Free honor of kings top up coupons can be acquired by players in Honor of Kings via campaign operations and strategy participation. Official data of Tencent shows that in 2023, the rate of user participation in the “daily check-in” behavior in the game has already achieved 89%, and 60 coupons are available for 7 consecutive days, and the total amount of free coupon annually is around 3120 coupons (about 312 yuan). In addition, in the “anniversary limited task” activity, users can trade 100 points for 10 qualified matches completed, and the ratio of task completion is more than 75% in 2023, and the total issuance of more than 230 million points, occupying 4.6% of the entire-year recharge volume.
Third-party platform cooperation is a significant source of free coupons. For example, Alipay’s “Game welfare zone” introduced “recharge rebate” activity in 2023, when customers could receive 15 yuan point coupons by recharging 100 yuan. For the period of the activity, more than 8 million coupons were issued, and the volume of orders for honor of kings top up through Alipay channel increased 37%. Meanwhile, wechat Pay randomly dispenses random coupons (5-50 coupons) through the “shake” activity with a daily average of 12 million participants and the cancellation rate of coupons reaching 92% to save players about 120 million yuan in top-up fees each month.
Social interaction and event connection provide high value redemption chances. Huya Live broadcast in 2023 KPL (King Glory Professional League) during the “watch game coupon” activity opening, 2 hours of watching can be used to redeem 50 coupons, released more than 5 million coupons during the activity, elevated user retention rate by 28%. In addition, Tencent issued the “creative content incentive Plan” on station B officially, players can get 50-200 coupons when they post good-quality game videos, 126,000 pieces of content were analyzed in 2023, the number of coupons sent was 6.3 million, the rate of creators’ recharge conversion reached 41%.
Probabilistic mechanics in game and quest design maximize the effectiveness of getting free coupons. For instance, in the “Battle order system,” the free battle provides players with a maximum of 300 points worth of unlocking via upgrading, and the free battle covers 68% of users in 2023 with a per-capita median of 240 points. For the “Lucky Hero Treasure Chest” activity, players can get 1-10 points after completing 3 matching matches per day, and the average player gets 82 points in the activity cycle with a standard deviation of 12.5 and an error rate of below 3%.
There are huge differences in regional operation strategies. Southeast Asian market introduced the “login to send 100 points coupons” during the 2023 “Free Fire Co-signed activity”, and the new users increased 55% in the first week versus last quarter, and the European players can obtain 20 points per week as an average from the “Battle Pass Weekly task”, and the cost recovery rate is 30% higher than the direct recharge. In addition, Tencent uses an AI-based risk control system to detect abnormal accounts in real time (e.g., script behaviors earning more than 5 times in a day, taking up 1.2%), ensuring that the accuracy of free voucher issuing rate is up to 99.8%, and the interception rate of fraud increases up to 96.5%.
In short, through participating in activities, connecting platforms and optimizing tasks, players can obtain free honor of kings top-up coupons worth more than 500 yuan annually, which is 41.6% of the annual top-up expense of normal players (approximately 1,200 yuan). According to Sensor Tower’s report, the above strategies have resulted in the “King of Glory” revenue in 2023 growing 18% year over year, of which growth from user engagement caused by free coupons is responsible for 26%, verifying the efficacy of the “welfare for retention” business model.
