WhaleHorn Energy: Helping Game Developers Break Through the Growth "Ceiling"

In 2025, the gaming industry’s rapid progress within the HarmonyOS ecosystem has become a focal point of attention within the industry.

According to official data released by HarmonyOS, the number of devices running HarmonyOS 5 and HarmonyOS 6 has now surpassed 32 million. This untapped market—a veritable blue ocean of traffic—not only injects a fresh influx of users into the gaming industry but also opens up entirely new avenues for developers to reach potential players, thanks to its cross-device, all-scenario interaction capabilities.For game industry professionals eager to break through growth bottlenecks, such opportunities are naturally highly attractive.

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But the more fundamental question behind these opportunities is: How can developers truly capitalize on the growth opportunities within the HarmonyOS ecosystem and convert potential traffic into tangible commercial value?

At the "HarmonyOS Ecosystem User Growth Summit" held on December 16, Tea House found the answer to this question—the key lies in shifting the perspective from "traffic" to "user value."As the all-scenario smart marketing platform for the HarmonyOS ecosystem, Whale Momentum serves as the core enabler of this shift in perspective. Leveraging the platform’s data science and AI capabilities, it enables the precise identification and full lifecycle management of high-value users. By collaborating with Huawei’s own channels, such as the AppGallery and Game Center, it has created a “key” for game developers to unlock growth opportunities within the HarmonyOS ecosystem.

01

Operate Scientifically, Say Goodbye to Growth Anxiety

As the gaming industry enters a phase of more challenging growth, users have become the scarcest core resource, and user acquisition remains the primary method for acquiring them.

The harsh reality is that as competition in the industry continues to intensify, user acquisition costs for developers are rising year by year.According to statistics from Gamma Data, in the first half of 2025, the amount spent on user acquisition by the top 100 domestic mobile games by revenue grew by 86.6% year-over-year, with advertising expenditures exceeding 18 billion yuan. Particularly in popular genres such as casual and SLG games, the cost per user has repeatedly hit new highs, and some small and medium-sized teams have even found themselves in a survival crisis where "revenue is insufficient to cover user acquisition costs."

At the same time, because many developers lack precise user profiling and data attribution capabilities, their advertising strategies often amount to casting a wide net and hoping for the best. Compounded by a severe lack of creativity in ad materials—which often result in homogenized content—they fail to reach their actual target audience. This ultimately leads to significant fluctuations in conversion rates and long-term instability in ROI, with returns failing to match the investment. As a result, “spending money without making a profit” has become the most pressing challenge for developers.

Many teams also allocate excessive resources to user acquisition during the game’s launch and marketing phases, while neglecting the detailed operations required during the subsequent growth and reactivation phases.New users quickly churn after entering the game due to issues such as a lack of in-game activity, while high-value paying users also quietly leave due to the absence of long-term retention and timely reactivation mechanisms. This “acquire-only, no retention” model traps developers in a vicious cycle of “user acquisition—churn—more user acquisition.” User LTV (Lifetime Value) hitting a “ceiling” has also become a long-standing, intractable industry problem.

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The emergence of WhaleHong Energy offers a systematic, data-driven solution—rather than an experience-driven one—to these industry pain points.

Leveraging the HarmonyOS ecosystem’s comprehensive data capabilities and extensive device base, Whale Momentum has established a systematic solution that is both traceable and optimizable. With standardized service processes and precise data attribution at its core, the company has integrated a full-lifecycle operational system covering pre-booking, initial launch, maturity, and recall phases.

Its core value lies in transforming the cross-device scenarios and data assets of the HarmonyOS ecosystem into a user growth "operating system" that guides precise actions. This is not merely a collection of tools, but a growth methodology that shifts the focus from "casting a wide net" to "precision cultivation," designed to help developers achieve predictive operations across the user lifecycle and maximize value extraction.

02

End-to-end operational solutions suitable for all product categories

WhaleHorn's solutions are not one-size-fits-all. The underlying logic is "tailored strategies for each game"—dynamically allocating differentiated resources and strategies based on user behavior patterns and value curves across different game genres. This means that the growth engine can automatically identify and adapt to a wide range of games, from casual to hardcore competitive titles, thereby optimizing efficiency.

For example, casual games and mini-games typically feature simple gameplay, low decision-making barriers for users, and relatively short lifecycles. Players are often drawn in by immediate entertainment value and jump right in, making it difficult to retain casual users through long-term, in-depth content.Therefore, for these types of products, it is essential to focus on two critical windows—the pre-registration period and the launch period—to rapidly accumulate a massive user base through concentrated traffic exposure. This allows them to achieve economies of scale in a short period, laying the groundwork for subsequent ad monetization or light in-app purchases.

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Some Popular Casual Games

This is why casual games like Metropolis focus their advertising efforts during the pre-registration and launch phases. However, to achieve effective exposure and rapid user growth, simply increasing the scale of advertising is not enough; it also requires a wider range of user scenarios and more sophisticated advertising tools to support these efforts.

For example, Whale Hongdong Energy fully integrates system-level traffic scenario resources within the HarmonyOS ecosystem, enabling games to efficiently reach a massive audience of potential users through high-visibility entry points such as the "swipe left on the home screen" feature and the global search rankings.For games in the pre-registration phase, the platform’s “One-Click Pre-registration” feature further lowers the conversion barrier and reduces user churn. The “Pre-registration oCPC Bidding Model” intelligently targets highly engaged audiences, enabling precise user acquisition while controlling costs and maximizing efficiency.

