TapTap

Description

Google Play and the Apple App Store dominate the distribution of games for mobile, charging 30 percent of every transaction and determining which games are allowed to be distributed. For game developers — especially smaller game development studios and Chinese developers releasing their games globally — those policies presented barriers: content restrictions, slow approval timelines, and the revenue reduction on free-to-play games that make money through in-app purchases. TapTap forged a different path: a dedicated game platform which charges developers nothing to publish, uses community ratings and forums, not just algorithmic recommendation, to find players, and explicitly identifies itself as a player-friendly alternative to the major stores.

XD Entertainment, a Chinese game developer and publisher established in 2006, released TapTap in 2016 to distribute its own mobile games outside of the Google Play ecosystem and then opened up the platform to third-party developers. The platform went global with the taptap.io, and is different from the Chinese domestic version.

XD Entertainment originally did TapTap as a distribution outlet for its own games, such as Soul Knight and the Critical Ops franchise, to get around the 30 percent cut that Google Play takes on Android. Opening TapTap to outside developers turned it into a market place and the zero commission model appealed to studios that could not justify the revenue share at small scale.

The growth of the platform was accelerated by a community feature that set it apart from Google Play and the App Store: reviews and ratings by verified players who actually downloaded and played the game. TapTap required authentication of the accounts in order to review, which lessened the problem of fake ratings that plagued other platforms where bot-generated reviews could inflate scores. Developers who created real games benefited from being rated honestly, games with misleading advertising got low scores that reflected real player experience.

TapTap also became an early access and beta testing site. Developers published pre-launch versions of the game on TapTap in order to build an audience before official release on the store and gather player feedback as the game was being developed. This access before the game was released attracted some enthusiast users who wanted to play games before the game was available to the general public.

Zero Commission Game Publishing

Developers release games on TapTap without paying any platform commission for in-app purchases. Revenue on purchases goes directly to the developer’s own payment processor. TapTap makes money through advertising and featured placements and partnerships rather than transaction fees. This model makes TapTap financially appealing for developers who sell digital goods inside their games.

Game Discovery

The home feed surfaces games by a combination of editorial recommendation, trending games based on download velocity and rating activity, and personalized recommendation based on play history. Genre browsing, new releases, and top charts help organize the catalog for users who are browsing by category. The discovery system emphasizes community activity — games that have active discussions and recent reviews are more prominent than games with high download counts but dormant communities.

Community and Forums

Each game has a forum section devoted to it, in which players post questions, share strategies, report bugs, and discuss updates. Developers can reply directly in the forum, thus TapTap becomes a communication channel between studios and their player base. The forum system provides TapTap with the community layer that Google Play does not have natively. Players who actively participate in game communities receive contribution points that are displayed in their profiles.

Pre-Registration And Pre-Download

Games in development can list on TapTap for pre-registration, where interested players can register interest in installing the game before it is released. Pre-registration counts to signal player interest to developers, and in some cases, unlock in-game rewards upon game launch. Pre-download lets players download a game before its official release date so they have it ready to play at the official launch date without having to wait.

Wish List and Notifications

Players add the games they wish to play to a wish list and receive notification when the games are updated, released, or have limited events running. Event notifications are used to notify players about time-limited in-game events, which are used to spike engagement in many free-to-play games.

APK Distribution (Android)

On Android, TapTap is an APK installer, which distributes game files directly instead of going through Google Play. Players install the TapTap application which handles the process for downloading, updating, and running games from the TapTap library. This approach works outside the Google Play framework altogether, which means TapTap is able to distribute games that Google Play doesn’t carry, including games that are restricted in certain regions.