In the honor of kings top up service of “Honor of Kings”, the official and third-party platforms often optimize the cost-performance of players’ recharges through the “additional token” system. For example, Tencent’s official “Anniversary Celebration” activity in 2023: for first-time recharge players, they can get 100% additional points. For instance, reloading 6,480 points (worth $99.99) can be rewarded with a bonus of 6,480 points, and the effective unit price drops to $0.0077 per point, a reduction of 48.7% from the regular price ($0.015 per point). Regional discounts are offered by third-party platforms. For instance, one specific agent in Southeast Asia launched a “Get 1,200 points for every 5,000 points spent” promotion during the “Double Eleven” season. The net of 6,200 points actually obtained was only 58 US dollars, sold at 0.0094 US dollars per point, which was 37% lower than the official price during non-promotion periods.
Technically, compliance platform is linked with Tencent’s profit distribution system through API. For instance, because a service provider linked to Tencent’s promotion interface in 2022, it was able to synchronize the rules of activity in real time in just 90 seconds, instead of the former 15 minutes of manual handling, with 900% efficiency increase and reduced error rate from 3.5% when handled manually to 0.08%. According to the “White Paper on Mobile Game Payment Technology” data, orders processed through these systems account for 39% of the world’s honor of kings top up revenue and the average amount of additional points won by players increased by 21%. In Q3 2023, Brazilian gamers who recharged $100 through Codashop and availed of “region-exclusive benefits” were entitled to gain an additional 18% points. The amount actually received was 11,800 points, 1,800 points higher than the official channel.
The regional pricing strategy also increases the rebate effect. Consider the Turkish region as an example. The exchange rate of the lira (TRY) against the US dollar fell to 26.6:1 in August 2023. A certain platform exploited the arbitrage opportunity and priced 6,480 points at 720 TRY (around 27 US dollars). After the inclusion of the “10% back for US dollar payment” promotion, players could really get 7,128 points when they paid 24.3 US dollars. The unit price is as low as $0.0034 per point, with a saving of 77% compared to the official price in the US region. Sensor Tower reports that such local discounts have led to the revenue of “Honor of Kings” in the Latin American region to increase by 54% in 2023. Repurchase rate reached 71% among Mexican players, and single recharge value, on average, increased from $28 to $52.
Risk cases show that “extra tokens” on illicit channels can be combined with account risk. In 2021, there was a “black card proxy recharge” cheating case in South Korea. Robbers lured 23,000 accounts for “50% refund for recharge” by using stolen credit cards, and Tencent’s ban rate reached 41% and more than 5 million US dollars were lost by players. The compliance platform, through being ISO 27001 certified and being authorized by Tencent, keeps the possibility of account suspension below 0.1%. For instance, a certain platform adopted a bulk purchase program with prepaid cards, and 12% of savings with return of 8% of that in the shape of “reward points”. The recharge of 100 US dollars earned 10,800 points, and there was a 99.9% success rate.
From a payment optimization aspect, users are able to achieve the most benefit from extra tokens through combination strategies. As a concrete example, using PayPal to tie your Visa card to take advantage of the platform’s “15% free for all $100 spend” and then matching it with the bank’s “5% cashback on cross-border spending”, you end up paying $95 for 12,420 points at an average rate of a combined $0.0076 per point, which saves you 24% compared to utilizing the sole official channel. According to the 2023 Global Game Payment Report, the US dollar recharge error rate has reduced from the standard rate of the industry of 2.8% to 0.7%. Some platforms have controlled exchange rate fluctuation loss within 0.3% through AI dynamic hedging, thus ensuring players’ supplementary token purchase error rate is ≤1.5%.
In short, purchasing additional tokens for honor of kings top up relies on three strategies: official activities, regional arbitrage, and payment optimization. Players need to choose an authorized platform of Tencent and PCI DSS certified to keep the account risk level below 0.1%, and set the best exchange rate by real-time comparative price (error rate ≤0.5%) to achieve an extreme cost-performance ratio of ≤0.003 US dollars per point, such that the arrival rate of incoming tokens is ≥99.5%.