the functions of traditional social media, but also allows players to communicate and collaborate with each other during the game, enjoy playing together, and at the same time share experiences and tips after the game.
When all your friends are playing the game, you may play it out of Crowd mentality, to have more to talk about with your friends, out of curiosity, or even out of fear of being isolated.Whatever the reason, the end result is that the game's audience is growing.

From the point of view of stimulating consumer spending
The game "Honor of Kings" does not generate profit, but mainly through the sale of in-game resources and items, such as: game heroes, game skins, back to the city effects, defeat effects, canopy effects and so on.The social aspect plays a very important role in this.

Comparing Mentality
Honor of Kings"is a 5v5 online Moba game, where comparing exists wherever there are people.The object of comparison can be skill, awareness, or skins.It has to be said that the skins of "Honor of Kings"are indeed very beautifully made, and the difference between them and the native skins is very large.This difference is reflected in the appearance animation, the game voice, the kill screen and many other aspects.This is where the skin experience card mechanism of "Honor of Kings"comes into play, sending you some skin experience cards from time to time, making it difficult to use the bland native skins when you're used to them.We are talking about the phenomenon of social comparing, if your friends have those cool skins, shine brightly in the game, you will also have a strong desire to buy , this psychology does not want to not as good as others without a little control, it is easy to form a vicious comparing, develop a mentality of "I also want what everyone else has", so a lot of purchase of skin, after you buy the skin, the game will also give you the noble label, The more skins you buy, the higher your noble rank will be, and the higher your noble rank will be, the higher the noble reward will be, fully satisfying the vanity of the game players and thus gaining a lot of revenue.

Game intimacy and game relationships
The intimacy setting of "Honor of Kings" is a very clever design.The game will give your teammates a corresponding intimacy for each game you play, and the intimacy can be given to "couple", "best friend" and other labels at a certain stage, and The label is displayed in the game.The game will also give you rewards and intimacy titles when you reach a certain level of intimacy.[4] This is a great way to make the most of the social aspect of the game, allowing players to bring all their friends into the game, and to a certain extent, retaining players.Another way to quickly increase your intimacy is to give "flowers", which are given after you have completed some tasks, but if you want to quickly increase your intimacy with a player you can also choose to top up, which brings a lot of money into the game."Honor of Kings" builds on the social features of MOBA games, but also inherits the money power discourse system within its games, i.e. the materialistic relationship between people in reality."Honor of Kings" attracts a large number of players through its advanced version of social features.Driven by the competition mechanism, players are likely to top up and pay for the game, and the existence of giving skins, heroes and topping up for each other in interactions with game friends will make players bring real-life human relationships into the game."Honor of Kings" starts with the social needs of players to monetise the game's capital, which in turn leads to the introduction of more heroes, skins and payment mechanisms that further allow gamers to top up for the game.

Various squad, battle group and war zones systems
The squad and battle group system is an online gaming community where you can play with members of your squad and meet offline if you want to, to widen your social circle.Players can also get to know each other better through their hero choices and gaming habits, which is especially important for weak connections.For those who don't know each other that well, the game offers a 'personality test' that allows you to observe a person in the game: the game is actually a bit like a reallife social game, where you don't always win, so when it comes to issues of interest, people will accommodate each other, and when you lose a lot, people will comfort each other and fight to take the blame.This creates a nice little team dynamic.But when it comes to people who are very concerned about winning or losing, their personalities don't get along and they won't play together in the future.The last thing you need to do is to find out that you have a good personality and that you want to be friends.[9] The game's battle zone system is what I think is the most different from other games, using the positioning system the game can locate where you are playing, it narrows the area down to the district level (e.g.Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province) and you can check the ranking of any of your heroes in the province, city and district.I have never seen a game before that can rank you down to the district level, and this kind of ranking can give you a great sense of achievement and make you want to get a higher ranking, as anyone would want to be at the top of the ranking list.And in this process of taking their favourite hero to the top of the rankings, players will buy skins because of their love for the hero and a better feel for the action, personalised buttons, exclusive moves, etc. out of love for the hero and a better feel for the action.Many people will buy skins for their favourite heroes, even full skins, and what may seem like a design that has nothing to do with spending has actually brought in a lot of revenue for the game.

