It is not difficult to find that MMORPG, which is regarded as synonymous with online games in the era of terminal games, has become less and less popular with new products appearing in front of players.
This is not difficult to explain: confined to the dilemma of mainstream MMO routines, the "far water" of simple heaping pictures and rolling gameplay is still difficult to quench the thirst, resulting in the younger generation gradually moving closer to emerging categories, and MMO has evolved into a vertical subdivision category with narrower and narrower users. Even some insiders have pointed out that there are structural problems in the entire category, resulting in players no longer irreplaceable, requiring huge innovation and breakthroughs.
How should the MMO that is gradually cold in the mobile game market break the game? It is undoubtedly a topic that domestic game manufacturers urgently need to discuss.
On March 25th, Sheng Qu Games' self-developed MMO "Qingyu Nian" mobile game was launched on all platforms, and on the first day, it topped the App Store free list and ranked top 20 on the best-selling list for a week. Now, the game has opened its public beta ceremony on April 29, bringing the first major version update including the main line of Northern Qi and new gameplay, which has promoted the popularity to rise again.
In GameLook's view, the debut of the "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game can be said to be a good report card at the moment when the category is lonely. At the same time, he also used his own personal experience as a reference to bring some new thinking to the slightly tired MMO market.
The fragrant food is still the same, and the prospect of online IP adaptation is huge
Strictly speaking, as a phenomenon-level ip adaptation game, the success of the "Qingyu Nian" mobile game is naturally inextricably linked to its own IP. And this, obviously, also refreshes the cognition of players and peers - there is still market space for IP adaptation.
As we all know, IP adaptation games were once regarded as the golden sign of the game circle in the past, among which popular online IP such as Xian Xia and Fantasy Theme has become a frequent visitor to the MMO category. However, with the popularity of original theme games, favored by more and more manufacturers, the online text IP that has made game companies flock to it has become more and more silent.
But in fact, from the perspective of market performance, net text IP is still a fragrant feast in the field of mobile games.
Qimai Data's "2021 Mobile Internet White Paper" shows that among the new products last year, IP adaptation games are still one of the most common types, including animation and novel IP. At the same time, according to the "2021-2022 Mobile Game IP Market Development Report" released by Gamma Data, the revenue of IP adaptation mobile games in 2021 will still account for more than 50% of the mobile game market. Specifically from the perspective of IP types, novel IP has achieved three consecutive years of growth of more than 40%.
Taking a step back, the influence of the online text itself is also gradually expanding, and attracting the attention of more and more young people. According to the "2021 Research Report on the Development of Chinese Internet Literature" of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the total scale of online literature users in the mainland reached 502 million last year, accounting for 48.6% of the total number of netizens, of which the "Z generation" young people represented by the post-90s and 00s have become the main force of online literature users.
What's more, Qingyu Nian is the leader in the head network text IP, and the 2019 adaptation of film and television dramas has triggered a super high degree of viewing and topic. During the broadcast period, it won a total of 114 Weibo hot searches and 29 Douyin hot searches. As of now, the drama has reached 9.89 billion views on Tencent's video platform alone.
It is also understandable that as early as before the launch, the reservation volume of the "Qingyu Nian" mobile game has exceeded 8 million, which once again proves the strong appeal of net text IP in the current market.
Grasp the brand characteristics, successful IP marketing with half the effort
It is also based on the influence of Qingyu Nian IP, as early as the beginning of the project, the production team clearly realized that "grasping the core of IP is to grasp the advantages of IP". This consistent research and development concept is also more intuitively displayed in the marketing method of the game. To put it bluntly, the "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game is almost all-round marketing around IP.
It is not difficult to find that whether it is at the level of exposure or creative materials, mobile games are strongly bound to IP elements, and ip users are reached in an all-round way through the linkage of books and movies.
For example, in view of the characteristics of the IP ancient and modern crossing theme, the spokesperson of the mobile game "Qing Yu Nian" chose Song Yi, the actor of Fan Ruoruo in the film and television drama, and publicized it in the form of multiple Vlogs, which is significantly different from the mainstream ancient style MMO mobile games on the market.
The ingenuity behind this design is that Fan Ruoruo, who is a "semi-modern person" in the original work, can intuitively show the fusion of ancient and modern cultures. Then, if Fan Ruoru shoots a modern vlog, he can not only convey the product features to the user one after another, but also quickly convey the concept of "ancient and modern integration" of mobile games and even the entire IP to the user.
At the same time, for Song Yi, one of the film and television actors, I also have the diversified characteristics of both talent and courage, which is not only highly suitable for mobile game brands, but also easier to evoke the IP memory of new and old users, thereby expanding the influence of the game in the circle.
For the same consideration, the "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game further tries to understand the needs of current core users, that is, the pursuit of IP film and television dramas.
Therefore, the "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game has created a new topic on Weibo: #庆余年1.5 season#, with the help of fans' high expectations for film and television dramas, it has set off the popularity of IP, thus attracting more users to pay attention to the mobile game itself. Indeed, on the day of launch, the topic was read by 530 million people in a single day, and promoted another topic, "Qingyu Year Mobile Game", on the hot search.
