The “big payoff” that both UGC creators and players are looking for is right here

It’s another long weekend, and I finally had some free time, so I browsed through various gaming UGC platforms. I wouldn’t have known unless I’d checked them out, but I was really surprised: it turns out the domestic UGC scene has evolved to this level.

In my view, UGC platforms—where users serve as the primary creators—have largely focused on “low barriers to entry” as their main development direction: continuously simplifying editor operations and reducing creation costs to encourage more casual users to transition from content consumers to content creators, thereby rapidly expanding the creator base and enriching the content ecosystem.This development logic has driven the UGC sector to rapidly achieve widespread adoption—moving from zero to one—and has also spawned a vast amount of casual, light-hearted content.

But looking at it now, the situation is completely different. Open up any major platform, and you’ll find a rich variety of gameplay options practically spilling off the screen: from single-round challenges to long-term simulation games, from party racing to multiplayer RPGs, and from casual social games to high-quality titles that rival indie games—there’s something for everyone.Players are no longer limited to simply “having a map to play on”; instead, they can find ongoing experiences of completely different genres, paces, and depths—all within the same platform.

After speaking with several creators, the Tea House discovered that all of this stems from players’ choices.As the UGC ecosystem continues to expand, player demands have gradually diversified. Players are no longer satisfied with homogeneous, casual maps: some seek innovative gameplay, others want high-quality environments, some desire long-term, sustainable experiences, and still others simply want to spend time with friends.The same definition of “good content” means different things to different players. Consequently, the questions platforms must address have shifted from “Is there content?” to “Is the content good enough? Is it diverse enough? Can players keep playing it over the long term?”

These diverse user needs have propelled the UGC ecosystem into a new phase of diversified development, driving UGC platforms to embark on a journey of exploration in this direction.Among them, *Egg Party* has taken the lead in UGC content—from professionalism and richness to commercial presentation—thanks to the industry’s first “Twin Star” editor, attracting more creators and players to gather here and build a fun, profitable paradise together.This is clearly evident from the game’s achievement of holding a steady spot in the top 6 of the best-seller charts for five consecutive days during the National Day holiday.

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Just make a graphic, and you'll find a way forward.

A diverse pool of creators is the foundation for diverse content. The idea that “anyone can get a piece of the pie” is, after all, a reflection of low-barrier-to-entry tools and a vast, inclusive content ecosystem.

To meet the development needs of creators from diverse backgrounds and of varying skill levels,*Egg Party* has not only launched the Egg Origin Editor (frame-synchronized)—an essential tool with zero barriers to entry—and the Egg World Editor (state-synchronized), which enables seamless entry and exit as well as more complex gameplay logic, but has also gradually refined its existing tiered incubation and empowerment system,adopting an approach that balances low barriers to entry with opportunities for professional advancement—through more granular, differentiated incentives and supporting measures, it has established corresponding growth pathways for individual creators, small and medium-sized teams, and professional studios, enabling creators of all types to take root and grow within the platform while reaping substantial commercial rewards.

The growth journey of “I Hold Ten Jobs” is particularly representative.As a hardcore gamer with a passion for creation, he began exploring Egg Boy’s World as early as 2024 and has since produced dozens of maps. In late May of this year, he joined the “Star Map Project,” where, under the hands-on guidance of official designers, his development and operational skills improved significantly, and he set his sights on the multiplayer social gaming niche.This summer, he created two back-to-back hit games, *Haunted Treasure Auction* and *Stirring Up a Hornet’s Nest*, both of which surpassed 10 million plays in their first week after launch.

He told the tea house that the company regularly provides developers with potential creative directions, is deeply involved in the project approval process, helps developers assess the feasibility of gameplay mechanics, and reduces the risk of trial and error—the map that generated the highest revenue in Egg Boy Paradise, “The Haunted Treasure Hunt Auction,” was inspired by creative ideas provided by the company.

