In June 2019, Xiao Xiao, who majored in fine arts, began to build electronic faces for gamers that met aesthetic standards. At the beginning, Xiao Ming only released her own face pinching works in the community such as Tieba and NetEase Dashen, and after getting a good response, she began to work part-time as a face pincher.
In fact, since the release of the Sword Net 3 game in 2009, face pinchers have been around. However, in 2021, the "metaverse" fire, which Zuckerberg considers to be the ultimate form of the future Internet, has become a chased outlet for a while. The profession of face pincher has also been given more heavy meaning.
As long as there is a place to socialize, there is a pursuit of appearance. The aesthetic anxiety of reality spreads to the virtual world, and the game face-pincher becomes the "electronic plastic surgery doctor" in the metaverse.
In social networks, the topic of "part-time game face pincher monthly income of more than 10,000" and "Shanghai face pincher monthly income of 45,000" caused heated discussion, And Xiao Ming also experienced a face pinched by himself, which was looked at by two players at the same time and wanted to buy out, and finally sold for a high price of 2008 yuan. Young people seem to have another good choice for choosing a career.
However, working in the virtual world also encounters harsh realities. The demand for face pinching is generally only when the game is just out, and the heat is the most, and as the heat of the game decreases, the business of many face pinchers has become bleak. Only about 5% of the industry can really make money, and piracy is rampant, and the sense of copyright protection is weak, which makes the face-pinchers in the virtual world suffer from reality.
Plastic surgeons are also needed in the virtual world
In the virtual world, Liu Yifei's face is also regarded as a "plastic surgery" template. A while ago, Jing Tian, who was on fire with the TV series "Si Teng", was also quite popular.
Liu Yifei's face in the virtual world is also a plastic surgery template
Like the real world, the faces of Internet celebrities are still mainstream and the easiest to copy. The hard part is to create a look with personal characteristics. A face corresponds to a fine and complex numerical value, a little change in numbers, involving a variety of arcs and lines of differences. If you don't pay attention, your mind will be scattered.
Even if the "plastic surgery fails", it does not matter, this face representing personal identity can be constantly reshaped until the user is satisfied.
These provide users with avatar face designs, known as "game face pinchers". Face pinchers are usually good at art, and can use design software or game platforms to pinch out a better looking face. From the size of the body, hairstyle, skin tone, to the eyes, the height of the nose bridge, and the curvature of the corners of the mouth, it is the business scope of the face pincher.
"In the game, we attach great importance to appearance," Li Meng, a face pincher, told Leopard Change, "Without their favorite face, players will find a special face pincher."
Another face-pincher, Xiao Ming, also believes that there is also aesthetic anxiety in the virtual world: "This virtual image is equal to myself, and I can not look good in reality, but my virtual image must be absolutely beautiful." 」
Recently, with the fermentation of topics such as "part-time game face pincher monthly income of more than 10,000" and "Shanghai face pincher monthly income of 45,000", game face pinch is considered to be a very "money scene" emerging profession.
However, in Wang Meng's impression, as early as 2009, after the release of the "Sword Net 3" game with face pinching function, some "face pinchers" who did not aim at making profits began to appear. With the rise of many games such as "One Dream", "Heaven end bright moon knife", "Eternal Destruction", "Peace Elite" and so on, the business of face pinchers has become more and more extensive, and more people have been attracted to enter this industry.
The concept of the "metacosm" is on fire in 2021, and the profession of face pincher has also received more attention. In the eyes of some face pinchers, virtual faces are the most basic projects in the "meta-universe", and face pinchers are like electronic plastic surgeons in this world.
Business is getting better and better, Xiao Mian quit his original job, became a full-time face pincher, and formed a team with four or five full-time face pinchers. In the past year, on the Taobao platform alone, Xiaomian has received more than 7,000 orders.