During the initial launch phase, developers can also use a "pay-per-use" model in conjunction with high-visibility ad placements to prioritize reaching high-value users and efficiently drive massive traffic for the launch. With the support of these capabilities and tools, achieving massive traffic and climbing the charts becomes significantly easier.

According to Tea House, with the support of WhaleHorn, a popular game was able to precisely formulate its launch advertising bid strategy. By leveraging features such as the Performance Assistant and sequential advertising, the game significantly boosted both its exposure and conversion rates. As a result, it achieved an impressive 100 million impressions on launch day, with new user registrations exceeding 20,000.

For hardcore games such as RPGs or SLGs, which feature complex gameplay and higher entry barriers, their commercial value does not stem from short-term traffic spikes, but rather from the long-term spending and sustained engagement of core users. Therefore, user retention and monetization are the key factors determining whether these games can achieve long-term growth, while the corresponding maturity and reactivation phases serve as critical milestones in determining their ultimate commercial value.

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Some of the Most Popular Mobile Games

To fully unlock the commercial potential of this type of game, once it reaches maturity, developers must shift their marketing strategy from a “broad-based approach” to “targeted outreach” in order to focus on core user groups with higher monetization value.

In this regard, WhaleHorn’s “ROI Bidding Model” can precisely target players with a high willingness to spend, dynamically optimize advertising strategies, and deliver ads to core users who can generate actual revenue for the game. This capability not only helps developers control advertising costs but also enables them to continuously retain high-value users, laying a solid foundation for the game’s long-term profitability.

The user reactivation phase, as a critical stage for revitalizing existing users and extending the game’s lifecycle, will directly impact the realization of a hardcore game’s long-term value.During this phase, developers can leverage Whale Hongdong’s powerful DMP data platform to precisely target high-value users who have uninstalled the game or have been inactive for a long time. By delivering personalized content within system-level scenarios across the HarmonyOS ecosystem, they can rekindle users’ emotional connection to the game. Simultaneously, through precise attribution analysis, developers can optimize their advertising strategies to efficiently re-engage lost users, boost the activity of existing players, and fully unlock the game’s long-term commercial value.

Taking a certain SLG game as an example, with the help of Whale Hongdong, the game utilized exclusive system-level resources—such as the negative-one-screen recommendation cards and vertical short videos in the browser—to continuously influence user perception. At the same time, through intelligent reactivation algorithms, it proactively pushed reactivation messages to inactive users. Combined with holiday marketing and promotional offers, this approach effectively reached dormant users, significantly boosting user return rates and next-day retention.Ultimately, this comprehensive strategy successfully drove a 200% increase in the game’s ROI.

This case study demonstrates that for hardcore games, the key to growth lies not in endlessly acquiring new users, but in “re-discovering the value” of the existing user base. Through system-level engagement and intelligent algorithms, Whale Momentum has transformed its operational approach from “intrusive” to “timely service,” thereby achieving a significant increase in user value.

Whether it’s casual games, light-hearted casual games, or hardcore games, the WhaleHong Energy Platform offers effective growth solutions tailored to every stage of the game lifecycle. Through end-to-end, precision-driven operations, we comprehensively enhance your game’s core competitiveness, delivering true cost savings and peace of mind.

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03

More Opportunities in the HarmonyOS Ecosystem

It is worth noting that WhaleHorn’s practical applications in the gaming sector have demonstrated the universality of its approach, which is based on “gaining a deep understanding of user intent through contextual analysis.” This methodology, driven by data and AI, has also shown strong adaptability across various industries, including finance and e-commerce. This suggests that it offers not merely industry-specific solutions, but a transferable “foundational growth model.”

For example, in the financial sector, WhaleHong Kinetic has developed an “Industry User Quality Score” that integrates high-frequency lifestyle scenarios—such as loan repayments, payments, and transportation—to enable precise targeting, allowing services to seamlessly integrate into users’ daily routines. In the e-commerce sector, the company leverages Dynamic Product Ads (DPA) and Real-Time Auctions (RTA) to optimize ad creative formats based on individual users’ interests and specific usage scenarios, thereby effectively boosting conversion rates.These successful cross-industry practices fully demonstrate the broad applicability of WhaleHorn’s growth strategy.

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These cross-industry success stories not only demonstrate the broad applicability of the Whale HarmonyOS growth model, but also confirm that game developers are utilizing a proven and effective growth system. As this system becomes deeply integrated with the ever-expanding range of devices and scenarios within the HarmonyOS ecosystem, the resulting growth potential will become even more significant.

In the view of Tea House, this "HarmonyOS Ecosystem User Growth Summit" serves as a "barometer" for developers. At a time when competition in the gaming industry is intensifying and user acquisition costs are soaring, the event addresses the core pain points: "How can we acquire users at a lower cost? How can we retain users? How can we monetize more efficiently?"

This event not only provided a platform for the industry to address its collective concerns but also offered a clear path forward: the rapidly emerging HarmonyOS ecosystem has opened up entirely new avenues for growth in the gaming industry.

Whale Harmony Energy serves as the key gateway to unlocking the commercial potential of the HarmonyOS ecosystem. By offering solutions that cover the entire game development lifecycle, it connects the ecosystem’s abundant resources, providing developers with a growth path that is predictable, optimizable, and deeply aligned with user value.

Teahouse believes that as the HarmonyOS ecosystem continues to evolve, Whale Harmony will continue to leverage its ecosystem synergy to become a key driver in helping game developers reduce costs, improve efficiency, and achieve sustainable growth, thereby injecting sustained momentum into the development of the gaming industry.