Henry Soong is trying to make vertical microdrama series that don’t suck. That makes the Watch Club founder quite unique within this multibillion dollar industry of apps that churn out formulaic, cringe-worthy content and use aggressive tactics to maximize in-app spending.
“Ninety percent of these stories are, ‘I’m a poor girl! I fell in love with a secret billionaire! He’s a werewolf, and his mother is a vampire, and she disapproves of me!’” Soong told TechCrunch. “There’s a market for that, and we shouldn’t laugh at that, but I think this can be so much bigger than just sloppy, AI-adjacent romance soap operas.”
Soong’s comments are a little combative, but they’re not wrong. Competitor ReelShort made $1.2 billion in in-app purchases last year, while DramaBox made $276 million. The quality, he said, is so milquetoast that it could feasibly be made using AI-generated scripts.
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