After graduating from the Star Map Program, “I Hold Ten Jobs” successfully signed a contract with the official team, gained access to the Egg Boy World editor for testing, and—with the official team’s support—met more like-minded partners, forming a three-person development team and officially transitioning to collaborative creation.

The two-person team “Mysterious Newcomer & Mysterious Editor-in-Chief,” which had previously gained extensive experience on other UGC platforms, also received comprehensive guidance from official planners—covering everything from game development and gameplay innovation to player engagement—with the support of the Xingtu Program, allowing them to quickly adapt to the Danzai ecosystem.

After signing the contract, the team’s first map, “Grow Your Circular Farm,” not only delivered impressive results—7 million in revenue and 5.5 million plays—but also spawned a vibrant player-created content ecosystem:A large number of players spontaneously shared seed guides, stats guides, and collection progress on social media. Among these, a photo essay documenting a father and daughter playing together particularly moved the two creators.

The anonymous editor-in-chief revealed that, in addition to revenue from map monetization, platform incentives are also a major source of income for them. She said that platform incentives are crucial for a small team like theirs, as they provide more room for trial and error and give the team the confidence to continuously iterate on maps and refine long-term content.

Unlike the previous two teams, the core members of the Modeman team all come from major domestic game studios, and most have been involved in the development of projects with hundreds of millions of users; some team members even have 15 to 16 years of industry experience. As a professional team with deep expertise in game production and a comprehensive team workflow, they chose the Danzai UGC ecosystem as their first stop in the UGC space.Looking back on their early days in the field, this professional team also encountered a few minor setbacks. According to Modeman, the main issue stemmed from a conflict between the traditional gaming industry’s pursuit of perfection in development and the UGC ecosystem’s logic of “rapid validation, iteration, and trial-and-error.”

Fortunately, the team had already established a connection with the platform’s officials—with the platform’s support, they quickly shifted their mindset and broke free from the conventional habits of game development.In the short five months since joining the Danzai ecosystem, Modeman has established a full-time studio of nearly 20 people and successively launched three high-quality commercial maps, including *Halloween Gacha Simulator*, with its revenue curve continuing to rise:Revenue from the second map surged by over 350% compared to the first, while the third map surpassed the second’s full-cycle revenue total in just two weeks after launch, demonstrating robust commercial growth potential. During the National Day holiday’s “New Releases Festival,” *Night of Terror: Gacha Simulator* was also featured among the top-recommended maps.

Modeman stated that, for them, financial support isn’t the most important factor. What matters more is the platform’s comprehensive support, including R&D assistance, guidance on product direction, data analysis, and traffic resources.At the same time, the platform’s substantial and comprehensive investments in tool iterations and ecosystem development have allowed them to genuinely see the platform’s commitment to deepening its presence in the UGC sector, giving the team sufficient confidence to choose to grow alongside the platform.

These three teams, each with vastly different backgrounds and distinct goals, happen to correspond to three typical types of creators in DanZai Paradise: some approach it as players, driven by their interests;some bring cross-platform experience and are seeking a more suitable environment; and others, equipped with established workflows, treat UGC as a long-term venture. Their initial motivations for creating differ, their areas of expertise vary, and their expectations for the ecosystem differ as well—yet ultimately, once they join the platform, they all find their place in Danzai Paradise.

This clearly demonstrates that the UGC ecosystem at Danzai Paradise has long transcended a single evaluation system; it not only embraces a wide variety of innovative gameplay styles but also provides ample room for creators of all kinds to experiment and learn from their mistakes, allowing diverse creative forces to coexist and thrive here.

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World Editor: Bridging the Final Gap in Content Development

The representative works from the three teams gave the teahouse a firsthand sense of the platform’s content upgrades and breakthroughs.

"Grow Your Circular Farm," created by the Mysterious Young Man and the Mysterious Editor-in-Chief, is visually striking. It breaks away from the traditional two-dimensional layout typical of simulation games, designing the farm as a circular, vertically expanding structure that reimagines the spatial logic of planting, harvesting, and leveling up. Building on classic gameplay, it offers players a unique experience.

