Netease’s party platformer Eggy Party is huge in China, and on course to hit $1bn in lifetime revenue according to Niko Partners. But can it succeed in the west? The Fall/Stumble Guys-style party platformer launched globally on February 23, so we’re about to find out.
Niko Partners’ director of research and insights Daniel Ahmad tells us that in China it attracted a record 40m DAUs during this year’s Chinese New Year period, up from 30m over the same time in 2023. It was also the 12th most streamed game on video platforms Douyu, Huya and Bilibili over the period.
“Eggy Party is set to be the latest Netease title to surpass $1 billion in lifetime revenue,” Ahmad tells us. “Eggy Party’s success has come from perfecting its platformer battle royale gameplay loop and building additional social and UGC features on top.”
Netease has earmarked ~$70m to pay creators and run UGC-powered tournaments recently, says Ahmad, and has hosted crossovers with over 40 different IPs and brands in the past year to further widen its reach.
“Eggy Party’s advantage has always been its social and UGC tools which it has had since launch and continually refined over the past two years,” adds Ahmad. “Stumble Guys has only recently launched its own UGC tools and still has a lot to prove in that regard.”
The game’s global launch means that it is now head-to-head with Scopely’s Stumble Guys – though Naavik consulting partner Jordan Phang says Netease has much grander ambitions than party platforming.
“Eggy Party is not a Stumble Guys competitor, it’s aiming much higher than that,” Phang tells us. “It has much more depth in all of its systems, from characters that have equipable abilities and upgradeable stats, special items in the levels (think Mario Kart items), a shared hub space called Eggy Island, a large variety of genuinely different game modes and more.”
“Where it really stands out is the meta, and giving players a reason to stick around after they get bored with the same old maps,” says Phang.
“Netease is attempting to create a – dare I say it – metaverse here, and is competing for mindshare not against Stumble Guys but against Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite.”
Phang says Eggy Party originally began life as a UGC platform back in 2019, rather then a Fall Guys fast-follow. “The team chose the party royale gameplay to use as its hook,” he adds.
“Whether it can succeed in the west is still up in the air – I encountered mainly Chinese players and bots in my journeys – but it’s done a damn good job to give it a great shot.”
Former King, Electric Square and Bear Hug designer Tom Froud, who runs product design consultancy Ludoforma, says Eggy Party has a good chance of snatching some of Stumble Guys’ market share. Though western players aren’t as used to the complexity inherent in many of the games that come out of China like Eggy Party.
“It’s very accessible but there is often a misconception that casual players want something more complicated, or are ready for a greater variety of mechanics in their games,” Froud tells us. “In the Chinese market player expectations are different, complexity and a huge raft of goal and reward systems are welcome and key for engagement. But I’m not convinced that’s true for western players. It can often just feel overwhelming.”
He adds that despite some overly-complex UI/UX and meta systems, Eggy Party’s incredible wealth of events, updates and UGC content puts it ahead of Scopely’s Stumble Guys as a product overall. Though the extra depth in its core gameplay “could easily alienate more casual players.”
“There’s loads going on here, it’s a wild game,” says Froud. “Casual, party, competitive, battle royale, with a cosmetic fuelled collection meta and tonnes of seasonal content including narrative, a myriad of reward tracks and then UGC on top of that.”
“Aesthetically it fits the target audience who I’d assume are teens who play social battle royale, party casual-competitive games – Fortnite, Among Us, Roblox, Stumble Guys and so on.”
Eggy Party is monetised through gacha pulls for items and cosmetics plus a battle pass linked to seasonal content. Your progression as a player is ranked in ‘Trendiness’, a system linked to your avatar’s cosmetics – a “genius” move, says Froud. “Basically the more cosmetics you have the ‘trendier’ you are…for the target audience it’s a major factor and keys into social factors very directly.”
Eggy Party highlights the ‘trendiest’ players at the start of each round to reinforce the notion, though trendiness does not affect performance.
Gacha pulls and battle pass content also centre on cosmetics and “loop right back into key motivators,” adds Froud. “But whilst Eggy Party has the gacha component over Stumble Guys in addition to the battle pass, that isn’t necessarily something that will resonate well in the west.”
Eggy Party’s success has not gone unnoticed by Netease’s local rival Tencent, which launched its own party platformer DreamStar in China late last year. Tencent has not said anything about bringing the game to the west yet, though.
