Author | Li Bai, Nine Oranges
10 months ago, "It's Over! I'm surrounded by beautiful women! After the release, with tens of millions of recharges, the market for love interactive video games detonated, and dozens of finished games were launched one after another, some hit the streets, some sold well, and some disappeared into the dust.
Among them, "I'm Crazy for Love" starring Yua Mikami attracted much attention as soon as it broke out.
Japan well-known artists participated, invested tens of millions, and promoted Yua Mikami X...... On July 13, "I'm Crazy for Love" was launched on Steam. During the warm-up period, it was on the hot list for a time.
"I wanted to make something differentiated and bring the market of 'I'm Crazy for Love' to Asia and the world. The production cost cost tens of millions, the audio-visual is very good, and the recovery of tens of millions of costs is not a problem. When the project was established, producer Henry decided to go for a high-quality strategy.
Compared with the general cost of about 2.5 million yuan among peers, the appearance of "I'm Crazy for Love" is unique and desperate.
Is it that players only love "low-quality rubbing" type of interaction? Or is the market not mature enough? Is the hot track just a false proposition? Or is it that the "I'm Crazy for Love" project is still debatable in terms of content and publicity? What is the highlight of the project? Entertainment Capital had in-depth communication with Henry, the producer of "I'm Crazy for Love", Ghost, and the director Ronaldo, and conducted a multi-faceted review of the project's plot, production, and distribution, trying to find answers.
Is edge rubbing the player's favorite?
"Our setup is very flattering, and we don't need to rub the edges or anything like that. The purpose is to give users the emotional value of love, a sense of pure love. Before the game was launched, Henry said to Xiaoyu.
"People are nothing more than two kinds of coolness, one is physiological coolness, and the other is psychological coolness, what we want to create for players is actually a psychological coolness, that is, a sense of love, so we have added a lot of first-person shots similar to touching the head to kill."
But after the launch, Henry was also silent in the face of the player's comment that "the content that was skipped directly before is now paid".
When reflecting on the reasons for this part of the bad reviews, Henry gave an interpretation: "Just because we invited Mr. Mikami, this led to most of the players attracted to come to see the edge and think that it was a side game. But he didn't see the edge and would have been disappointed. ”
As for the psychological gap between players, Henry himself is also teasing: "Mikami-sensei's fans watch that kind of thing a lot." It's normal to have a drop, but there's no way, you can't shoot, and you can't get on. ”
Inviting Yua Mikami made Henry taste the sweetness and also suffer the bitterness.
"It's not that we want to deliberately create a gimmick, it's just that we want to make a good thing seriously, but in practice, there will be a lot of problems, such as preparation time and shooting time, but we can't ask players to think about these issues, players just want to see the result." Henry said.
When resuming, Xiaoyu asked again whether it was a cost-effective choice to invite Yua Mikami, and Henry still firmed up his original idea. 'Is that the right direction or are we not doing well enough. The proportion of the three scenes should be increased, and the filming time should be longer. ”
At the time of filming, Mr. Mikami did not agree to follow-up publicity. After watching the finished film, she felt that the quality was very good, and she also promoted the project on X. Henry said.
"Five of the fastest cars in the world were used for the shooting"
In October last year, producer Henry met game producer Ghost on a game that went overseas after playing "It's Over". After a meal, the two hit it off and developed the interactive film game "I'm Crazy for Love".
The play tells the story of the male protagonist Qiangzi. In the game, the user will play the role of the male protagonist Qiangzi, who is about to marry his fiancée (Yua Mikami), but the night before the wedding photo, he lost his wedding ring at a single party with the girls. For this reason, Hadron began to go to various ex-girlfriends to find wedding rings.
The whole story is in the form of a flashback of parallel time and space.
In terms of setting, Mikami has a suspicion value, and if the suspicion value is too high, Mikami will be lost. At the same time, there is also a heartbeat value with an ex-girlfriend, and players can tackle a single girlfriend.
In April this year, in the middle of the preparation of the "I'm Crazy for Love" project, Entertainment Capital contacted Henry, the producer of the "I'm Crazy for Love" project, for the first time. At that time, the project was in full swing.
The production of the project is a film crew of more than 70 people and a game team of more than 10 people. The overall shooting was a month, and the overall budget exceeded more than 10 million. There are 8 heroines in the story, and it takes 10 hours to clear all the branches.
"We started planning at the end of November last year, and we started production in December. This investment volume is only comparable to that of the platform. Whether it is the team's cooperation, integration or shooting efficiency, the team is very capable of playing. We originally planned to go on in April, but then we didn't think we needed to be in such a hurry to catch up with a certain node, and I believe that if the quality is passed, it can be sold on Steam and consoles for three or five years in the future. ”
Behind the high investment is Henry's recognition of the production team and the quality of the game.
As for how to be a regular army in interactive film games, Henry listed his own investment in production, the photography uses the latest equipment, and the audiovisual language is very good. The picture is beautiful, all long shots, the longest shot is three or four minutes. You can understand it as a MV, but it has a lot more delicate emotional points than the MV. It took a total of 25 days of shooting, and the materials that can be used for 1000 minutes can't be stopped, and there will be small unlocks of the DIT class, and the content is very abundant. ”
Specifically, the five motorcycles used in the filming of this project are the five fastest in the world.