"The Thrilling Treasure Hunt Auction," which I worked on in ten different roles, feels like a single-player game adapted for a user-generated content (UGC) environment. Its gameplay taps into the psychology of today’s “gambling-obsessed” players, blending the anticipation of scratch-off tickets with the thrill of an auction bidding mechanism, thereby successfully localizing and innovating on a popular concept.

The most striking impression left by the Modeman team’s *Halloween Gacha Simulator* is that it feels “heavy.”It boldly incorporates hardcore game elements such as gacha mechanics and a comprehensive stats system. The exceptionally high level of content polish and production quality has led many players in the comments section to exclaim, “This is so high-quality—is this really a map that Eggy could have made?”

From reimagining classic gameplay to bringing niche indie game ideas to life, and on to exploring high-quality, in-depth experiences, an increasing number of maps—each with its own unique style and genre—have achieved success in Eggland.These high-quality works are a vivid reflection of the evolution and upgrading of Eggland’s content ecosystem: Over the past few years, creators have continuously tapped into the potential of the Eggland Origin Editor, constantly pushing the boundaries of lightweight creation and taking lightweight UGC to new heights;At the same time, players have demonstrated through their choices that, in addition to casual content, they also crave more high-quality, in-depth, and diverse gameplay experiences on the platform.

As the creative potential of the Danzai Origin Editor was fully unleashed, the needs of players and creators continued to grow, making a more professional tool an inevitable step in the ecosystem’s further development. It was at this juncture that the Danzai World Editor made its debut.

Prior to this, more than 50 million developers had already used the Danzai Origin Editor to create a cumulative total of 200 million maps, covering a wide variety of game modes such as adventure, racing, and party-style multiplayer.However, due to limitations in frame-synchronization technology, the Danzai Origin Editor requires all players to start and end the game simultaneously, making it suitable only for creating single-session gameplay.

In contrast, the DanZai World Editor employs a state-synchronization mechanism that enables seamless entry and exit, server-hosted data,and block-by-block loading of large scenes. This allows creators to freely build vast worlds, long-term simulation games, multiplayer RPGs, and other map content—including themes and scales that were previously difficult to implement—thereby expanding the boundaries of UGC creation from “creating a single-session map” to “operating a continuously running virtual world.”

The combination of the DanZai Origin Editor and the DanZai World Editor has made “DanZai Party” the industry’s first UGC platform to support both frame-synchronization and state-synchronization,These two technical approaches complement each other, preserving lightweight creative expression for casual users while also opening up opportunities for advanced teams to create more complex content. Creators can use this platform to explore map content of any theme and scale.

This brand-new creative space has attracted a large number of creative teams to explore the Egg Boy World Editor, leading to the launch and development of more new projects.

From the perspective of the “Modeman” team, which has a background in industrial-scale R&D at major game studios, the Egg World Editor has significantly raised the bar for UGC map creation and broken through the limitations that previous development tools imposed on complex gameplay, “allowing complex game products to be developed on UGC platforms as well.”

He said that developing traditional hardcore games typically takes two to three years, with high R&D and publishing costs and enormous risks; however, by leveraging the DanZai game ecosystem and the capabilities of the DanZai World Editor, the team can quickly validate gameplay, iterate on user retention, and design monetization strategies—achieving a level of development efficiency that would be difficult to attain through traditional game development.As a result, they launched four map projects in quick succession, covering various niche genres such as tower defense, card games, SLG, and games targeting female audiences.

The teams behind “I Have Ten Jobs” and “Mysterious Young Man & Mysterious Editor-in-Chief,” on the other hand, place greater emphasis on the social value of the DanZai World Editor.

"I Hold Ten Jobs," who rose through the ranks as a player, has a particular fondness for the social foundation of *Egg Party*. He believes that social gameplay can effectively alleviate the loneliness often felt by solo players: even without friends to play with, players can encounter other Egg Characters once they enter a map, enabling social interaction among strangers.Therefore, after gaining access to the World Editor, he and his team began developing a social-focused map.

