Sheep A Sheep: A new elimination game on WeChat takes China by storm

Every Chinese super-app has a mini-game tucked away in its offering.  Gamification features like player status ranking and luck-of-the-draw mechanisms pervades the tech UX.

Animal Crossing has attracted millions of players during the lockdown. The cartoon game allows users to socialize, trade virtual assets, accommodate tech conferences, bully digital likenesses, and host a wedding in a digital world.

View Chinese tech world from a set of starting conditions: rules of the game that then affect actions of the players.  In China, these were having mobile as the default installation base, a rich heritage of free-to-play (F2P) developers and a large time-rich but cash-poor population who want to consume entertainment.

Tophatter’s games are reminiscent of the mini-games that have appeared for the past few years on Chinese e-commerce apps. One of the earliest examples is Alipay’s “Ant Forest,” which was launched in 2016, and gives users points that they can use to plant virtual trees each time they pay for, say, public transit. Most other mini-games, however, have... See more

A modern darling of edutainment that is a big public success would be Duolingo. Their focus on gamification is deeply studied and widely appreciated. In an interview the founder was asked about the conflict between gamification/engagement and education. To which Luis (founder and ceo of Duolingo) responded they always pick gamification/engagement i... See more