Attract More Viewers, GoPlay Focuses on Developing Live Streaming

This year, GoPlay’s video-on-demand (VoD) platform prioritized the development of a live streaming service platform, GoPlay Live, to attract more users. The platform made by Gojek noted that the number of live shows has increased by up to 10 times during the first quarter of this year.

GoPlay CEO Edy Sulistyo said the live show growth was supported by the number of creators who grew significantly 100% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. Some content can reap up to thousands of viewers.

For example, the latest JKT48 Live Show content, which has three different programs, managed to get the highest number of viewers on its premiere, up to more than 4,000 viewers.

Edy said the growth of the GoPlay Live service was in line with the increasing public interest in getting entertainment. In addition, users also want a more interactive service.

“Nowadays, people don’t just watch, but they can interact with their idols,” he said in a virtual press conference on Friday (9/4). GoPlay offers an interacting experience so that users don’t just watch shows or events from creator content.

“There are game shows, there are trivia, you can ask in private, or something else,” said Eddy. Content creators can monetize their content through GoPlay. This is because users of the GoPlay Live service can provide support and appreciation for creator content through the virtual gift feature during the show.

“We also see that the revenue trend of creators continues to increase along with user enthusiasm,” he said.

Focus on GoPlay Live Content This Year

This year GoPlay focuses on developing the GoPlay Live service, including collaborating to present exclusive content. Most recently, GoPlay collaborates with content creators for virtual idol programs.

There are two content creators that have been hooked, namely Andi Adinata and Alia Adelia. According to Eddy, virtual idol content will be in great demand by users. Because virtual idols are the face of future entertainment with the use of technology.

Virtual idols display animated avatar characters in two or three dimensions as a show. Eddy said, efforts to focus on developing the GoPlay Live service are in line with the potential for live streaming that will continue to grow.

The latest report from App Annie states that the number of hours spent by mobile video streaming applications in Indonesia in the fourth quarter of 2020 reached 8.33 billion hours. This figure has almost doubled from the fourth quarter of 2019 which was only 4.94 billion hours.

Collaborating with CJ ENM HK to Strengthen SVoD Services

In addition to the GoPlay Live live streaming service, GoPlay also has other services such as video-on-demand subscription (SVoD) and rental or transactional-video-on-demand (TvoD). In strengthening SVoD services, last year GoPlay hooked up entertainment company CJ ENM HK.

Films such as Parasite and Train to Busan can be accessed via GoPlay through this collaboration. This company is a subsidiary of a South Korea’s company. The two corporations will launch tvN Movies with this collaboration.

GoPlay competes with other VoD giants like Netflix. However, he thinks that the number of players in this industry will have a positive impact.  After all, based on the data he has, players in the VoD industry like GoPlay and Netflix have never controlled their own niche.

In the United States (US), for example, 70% of consumers subscribe to two services at once. In addition, GoPlay focuses on providing Indonesian films. “Indonesians who initially rarely or never watched national films are now starting to enjoy it,” said Edy.

Previously, Ideosource Entertainment CEO Andi Boediman said that the Indonesian content market had great potential to reach a market value of up to US$ 1 billion in the next few years. The main content to achieve this value is theatrical release and streaming.