Similarly, the public beta ceremony continues to revolve around this topic. On April 22, Tong Mengshi, the actor of the film and television drama Wuzhu, took the lead in launching the topic of #Wuzhu Blindfold Disguise on Weibo, triggering a wave of imitation. Subsequently, the official invited players to participate in the "Wuzhu Blindfold Costume Creative Competition", which can not only use memes to create, but also "five bamboo" costumes for cute pets and other characters in the game, and gradually form a happy atmosphere of "everything can be Uncle Wuzhu".
Almost at the same time, after Song Yi played Fan Ruoruo as the "first blogger of Nanqing", Tong Mengshi played Wuzhu and filmed a series of short films as the "number one player in Nanqing" to show players the new version of the game. By increasing the exposure of the game in the fan circle, more IP users are promoted from paying attention to the latest developments in the mobile game to finally joining the game.
In addition, since its launch, the game has also cooperated with the starting point reading App and Tencent Video respectively, connecting users in three fields through the linkage of book and film games, and further enhancing the popularity of IP.
Of course, this does not mean that the game completely abandons non-core players, and the game also uses conventional play methods such as live broadcasting to increase the exposure of the game in the pan-user circle.
After the game was launched, the official invited popular anchors such as "Zhixun XunxunXunxun", "Not 2 Not Called Zhou Shuyi", "Dumb Sister Little Bully" to form a luxurious live broadcast lineup, and the live broadcast popularity exceeded 3.9 million on the first night. According to DataEye data, after the game was launched, there were close to 300 co-owners, with a total of more than 80W likes, which attracted the attention of a large number of non-IP users and promoted the continuous rise in the popularity of the game.
Under the trend of content change, explore the possibilities of MMO gameplay
But in the final analysis, it is still an indisputable fact that the development of MMO categories has encountered bottlenecks. The gameplay is too routine and the degree of activity of forcing users to "go to work" has forced many players to force the official to do a lot of subtraction. There is no doubt that the change in MMO gameplay has become a mainstream trend.
Indeed, at present, many manufacturers have given answers such as benchmarking the open world gameplay and quality of stand-alone machines and creating a purer social platform. However, the "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game team believes that there is still no product that brings essential changes. "The modules of the MMO product itself are many and complex, and the innovation of a single module is difficult to affect the innovation of the entire category, which requires a more drastic change of direction and the search for solutions."
In their view, due to the larger volume of mobile users and the more fragmented player time, the product should lower the player access threshold, relatively weaken the content of forced interaction, and increase leisure and fun gameplay. In simple terms, it is to replace the high-intensity forced "work" with casual fun, so that the game can return to the entertainment experience.
With this in mind, the "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game was initially defined as a martial arts MMO that jumped out of some traditions and explored some new fields. Finally returning to the MMO framework, the R&D team also made choices and trade-offs for such breakthrough designs.
In the end, the game combined with IP content to innovate, launching PvP content that meets IP characteristics, such as "Temple Scramble" combined with temple content, "Heavenly Pulse Robbery" with asymmetric gameplay, and large-scale gang territory gameplay "Rip Land Dispute", while making the gameplay both interesting, competitive and immersive. In terms of the results after the launch, this micro-innovation has obviously won the recognition of most players.
Based on the same original intention, in addition to opening the main line of the Northern Qi chapter, the personal exclusive plot of Si Gu Jian and Teng Zijing, as well as new strange missions and new copies such as hunting down Shaun and assassination in the Hanging Temple, the new version is not only open. The "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game further combines the current popular gameplay and innovates the methods of temple survival and Heavenly Pulse Spirit Treasure.
The former is a 10-person single-player survival gameplay of temple survival, which is based on the circle survival gameplay, and increases the personalized design of the characters and weapons to ensure a high degree of freedom and strategy.
For example, the player cannot play the original character in the game, but can choose the roles of Wuzhu, Fan Ruoruo, Chen Pingping, Fan Xian and so on in this game. Among them, Fan Xian can use Barrett to attack single targets from a distance; Chen Pingping can use his shotgun to inflict large-scale melee damage.
On the other hand, the Heavenly Pulse Spirit Treasure is similar to the pet collection and cultivation game. From the appearance point of view, there are both Q Meng's mini version of Wuzhu and Fan Ruoruo, as well as cute butterflies, small fat chickens, or high-tech cubes and power balls, etc., catering to the preferences of different players. At the same time, each Celestial Spirit Treasure has its own unique skill effect, and can appear on any map, follow and help players fight.
The above gameplay design not only fits the characteristics of IP, but also explores more possibilities for MMO gameplay changes while improving the fun and competitive experience of the game.
epilogue
Nowadays, as more and more MMO manufacturers begin to take the initiative to reflect and actively learn from other categories, they are increasingly not optimistic about some players and peers. Some people even pessimistically believe that not sticking to their MMO is a thing of the past. However, the emergence of the "Qing Yu Nian" mobile game is tantamount to breaking this wrong judgment.
As the production team said: "MMO as a mature product category, has a very large user group, as long as the product can position their own users, find their stated goals, whether it is art quality or product content, can correspond to the goal itself, on this basis to make breakthroughs and innovations." ”
In GameLook's view, the "Qingyu Nian" mobile game has won the favor of many players with the combination of online text IP, IP marketing and gameplay change, explored another direction of category innovation breakthrough, and really launched an important shot in the revival of MMO, which can't help but make people look forward to the performance of the game and even the entire category.
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GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
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