Some time ago, Sensor Tower released the latest issue of the domestic mobile game publisher revenue Top 30 ranking. Among them, Chaoxi Lightyear is on the list again, which is also the 10th consecutive month since June last year that they have entered the income list.
Long-term low-key image of the day and night light years, in the middle and heavy track is increasing with each passing day. Such achievements are due in part to the strong performance of "Sailing King's Blood Route" - since the opening of the public beta in April last year, the game once rushed to the top 3 of the domestic iOS game best-seller list, and in the first month of the launch, it received 400 million monthly flow, and the follow-up did not fall into the inertia of many comic products "a wave of flow", and has long been stable at the forefront of the domestic best-seller list.
Just recently, the game also rushed to the eighth best-selling place with the help of the first anniversary version, and its staying power was indeed unexpected.
The long-term highlight performance, while proving that the quality of the game itself is enough to "play", also reflects that The lightyear has become more and more mature in the release and operation of medium and heavy products. In particular, the set of "strong content" publishing ideas they have built inside and outside the game can be said to maximize the use of resource advantages such as backed by traffic platforms, which has supported the long-term revenue performance of the product.
Taking the "Voyager King's Blood Route" as a model for the just-opened anniversary, and then reviewing the product achievements and distribution methods of The Lightyear in the past year, it can be found that they are getting closer and closer to the goal of "going to a higher level".
01
Back in best-selling eighth, what exactly did they do this year?
Judging from the products released in the past, the advantages shown by The Lightyear are often concentrated in the marketing promotion level in the early stage of launch. However, a careful review of the version changes of "Voyager King's Blood Route" in this year can be found that The Sunset Lightyear also shows a stable high level in terms of game content, control of the update rhythm and player preferences.
Before the product entered long-term operation, Sunrise Lightyear probably had a life-cycle planning plan for the game, and had an accurate estimate of how quickly players consumed content. At the same time, the operation team will also gradually roll out the characters and classic plot of the original "Voyager King" in the game with new content such as gameplay and activities. This also sets the tone for The Renewal Route of Sunrise Lightyear in its subsequent operations that completely follows the order of the original works.
Through the game's version record, it can be seen that in addition to the first month of public beta, the morning and evening lightyear basically stabilizes the "Voyager King's Blood Route" in a small version every month and a major update for 2-3 months. If you stretch the timeline and observe the performance of this product in this year, you can find that almost every time the curve shows a downward trend, the lightyear can create a flashpoint through timely content updates, and stabilize the popularity at the horizontal line for a long time.
Whether it is the "Horror Three-Masted Sailing Ship" event event event, or the successive appearances of characters such as Rob Lutz and Big Bear, these updated story lines are basically consistent with the plot of the original animation that fans remember, allowing players to re-experience the adventures of the Straw Hat Sailing Group from the perspective of "witnesses", rather than the fragmented and reconstructed parallel timeline.
The popular character "Female Emperor" Han Cook, which was launched on Christmas Eve last year, once made the game rush to the top 6 of the best-selling list. In the first anniversary celebration, the official chose the "top war" as a turning point in the original plot as the finale, connecting this part of the plot with the first anniversary activities, so that the celebration has more "milestone" commemorative significance. The results were also remarkable: boosted by the anniversary version, Voyager's Blood Route once again hit the top 10 of the best-seller list.
In the past year, Lightyear has become more and more aware of what kind of content players will want at what time. The stable online update rhythm and accurate selection of content finally make "Voyager King Blood Route" different from the "wave of streams" of most comic IP products, while maintaining vitality, it also provides players with a game experience that restores the unique content of the IP itself.
02
A self-contained distribution, "strong content" supports the long term
In the early days of the launch of "The Sailor King's Blood Route", Chao Xi Lightyear once successfully broke the game with a set of "strong content" playing methods. Now that a year has passed, the light-year of mastering this model has become more and more proficient, not only precipitating a perfect community content ecology on multiple platforms such as Douyin, but also trying to open up online and offline "new ways" to further reduce costs and increase efficiency for long-term operations.
For example, when the SS-level character "Combator Zorro" was launched in August last year, Chaoxi Lightyear launched the topic of "the whole network summons the hot-blooded real man Sauron" on the Douyin platform, and through the new "task" mode, jumped out of the idea of official screening talents and KOLs, so that all users can receive the submission task through the entrance that comes with the topic and participate in the creation activities.
The lowering of the threshold coupled with the contribution rewards such as traffic heating provided by the platform fully mobilized the enthusiasm of players to participate in the creation. In the early days of the campaign, a large number of original content such as fandom cos, music, and drama short films began to emerge. The relevant videos under the topic have received more than 740 million views, once ranking top2 in the Douyin hot list, and the effect of breaking the circle is remarkable.
