In Honor of Kings top-up mode, VIP privileges are directly correlated with honor of kings top up behavior. Tencent official statistics indicate that in 2023, the proportion of players who have VIP V8 (cumulative recharge of 5,000 yuan) is 12%, and its ARPU (average revenue per user) is 3 times that of non-VIP players, up to 450 yuan per month. V8 gamers can receive special skins (such as “Wu Zetian Nyx Oracle”), 10% coupon rebates each month, and preferential treatment in matches, such privileges boost VIP user retention rate to 89%, while the figure of ordinary users is 54%.
Third-party payment platforms publicize VIP privilege by cooperative actions. For example, in 2023, wechat Pay released the “V4 acceleration package for charging up to 648 yuan”, and the VIP user growth rate reached 25% during the activity, 78% of which upgraded their VIP level to V5 by honor of kings top up (cumulative amount of 1,000 yuan). Alipay launched the “double noble points” campaign at the same period, which doubled the efficiency of VIP points exchange skin by 40%, and the user’s daily recharge peak exceeded 120 million yuan, reaching 18% of the month’s water.
There are clear differences in regional operation strategy. In the Southeast Asian market, during the “Free Fire Co-branding Activity” campaign in 2023, the “Free co-branding skin” reward for VIP5 and above customers was added, which achieved a 62% month-to-month increase in the local recharge value. European players with Battle Pass VIP Edition (priced at 25 euros) will receive additional 30% bonus in Battle experience, 50% faster quest completion, and reduced skin unlock time to 14 days (other players take 21 days).
Technically, Tencent adopts a dynamic risk control model for ensuring VIP account security. In 2023, the anti-fraud system of the latest version captures unusual top-ups (e.g., 648 yuan orders more than 5 times a day), 3.5%, and the misjudgment rate is less than 0.1%, so the accuracy rate of VIP privilege release is 99.9%. At the same time, the matching mechanism is optimized by the AI algorithm according to the VIP level, and the fluctuation range of the win rate of players’ ranking at and above V7 is lowered from ±15% to ±5%, and the game experience of high paying users is improved.
Activity cycle design also supports VIP growth. At the “fifth anniversary celebration” activity in 2023, VIP members with an aggregate recharge over 2,000 yuan can enjoy a special effect “Phoenix Qihuang” limited return to the city, and the record peak recharge of 780 million yuan within the first week of the activity increased by 45%. Furthermore, the opening rate of the average VIP exclusive “monthly treasure chest” epic skin is 8.5%, 3.7 times as high as the non-VIP treasure chest’s (2.3%), such that 60% of the VIP users retained the habit of a over 300 yuan recharge every month.
According to Sensor Tower’s report, in 2023, 60% of the water was accounted for by “King of Glory” VIP players, 34% of the game revenue as a whole being privilege-related income. By virtue of the intensive interaction between honor of kings top up and VIP mechanism, Tencent was able to push the LTV (life cycle value) of wealthy net worth users to 12,000 yuan, and validated the efficiency of the “paid-privilege-viscosity” business model, while also boosting the DAU (daily active users) in Q4 2023 by 11% year-over-year.