We asked you on social media to ask us a few questions you have about the WeChat mini games and you delivered. We want to share with you some of the biggest questions and give you the answers.
1. As an individual developer, can I use an external payment system instead of the WeChat Game payment system? Also, is there any issues with Cocos and WeChat payment services?
About payment systems: I don't think WeChat allows you to use outside purchasing. However, this is certainly not the result that the WeChat game team hopes to see.
Some have asked are western developers able to use the payment systems as well. We have seen that WeChat has allowed western developers to start signing up for the service, but we are still looking into if they could use in-app purchase. Contact us if you want more information on the subject.
About Cocos and WeChat Payment services: This kind of payment SDK is just a simple SDK call. I believe that there will be no issues, including other engines, because it is simple to use.
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of WeChat games? How to circumvent the problems?
The advantage lies in its massive user base, its social gameplay, and the traffic cost will be minimal. At present, if you want to cause virality, it may be easier to implement on a large social platform such as Facebook, WeChat, and QQ.
The current disadvantage may still lie in the understanding of the characteristics of non-players. I think most of the WeChat game users are probably not gamers in the traditional sense. Like many of the popular games on Facebook, look towards appealing but straightforward gameplay.
3. At present, more than a dozen mini game that have been launched are mainly based on light casual gameplay. How do you view the development potential and prospects of hardcore online games in WeChat?
First of all, you can see the development is the same as PC games in China in the early years. Starting from casual games (stealing food and grabbing parking spaces, attacking landlords), and then cultivating users to a certain extent before slowly having more complex games appear. The same is true for mobile games. Don't think about jumping into hardcore games on the first day.
Secondly, many players in WeChat games are non-game players, and they may be very intimidated if they only see hardcore games. If it is a hardcore game player, why should he play a mini game? How many of the mini game users are hardcore players? Why do hardcore players play WeChat games instead of traditional MMORPG apps? What are the reasons? This is now a question that needs to be explored and explored some more. In fact, even Facebook Instant Games are currently mainly composed of casual games.
4. The WeChat mini game has stricter restrictions on the initial package size. How to break this limit?
The packet size was improved to 8MB. However, if you can load the 4MB initial package + 10MB of resources in the first scene, the loading speed will be slow, but your code will load with no problem. We also recommend to try to control the size of the first scene, and gradually load more resources in the game to provide users with a progressive loading game experience.
5. How much memory should we be using when building a WeChat mini game?
This requires looking at the hardware of the user's mobile phone. What developers can do is try to limit memory usage and hold it from growing above a specific peak. I think it is safer to limit below 100MB. HTML5 games are generally confined within 150M and 200M. They can run above this, but it is not safe. Android general memory will be larger than Apple's memory, so test Apple mobile phones, especially the iPhone 6. If there is no crash, basically it is OK.
6. WeChat Mini Game does not allow foreign games to be released, how could I launch my WeChat Mini Game?
Yes, it's true. Hope that overseas mini-games can be released on WeChat directly one day. For now, finding an excellent local publisher and using a suitable developer engine is best.