A variety of holiday and linkage activities
"Honor of Kings" will be held every year according to the characteristics of the holidays to hold holiday activities and skin, I think the most famous of them should be Valentine's Day and the Spring Festival.It's true what they say: " Couples' money is the easiest thing to earn".Couples buy the things they can't afford to buy for each other and are generous with their money when spending for their other half.The "Honor of Kings" has taken advantage of this market for couples and has launched beautiful Valentine's Day skins for Valentine's Day ("The Zunbao Zhi and the Purple Fairy", the "Farewell My Concubine" series is a classic).As long as one of the couple plays "Honor of Kings", two more skins will be sold.It goes without saying that the Chinese New Year is an important event in the hearts of the nation, and in every way it can be considered a state of national celebration, as it is in the gaming world as well.The Chinese New Year activities of "Honor of Kings"are all prepared with some care, sending heroes, skins, vouchers and roll out four to five beautiful skins online.Every year, the Chinese New Year is probably the peak of players' return, and last year's Chinese New Year even saw the horrible phenomenon of topping up vouchers causing the game platform to go down.

A large number of tournaments and live game broadcasts from well-known anchors
With the growing popularity of "Honor of Kings", many official tournaments have been held, such as the "KPL", College Challenge, Women's Challenge Cup, etc.These tournaments attract many ordinary game lovers, and the skilled players can get the prize money for winning the tournament, while the losers can also get a unique memory with their fighting buddies.These tournaments have further increased the popularity of the game.Talking about the spread of the game, we have to talk about the horrible spread and snowballing ability of today's self media era, where anyone can post their own work on the internet and re-post others' work.The game video of some famous anchors who have hundreds of thousands or even millions of fans can even reach ten million plays, Tencent has chosen to cooperate with various live streaming platforms that broadcast professional players' tournaments, and users are beginning to have a certain understanding of the various gameplay and operations of "Honor of Kings", which not only brings huge traffic to Tencent, but also allows live streaming platforms to see a two-way way to attract traffic.theyfurther bring fire to "Honor of Kings", and "Honor of Kings" also let them get a large fan base, in short, "Honor of Kings" brings fire to many game anchors, and the game broadcast of these game anchors is the best publicity for "Honor of Kings".The live broadcast platform has also started to strengthen the handicap section for "Honor of Kings", reaching a winwin cooperation scenario with Tencent by signing up anchors at high prices and holding various game activities.The current "Honor of Kings" tournaments and live game broadcasts are also one of the most popular sections of the major live broadcast platforms, and the development of live broadcast platforms in conjunction with them has brought huge exposure and a large number of players to "Honor of Kings".

Summary
In today's environment, "socialization " is becoming a hot topic, with internet buzzwords such as "social cow" and "social fear" appearing.Socialism is an essential skill for human beings as they are born to live in groups.It allows us to meet a wide variety of people and showcase our abilities and talents in front of others.With the constant advancement of technology, life is becoming more and more convenient, and through takeaways and couriers, we can access a wide range of amenities without having to leave home, leaving us with fewer and fewer occasions and opportunities to social, which is extremely detrimental to the development of our social skills.There is a huge market for online social networking, as most people are afraid to social offline and talk in front of people."Honor of Kings" is a prime example of how to make the most of online social interaction.Compared to online games, the popularity of the internet has given handheld games a huge scope for development.From its emergence to the current explosion of the whole network, "Honor of Kings" has been very successful in terms of both acquiring user groups and marketing methods, and more importantly, it has firmly grasped the needs of users, and the recognition consumers get from the game has brought them satisfaction and pleasure that they cannot get in real life.The marketing model of "Honor of Kings", both in terms of live streaming and offline activities, has provided ideas and methods for later handicraft promotion programmes.This study analyses the impact of social attributes in games on consumers in two dimensions: "attracting consumers to join" and "stimulating consumers' consumption", so that game players can understand the concept of social attributes in games, and it also has certain implications for game manufacturers.It is also useful for game manufacturers to learn from.