Each face sells for between $15 and $35, and these faces can be repeatedly purchased by different buyers. Some of the proud works of face pinchers can reach seventy or eighty, or even hundreds. Some customers do not like to "bump face", but also customize exclusive faces, these works are more expensive, mobile games a face needs more than 100 yuan, the end tour is between 200 yuan and 400 yuan, some urgent, even up to thousands of yuan.
When the business is good, Xiao Ming's income can reach 10,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan per month. In general, there is also a fixed income of 6,000 to 8,000 yuan.
Li Meng, like more people, just uses pinching his face as a side hustle. She believes that part-time monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan, or even tens of thousands of yuan, can only be when the game has just come out and the heat is the highest. The face pincher works overtime to "burst the liver" to achieve such an income. As a part-time job, Li Meng will only pinch a face every half a month, and the Taobao store operated by the Taobao store generally earns more than 6,000 yuan per month.
There is also a "face bump" anxiety in the metaverse
Two-dimensional characters can appear on the same occasion as three-dimensional real figures. In the hands of those who are proficient in "pinching faces", chivalrous guests in exquisite costumes turn around, it may be Trump, it may be bald strong.
Some of the orders received by face pinchers are to restore the face of the customer's favorite object, some female customers will send selfies, and young male customers will ask to pinch out their "second-dimensional wife". Some people become favorite anime characters in the game, such as Tomie of japanese horror manga, Sauron of One Piece, or their idol star.
Regardless of the virtual platform, as long as it is related to social, players will value their appearance.
In the game, Xiao Ming sometimes does not play seriously, but stares at the player's face. More than 60% of the people she contacted had paid for faces.
One martial arts gamer told Leopard Change that the big game itself was a social occasion. A good-looking pinch face can not only bring great satisfaction to yourself first, but also show off in front of others. Walk on the virtual street with a good-looking face and be picked up by other players in the game.
After pinching a face, Xiao Sleep can see her character appear in different game scenes in various postures. If you look closer, you can even see the change of light on the characters. "Players can have a stronger sense of character substitution, which is their own image."
Sleep's pinched face work
In the virtual world, there is also aesthetic anxiety. Most of the customers Xiao Ming meets are very concerned about their appearance in the game. Someone will be unhappy with any face for a while, but can't say what type they want. Xiao Xiaoxiao could only pinch one by one. The speed of being able to produce four or five faces a month is already fast in the industry, but it will still be urged by impatient buyers.
Even if you pay for a face, there is a possibility of bumping your face. As in reality, players want their image to be both good-looking and unique. Some people are willing to spend several times, or even ten times, to buy out a face for this. Among the customers of Xiaoxiao, there are customization needs, accounting for about one-tenth.
Once, a face pinched out by Xiao Ming was looked at by two buyers at the same time, and both sides wanted to buy out the right to use. Xiao Ming proposed an auction, and the one with the highest price got it. The two did not give in to each other, and the face was finally photographed for 2008 yuan. This made Xiao Sleep also feel incredible, and for the first time, he felt the importance that players attached to avatars.
This enthusiasm is not difficult to understand. The game character is another incarnation of the self in the virtual world. The virtual doppelganger can make up for some regrets in the real world. Some people are not outstanding in appearance in reality, but in the game, they can have completely different personalities.
"This may bring them a lot more psychological comfort than in the real world." Xiao Ming said. Therefore, it is not uncommon for players to be online 23 hours, or even 24 hours a day.
Face Pincher Sleep is also a gamer. In reality, she is a housewife who can not go out for a month and do not communicate with people, and in the game, she has established a gang of jianghu, becomes a joke-loving leper, and becomes friends with many players in the game who "call the wind and rain". For Xiao Ming, who grew up watching Gu Long and Jin Yong, the virtual world helped her complete her martial arts dream and also carried important social functions. She told Leopard Change that the virtual world is just as important to her as the real world.
And this feeling cultivated by the virtual world is the driving force behind payment.
Gamer Chen Jing spent more than 10,000 yuan just pinching her face. Another gamer told Leopard Change that many people think of the character as themselves, or as "sons" and "daughters." The more you spend money, the deeper the emotion will be.
