Introduction
Black cards, exchange rate differences, guilds (recharge discount merchants), malicious refunds, 36 technology, those Apple game recharge businesses that are repeatedly banned and continuously updated.
On July 12, 2017, Taobao released an announcement on its official forum titled "Notice on Control of IOS Recharge Service Products". The announcement stated: Due to the long-term existence of many transaction disputes and rights protection complaints in IOS recharge services, there are high transaction risks for both buyers and sellers. Therefore, Taobao will remove virtual products including but not limited to "IOS, Apple, recharge, mobile game recharge, in-app purchase, ID recharge, gift cards, etc."
Judging from the content of the announcement, Taobao is determined to rectify or warn the current mixed virtual goods providers. For a long time, a large number of merchants on Taobao have provided users with low-cost Apple game recharge services, and some recharge discounts are as low as 40%, which is far better than the best price provided by game manufacturers. Under the temptation of low prices, a large number of users choose Taobao recharge merchants to recharge their games. But where do the low prices come from? How do game recharges make a profit? What kind of profit chain is behind it?
Black card: a long-standing "dying" but not dead yet
Black card recharge, in simple terms, is to use illegal credit cards to recharge games. As early as 2010, game companies had 80% to 90% bad debts due to black cards. In 2012, black cards caused considerable damage to the iOS application ecosystem.
It is reported that "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils 3D" was launched on the US App Store at the end of October 2014. Its ranking on the best-selling list has always fluctuated between 1000 and 250, and the highest is only 91. However, since January 8, 2015, the ranking of "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils 3D" has risen sharply, and it has been ranked in the top ten of all categories in the US App Store. The reason for this is the US dollar black card. In order to avoid the possibility of recharge bad debts and Apple's misjudgment of cheating, Changyou immediately decided to permanently remove "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils 3D" from the App Store in the United States, Russia and other countries and regions.
If the in-game transactions made with the black card are discovered by Apple, they will be withdrawn and Apple will not settle with the developer. At the same time, Apple will block the recharge user account.
At present, with the diversification of payment methods in the domestic App Store, the crackdown by Apple and game manufacturers, and the efforts of all parties, the situation of simple black card recharge in China has improved, but it has not been completely eliminated.
Apple 36 technology: no countermeasures for nothing
The 36 technique refers to the use of Apple's loophole of not verifying small payments to achieve "free" recharges through virtual credit card payments. Since the largest recharge method in the industry is to divide the recharge amount of 648 yuan into 18 30 yuan and 1 6 yuan, it is called the "36 technique".
Generally speaking, when users purchase goods or services on the App Store, Apple will first verify it at the bank, then send a confirmation notice to the goods or service provider, and the manufacturer will then ship the goods. However, Apple does not require verification for small credit card purchases. Therefore, after the order is confirmed, Apple will first notify the CP to recharge the game, and then when the credit card is deducted, no money will be deducted. However, the CP has already paid out the money in the game, so it becomes a bad debt.
According to the above operation mode, the previous credit card can only be used once, which does not have any operating space and operation significance for the order swiping personnel. However, the use of virtual credit cards is different. Generally speaking, one credit card can register multiple virtual credit cards, and these virtual credit cards can be cancelled after being used for small amount swiping. Then re-register multiple virtual credit cards to perform batch operations.
According to relevant reports, the mobile game "Wendao" was swiped into bad debts due to this loophole last year, with a loss of nearly 3 million. Mobile games such as "Honor of Kings", "Naruto", "Royal War", "Saint Seiya – Rebirth", and "Dragon Ball Fighter" have also experienced swiping orders, and some games have even been swiped about 500,000 yuan in a single day. Apple 36 will also cause certain economic losses to Apple itself, which has to split the accounts. At present, Apple and manufacturers split the accounts in a ratio of 3:7, and Apple will also bear 30% of the losses for a bad debt. However, on this issue, Apple said: After weighing the pros and cons, this problem is relatively large only in China, and the losses caused by the loophole are not enough to make Apple abandon the user experience. Therefore, even if the loophole is discovered, no countermeasures have been introduced.
Currently, 36 technology can be seen everywhere on the Internet. As of the time of publication, the author has obtained 8.85 million relevant results by searching "Apple 36 technology" on Baidu. There are also thousands of posts related to it in Baidu Post Bars "Apple 36 Bar" and "Apple Technology Bar", and related QQ groups can also be found with a single search.
