Beijing does not hide its aversion to video games, which it accuses of perverting the country’s youth. However, one of them recently managed to find its audience. It is Sheep a Sheepa free game integrated into the very popular WeChat social network.
The principle of Sheep a Sheep Is simple. Internet users must identify and group cards with the same symbols, all related to the agricultural world, in a nod to the name of the game. Once this task is completed, they win a crazy-looking sheep and join a virtual herd with other players in their area. On paper, nothing too complicated.
But things get considerably tougher when gamers take it to the next level. The game then reaches such a level of difficulty that only 0.1% of the Chinese who have already played it have managed to win this round, according to Jing Daily. The complexity of this second part greatly contributes to the popularity of the mini-game in the Middle Kingdom.
The taste of the challenge
More than 60 million Chinese have already played it, out of a taste for the challenge. Some even spend whole nights trying to get to the third and final level of the game-phenomenon. This virality is making headlines for Jianyou Technology, the Chinese start-up that developed Sheep a Sheep. She has set up a system that requires players to watch short video ads to earn tools that will help them complete the three different levels of the game. They can also get them by sharing posts related to Sheep a Sheep on Chinese social networks like Weibo and WeChat.
The attraction of Sheep a Sheep also lies in the fact that it is accessible for free on WeChat, the messaging application of the powerful group Tencent. However, players must register by indicating their name and the number of their identity card, according to The Global Times. A registration process that some Internet users view with a very dim view.
Despite this, more and more of them are trying to Sheep a Sheep. This great success will not fail to inspire other developers to create similar “free to play” (“free”) games, especially since they are not subject to the same constraints from the Chinese authorities. than the rest of the country’s gaming industry. Their challenge, however, is to be profitable over the long term. “Maintaining the popularity of this game depends on the ability of its developer team to provide alternative ways to play and make it more social“, explained Zhang Yi, CEO of the iiMedia Research Institute, to the *Global Times*.