The reality test is no less
A face, may be more than a dozen yuan, a few will be as high as thousands of dollars. There is no specific standard for price. "This thing is really a benevolent person who sees wisdom, everyone's aesthetic is different, some people think this face is really very good-looking, very poking at him, will be willing to pay a high price." 」 Xiao Ming told "Leopard Change". Li Meng also believes that the face pincher outputs his own aesthetic.
The creative nature means that it cannot be mass-produced in a pipeline. The same face, when inspired and feels good, the face pinchers may be able to finish it in an hour. When things aren't ideal, it can take weeks to pinch it out.
Most of the people who are willing to pay for the original face are female players who are willing to pay for higher prices. The "gold-sucking ability" of different games is different, and Xiao Ming found that martial arts games such as "Against the Cold Water" that focus on role-playing and socializing have gathered many female players with good economic conditions. This has also become her main source of customers.
Although the face-pinching masters have encountered a new outlet in the "meta-universe", there are many problems in the industry itself. The decline in the popularity of the game and the decline in sales are the current situation that many face pinchers are facing.
The game with face pinching has just launched and is in the highest demand. When Li Meng entered the industry in March 2021, games had gradually entered a "half-dead and unrestrained period". She found that a peer who sold "Forever Forever" face pinching works had more than 1,000 monthly sales in July, and had fallen to about 100 in November. And Li Meng's own monthly sales have also changed from three or four hundred to less than one hundred. "Leopard Change" contacted a merchant who had advertised a face-pinching shop in the media, and was also told by the other party: "Recently it is indeed average."
Xiao Xiaoxiao entered the industry earlier and has a certain popularity in the game and the online community. There is not much feeling about the downward trend in sales. In her opinion, face pinchers who can maintain heat generally have a strong personal IP and customer base in the industry. Xiao Ming admitted that in addition to pirate merchants, only 5% of the people in the industry can really make money, and the other 95% are not.
At the same time, the copyright of the face pinch industry is also difficult to protect. The phenomenon of piracy and theft in the industry is serious, which makes many face pinchers feel headaches. In the game, a face corresponds to a unique string of numbers, and some pirate sellers only need to spend a dozen yuan to buy a face, which can be copied indefinitely and sold to other buyers at a low price of one or two dollars. On some trading platforms, sales are at the top of the list, and the monthly sales are often tens of thousands, often non-original pirate merchants.
"They earn more than we all do." Xiao Xiao was a little helpless.
Li Meng has applied for copyright protection for pinched face pictures, and has also complained about merchants who steal and sell their works, but they have not succeeded. The pirate seller gave a reason, the face pinch work is a character in the game, can not be regarded as original, the copyright should belong to the game party, the face pincher does not have the copyright.
Li Meng and other merchants about the dispute over piracy
Face pinchers can only rely on their own influence to attract a group of fans who support their creations. One of Xiao Ming's fan players firmly supported originality: "There is a great lack of original things in society now, and everyone's copyright awareness is too weak, so we must encourage this passion for creation." But this kind of support is separated from the protection of market rules and is just a fan-style "power generation for love".
In Xiao Ming's view, the attitude of the game party to the face pincher neither supports nor resists. The face-pinching industry is in an unregulated predicament, so piracy is rampant. Li Meng has met many male players who laugh at others: "There won't really be someone who spends so much money on originals, right?" This is also the reason why Li Meng is reluctant to take this job as a full job, as long as the copyright problem is not solved, the face pincher is always like a gray industry.
Unlike virtual world piracy. Li Meng found that in reality, there is always a difference between the appearance and the sense of use between the real and the imitation. A pair of sneakers, true or false, some people can still distinguish, "but the original and pirated version of the face are exactly the same." In the virtual world, as long as the data is obtained, it can infinitely copy the undifferentiated "twin".
Even if it serves the virtual world, it seems that the sense of science fiction is full, but the emergence of real problems one by one will pull the face-pinchers back to the cruel reality.
(At the request of the interviewee, all names in this article are pseudonyms)
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