The “Mysterious Youngster & Mysterious Editor” team has also been drawn to the DanZai World Editor’s ability to let players join and leave at any time. They are currently using this feature to develop a new multiplayer survival game designed for long-term operation, where players can jump in at any time and enjoy an uninterrupted experience.

A higher content limit also means a relatively higher learning curve. Several interviewees admitted that to master the Egg World Editor, one must not only handle the interaction logic between the client and server but also make the mental shift from visual programming to Lua code development.

Fortunately, the platform has already provided creators with comprehensive support: a continuously updated developer white paper, dedicated community Q&A channels, and an editor integrated with several cutting-edge large language models. By leveraging AI-powered Q&A, AIGC asset generation, and AI-assisted programming, the platform addresses the challenges creators face when getting started.

"I Hold Ten Jobs," who lacks a formal background in the field, and "Mysterious Young Man & Mysterious Editor-in-Chief" have truly felt the benefits of AI during the development process.They noted that AI assistants can help with coding, saving a significant amount of time that would otherwise be spent manually typing code. When they encounter programming issues they don’t understand, they can ask the AI directly, which to some extent helps overcome the learning curve associated with the transition from visual programming to scripting.

In addition, the platform has established a 100 million yuan special incentive fund for the DanZai World Editor, providing developers with financial backing to explore new content.

It is foreseeable that, driven by the collaborative efforts of the platform and creators, content produced using the DanZai World Editor is expected to see its first wave of explosive growth in the second half of this year. A series of brand-new park maps featuring real-time multiplayer social interaction and in-depth gameplay will soon be released to players.

Epilogue

While exploring DanZai Land, the Tea House discovered that the platform has recently launched two very interesting events: the “DanZai Land Double Holiday Party” and the “DanZai Land New Product Festival.”

Among these, the “Egg Boy Paradise Double Holiday Party” features ten handpicked maps, each with a daily leaderboard. Players can compete on the leaderboards to win limited-edition titles and rewards.What makes this event special is that the leaderboards are customized by the creators themselves. The official team has handed over operational control to the creators, allowing them to decide for themselves how to incentivize players to try new content and encourage them to return to the game.

The “Danzai Paradise New Releases Festival” brings together high-quality new titles released over a specific period and showcases them to players, ensuring that great content receives the exposure it deserves.This New Releases Festival launched 20 hit new maps all at once, and two of the maps featured in this interview were successfully selected. The fact that the platform is willing to use a mechanism like the New Releases Festival to promote new releases demonstrates that the quality and volume of content have reached a level where “selecting the best for display” is necessary.

List of Maps for the “Egg Boy Land New Releases Festival”

These two events demonstrate that the complexity and gameplay depth of DanZai Maps have long transcended the limitations of traditional UGC content.Stat systems, gacha mechanics, simulation management, and social gameplay—design elements traditionally found in indie and commercial games—have been flexibly deconstructed and reassembled by creators, integrated into UGC maps, and widely embraced by players.

At the same time, creators on Eggland are evolving into independent game developers. With the platform’s guidance and support, their work is no longer limited to simply creating a playable map; they can now leverage their team’s strengths to treat each map as a product—refining and operating it with a comprehensive project development approach and a long-term operational mindset.From project initiation and development to long-term operations, a comprehensive workflow closely resembling that of independent game development is gradually taking shape within Eggland.

As this process continues to mature, the platform’s role is to keep enriching the creative ecosystem.We believe that with the ongoing upgrades to the Egg Boy World Editor and the continuous refinement and expansion of the platform’s incubation and incentive policies, *Egg Boy Party* will certainly enable more players with diverse preferences to find the experience they’re looking for in the future. It will provide fertile ground for a wide variety of creative ideas to take root, offer growth opportunities for all types of creators, and ultimately foster a diverse, inclusive, and self-sustaining content ecosystem.

And this, perhaps, is also the direction in which the entire industry’s UGC ecosystem will move in the next phase.