The priority push of the contribution reward provides more exposure for participating creators, who can effectively harvest traffic monetization from works. In a sharing last year, Chaoxi Lightyear once came up with a representative case: a personal account with 0 fans, only through the production of the relevant short film of "The Blood Route of the Sailor King", it received more than 9 million views and 46,000 yuan in revenue.
More importantly, compared with the simple and rough "traffic charter", this "national model" that relies on UGC content not only brings traffic growth, but also helps the game to precipitate a complete community content ecology, laying the foundation for the next heat outbreak.
In addition to Douyin, on the Huya and Douyu live broadcast platforms where heavy players gather, Chaoxi Lightyear adopts the method of linkage with head anchors such as Zhang Daxian and a small group, and through the special program of "Route Events - Fighting Night", the game-related topics rushed to the top2 of the platform hot search list, contributing a lot of voice.
Coming to the offline part, Dawn Lightyear has also opened many rounds of "linkage exhibitions" for the game. In the "Shenzhen City Good Life Festival" held in Shenzhen Happy Valley last December, the theme venue of "Navigation King Blood Route" appeared. The final event of the "Captain Fighting Competition S3 Season" launched on the same day also gave players the opportunity to have close contact with the official and feel the atmosphere of the scene.
This set of diversified "combination fists" naturally allows "Sailing King Blood Route" to harvest a large amount of high-quality content when creating hot topics, and the publicity effect reaches users in different circles. The distribution model of opening up the content ecology and the advertising ecology can be said to maximize the advantages of relying on the multi-traffic platform in the light-years of the day, so that the game can continue to achieve user maintenance and fission in long-term operation.
03
Quietly exerting force in the morning and evening light years, the steps are getting bigger and bigger
Last year, Robinz, head of operations of the "Game Publisher Program" of Chaoxi Lightyear, mentioned to us in an interview that the set of "strong content" methods they are currently using are focused on strong content marketing, spreading users, and gaining cognition, and after the release of multiple products, they have become more and more mature.
For example, the first self-developed product "Huayishan Heart Month", released in November last year, used the potential of the "Academy" theme to dig deep and cooperate with offline scene publicity to expand the sound of vertical games to a wider level, and finally gained the results of the best-seller list Top 7 and the free list.
Counting the "Wulin Idle Man" that was launched in China at the end of last year and once entered the top ten domestic iOS best-selling, the medium and heavy mobile games released by Daylight In the past year can basically achieve good response in the market, and the success rate is quite high. According to Sensor Tower's list, Sunrise Lightyear has achieved the highest ranking of domestic publisher revenues. This also means that the "traffic advantage", which has been mentioned many times, has been able to translate into actual revenue figures.
Through the long-term operation of "The Voyager King's Blood Route", it can also be seen that the distribution model of The Day and Night Lightyear has opened a unique path: for the characteristics of IP, from the content of the game itself to the promotion and release of the product, and then to the long-term operation after the launch, it can borrow the traffic advantages of the platform and complete the closed loop of content ecology and economic benefits. In the context of stock competition, this ability also makes Daytime Lightyear especially high hopes in a number of large factories.
But for Daylight, their ambitions seem even greater than they might think. At the beginning of the month, they just released the first PV of the new IP work "Voyager King: Dream Pointer". It is reported that the gameplay of this work is positioned as a "3D interactive adventure", which will take the Chambodi Islands as the center of the stage and present the adventure story after the members of the "Straw Hat Troupe" have regrouped.
Some time ago, another self-developed heavy product "Codename: Advent" also opened a new round of testing. At present, the game has received nearly one million reservations on the TapTap platform, and the rating is stable at 8.6, while the expectation score on the Good Game Fast Explosion platform is also as high as 8.1, and more than 370,000 players have booked the game, which is expected to become another strong contender for the "survival shooting" track.
In addition, through the overseas distribution brand Ninese, it can be found that in the past two months, Sunrise Lightyear has successively released as many as five medium and heavy products in overseas regions, and they are for different play areas. Among them, the Dark Wind ARPG mobile game "Dark Nemesis" successfully entered the Top11 of the March outbound mobile game revenue growth list, and the two-dimensional card RPG "ユグドラ レゾナンス" also topped the Japanese free list on the first day of launch, forming a "multi-point blossom" situation.
In a short period of time, they have come up with a variety of products with different ways of playing overseas, and have successively achieved eye-catching list results, which in addition to proving that Lightyear has sufficient product reserves in hand, it is more noteworthy that they already have the confidence and ability of "multi-line parallel". We can create popular products in an efficient and cyclical manner.
Although it has only been less than three years since the establishment of medium and heavy issuance, from the perspective of the distribution route and specific achievements, the lightyear can be said to be slowly moving upwards "step by step". In the current stock competition environment, with the brand building, self-research business and other directions have made breakthroughs, has passed their own "start-up stage" in the game field of the light year, may be another "game breaker" of medium and heavy mobile games.