案例库 · 产品与设计 · 产品决策 · 2003
这条还没译成中文，下面是英文原文。
QQ's paid virtual outfits turned a free chat network into China's first avatar economy
In 2003 Tencent sold virtual outfits for QQ avatars; 500,000 users paid in the first half year and avatar fashion became its first VAS hit
Tencent
那一手
By 2002 Tencent had tens of millions of QQ users and almost no way to charge them: a paid 'lucky number' experiment flopped, and the company survived largely on mobile-network partnerships. The team's answer, launched on 24 January 2003, was QQ Show — virtual outfits and backdrops for the QQ avatar, bought with Q-coins at about 0.5-1 yuan a piece.
The economics worked instantly: within the first half year about 5 million users bought outfits for an average of around 5 yuan each, each look lasting six months; a Red Diamond subscription (late 2003) added recurring revenue. In 2004, as Tencent listed in Hong Kong, QQ Show was cited as a pillar of its performance; in 2005 internet value-added services — the QQ Show category — overtook mobile value-added services to become Tencent's biggest revenue line.
The insight spread far beyond China as virtual-item economies became standard across Asian internet products. QQ Show is remembered as Tencent's first value-added product and its first monetisation of identity — the moment the company stopped being a chat utility and became an entertainer selling experience.
为什么管用
- Identity is the upgrade path from free: users will not pay for access, but they will pay to express themselves — the avatar made vanity the payment rail.
- Scarcity by design: a six-month expiry on paid looks created repeat purchase without a single pressure tactic — fashion itself demands renewal.
- The Red Diamond subscription converted the most identity-invested users first, building recurring revenue before the rest of the industry understood subscriptions.
可以搬走什么
In a free product, the first thing you can charge for is self-expression: make the default experience personal, and the upgrade you are selling is not access but identity
后来呢
QQ Show declined as the industry moved to mobile and games, but its playbook — paid identity, subscriptions, virtual-item economics — became the template for Tencent's later gaming revenue and for avatar economies globally.
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