Guild (recharge discount merchant): reduced to a recharge platform holding the channel's hand
In the era of mobile games, guilds bypassed manufacturers and established direct connections with channels, becoming recharge discount merchants. Some channels would provide guilds with special clients, and in order to attract guilds, they would offer rebate activities for guilds. Some channels could give guilds a rebate of up to 50%. However, the cooperation between the two is not always pleasant.
In 2016, DangLe blocked several accounts that enjoyed low-discount recharges through guilds. This was mainly because some guilds recharged platform coins through low-discount games and then used them to recharge other relatively more expensive games. In order to recover the losses, DangLe immediately blocked these recharge accounts.
On the one hand, due to the profit-seeking nature of merchants, guild recharge agents will inevitably take advantage of the above recharge loopholes to obtain more profits, and the ones who suffer in the end are often the ordinary players who paid the guild. On the other hand, after the false prosperity and short-term high turnover are over, the product returns to normal, and a large number of users obtained through rebates are lost, causing a rapid decrease in turnover, which can easily kill the product. For large CPs, new products can be used to replace them, but for small and medium CPs, without fast iterative products, it is easy to kill small CPs.
Account creation and refund: Account creation, recharge, order placement, and refund process are closely linked
Among all the low-cost charging industries, the most annoying thing for manufacturers is the refund for fake accounts. Apple App Store adopts different refund policies according to different regions: EU region, 14 days unconditional refund; Taiwan, China, 7 days unconditional refund; China and most other countries, 90 days conditional refund. Apple handles application and content refund applications on a case-by-case basis.
Taking advantage of the loopholes in the above rules, recharge agents attract customers to place orders at prices lower than the official ones. For example, the official recharge price of a mobile game is 648 yuan, but it only costs 548 yuan through recharge agents, which is equivalent to 15% off. Recharge agents require buyers to provide the corresponding game account and password when placing an order. After obtaining the information provided by the buyer, they use their own cards to recharge at the official price. After the buyer obtains the corresponding game product, he confirms the payment to the seller. After receiving the payment, the recharge agent uses multiple refund applications to the Apple App Store on the grounds of "the product has not been received" and "the child clicked the wrong purchase" to make a profit.
In Apple's judgment, bad debts caused by refunds are considered "valid orders", and Apple will also take a 30% share of this part. So after the manufacturer suffers the loss of refunds, it still has to pay Apple 30% of the refund.
In 2014, the revenue of Fengji Games' mobile game "Three Swordsmen" dropped sharply due to Apple's refund, and bad debts showed an explosive growth trend. Fengji's CEO once said that the partial refund rate was as high as 40%, with the highest reaching US$60,000 in a week. Due to the refund storm, they could only get back 55% from Apple.
Exchange rate difference: Exchange rate fluctuations reveal loopholes and losses are entirely borne by manufacturers
Apple's exchange rate design is relatively fixed, and compared with the volatility of global exchange rates, it often cannot keep up with the pace of change. This has become a huge business opportunity in the eyes of game recharge merchants. For example, the South African Rand is a currency issued by the South African Reserve Bank and was officially issued in February 1961. As an economy with a huge deficit, the currency trend of the South African Rand is quite fragile. In 2013, due to the Federal Reserve's launch of the loose monetary policy exit mechanism at the end of the year, South Africa, which has been undergoing a relatively slow economic structural transformation since the subprime mortgage crisis, was hit hard and the South African Rand continued to depreciate. At this time, recharge merchants began to purchase South African gift cards in large quantities to recharge for domestic users and earn exchange rate differences.
Apple is not completely inactive in dealing with this problem. In January 2016, it raised prices in South Africa, Mexico and other countries due to exchange rate fluctuations, but the rapidly changing international exchange rate cannot completely fix the problem. As long as it does not synchronize with the international exchange rate, the exchange rate loophole will continue to exist for a long time, and the costs incurred will only be borne by game manufacturers.
Prediction: Taobao’s announcement contains more warnings than actual implementation
As early as December 30, 2016, Taobao officially issued a statement saying that starting from February 1, it would ban the release and sale of Apple App Store recharge cards on Taobao. However, as of press time, the author still found nearly 4 pages of results by searching "App Store recharge cards" on Taobao, and sales have been very high recently.
Similarly, I searched for "game recharge" on Taobao and found more than 100 pages of related products. Based on the implementation of previous Taobao announcements and the current specific situation, I think the possibility of strict implementation of this announcement is extremely low, and it is mainly a warning. ■
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