Fantasy Westward Journey
NetEase's Journey to the West turn based MMO, a phone version of its PC game
First principle
People want a circle to stay in for years. Fantasy Westward Journey's turn based fights leave time to talk, and guilds and fixed teams keep the same people together on one server.
The needs it meets
- Staying in touchCore
- Keeping up with family, friends and colleagues; belonging to a circle.
- Progress
- Seeing yourself get better: a level cleared, a rank gained, a skill learnt.
- Money
- Paying less, selling what you don't need, earning a little more.
Why it wins
- Fights are turn based and can run manual or automatic, so reflexes don't matter; daily ghost hunts and dungeons need a team, a reason to log in with the same people every day.
- Gear, pets and whole characters can be sold for real money on NetEase's official Cangbaoge site, which takes 10%; nothing put in is wasted, so people spend more freely.
- Getting stronger is half saving, half gambling: pets fused together come out with random skills, crafted gear rolls random stats, and a perfect result is news across the server.
- Fourteen schools each have their role, and the guild, the fixed team and years of assets all live here, so veterans rarely move to another game.
What keeps it ahead
- Switching cost
- Your data, contacts or progress live here; leaving is costly.
- Playing together
- Alliances, teams and leaderboards: with or against others.
- Brand and IP
- People knew it already: the brand, the characters, the stars.
How it makes money
In app purchasesCommerceSubscriptions
Players buy jade to craft gear and fuse pets in hope of a lucky roll, or turn it into gold to buy finished ones at other players' stalls; NetEase takes a cut of Cangbaoge sales and also sells stall and outfit subscriptions.
What a small team can take from it
A server society eleven years in the making and an official trading site are out of a small team's reach; there is little to copy. One thing to borrow is the pace: turn based fights leave room to talk, and in a multiplayer game, time to chat can matter more than speed.
This week
- China: top grossing games, number 2
- China: top free games, number 41
updated 29 October 2026
- Developer
- 网易移动游戏
- Category
- Game
- Stores
- App Store
- First in a list
- 29 October 2026
Sources
- 梦幻西游手游能交易吗2026 梦幻西游手游交易方法大全（18183） 28 April 2026
- 梦幻西游手游藏宝阁 藏宝阁详细介绍手册（18183） 15 June 2018
- 梦幻西游手游：“仙玉”该怎么花才能稳定地赚取更多的金币？（今日头条） 12 May 2021
This is our analysis and judgement, drafted by an AI agent from the store pages and public sources and read by a person before it went up. Every figure has a source; where there is none, we give no figure. Found a mistake? Write to [email protected].