"Inviting Yua Mikami, it's a bold attempt"
"What we told Mikami is that there are a lot of players and viewers in China who like her, but she suddenly withdrew, which is equivalent to owing a wedding photo to a Chinese player, and we hope that she can wear a wedding dress in the game. When she said this, she was moved. ”
At the beginning of the project, "I'm Crazy for Love" hoped to invite a recognizable international artist as the heroine, and finally settled on Yua Mikami.
Henry said: "Yua Mikami has a sweet and cute image and a wide fan base, and it is especially popular in the Asia-Pacific region. She is the most popular actress of our time and the goddess in the hearts of countless men. Otaku has a large population base, and there is a silent majority, and there are often unexpected things, how many people owe her a ticket. ”
In the actual shooting, Ronaldo was full of praise for Yua Mikami, "Many actors are not used to the first-person perspective, and their eyes will inevitably catch a glimpse of the actor in the opposite role, but they should actually communicate with the camera, and Mikami may shoot more first-person, and he has not glanced at the camera from beginning to end, and the sense of communication with the player is particularly strong." ”
In fact, Yua Mikami brought a lot of exposure to the project, and at the same time, controversy ensued. Many players are dissatisfied with Yua Mikami's role and feel that there are too few.
In response, Ronaldo noted, "She's not an NPC. She has a complete story line and love history, including how to meet, what she experienced in the middle, and how to make choices later, all of which have a reasonable plot. There will be in-depth communication with players. ”
In general, Yua Mikami's role is higher than that of other heroines, and it is distributed in the overall situation. But compared with the original script, the scenes are still filmed a lot.
After confirming the invitation to Yua Mikami, the project team actively coordinated the schedule and shooting time with the Mikami team, but the result of the coordination was not satisfactory. "For three days, we work 4 hours a day, and we can't help it. And in the end, the shooting was overtimed, and people didn't say anything, which was good. ”
Faced with a very tight time, the project team could only shoot hard, racing against time to complete the shooting task.
10 minutes after the game was launched, there were a number of negative reviews about Yua Mikami's appearance time in the Steam comment section. Regarding this part of the bad reviews, Henry first vaguely revealed some shady scenes of the industry to us.
"There were seven or eight bad reviews within 0.1 hours of the launch, so these people must have come before they even played. In fact, the exposure of our game is sufficient, and many players' evaluation of the quality of our game is also very high, but this circle is relatively small, and this batch of bad reviews has directly affected the public opinion of domestic players, and also affected the purchase willingness of subsequent players. ”
In addition to some shady scenes in the industry, Henry himself admitted frankly: "Almost half of the three scripts have not been filmed", the filming time is limited, the content of the script has been cut in half, and the original complete story has to become a fragmented plot.
Until the game was released online, Henry reviewed Yua Mikami's role many times, and could only helplessly say, "How to stretch Mikami's plot when the shooting time is so tight, I really didn't expect it." ”
"It's a paradox!"
"Interactive film and game" is defined as a kind of cultural product between film and television and games, which has both stories presented in the narrative of film and television dramas, as well as interactive gameplay that only games have. Before "Finished", everyone positioned interactive video games more on games, and the emergence of "Finished" made practitioners see the importance of plot and script design.
"We also crossed the river by feeling the stones, and when we first decided on the game mechanics, we thought about the plot, but later found out that the project was not a game, and overturned all the settings to improve the mechanism. In terms of design ideas, normal dramas are a lot of reasonable; Speaking of logic, the game should be more unexpected. When asked about the overall design of the game, Henry replied.
Yang Sheng, the executive producer of "Finished", once said when sharing his production experience: "It is very important to give players positive emotional value. And in this regard, "I'm Crazy for Love" has dug a hole for itself.
In terms of plot setting, the male protagonist Qiangzi woke up and found that he had lost his wedding ring with his fiancée Yua Mikami. In order to get his wedding ring back, the male protagonist needs to recall the process of getting acquainted with different ex-girlfriends. The overall plot direction is contrary to the plot direction of traditional love games, skipping the process from ambiguity to love, and at the beginning of the plot, players need to reject seven ex-girlfriends who want to marry themselves, and it is difficult to be stimulated positive emotions.
At the beginning, the production team of "I'm Crazy for Love" chose this setting to bring some freshness to players in terms of gameplay and plot. However, in the face of negative comments from players, Henry began to re-examine the story and overall mechanical settings.
"Some players want to be in love a little more, for example, they never recognize the beginning of the ambiguous relationship with a girl, and they can feel the small luck in it, as well as the heart-warming moment, players may want to go to the strategy themselves. But we are ex-girlfriends from the beginning, and we may be missing a love process, and they feel that the sense of substitution is not enough. ”
But about the setting of this part of the plot, Ghost also put forward his opinion from the player's point of view, "Some otaku players are reluctant to watch this kind of line thing, it's boring for him, if you want to describe the cause and effect clearly, then the plot will be very watery." ”
"It's a paradox at the moment, and we're not balancing that part well. ”
"It's a paradox between going online and getting on the sidelines"
As an 18+ love simulation game, otome games can be "roll scale", and male games can also have some edge rubbing. As long as it can be launched smoothly, the content of the bed knock, black silk and other micro-rubbing edges can also become a means to attract players.
In the process of making the game, Henry hopes to attract players through pleasing settings and exquisite UI design, so as to break the law that male games with love simulation must be rubbed.
But after the game was launched, Henry saw the market give an answer to the core of the game.
"At first, I thought that players would like to see some mechanical things, such as the setting of suspicion and favorability, the story line, how to attack the characters, etc. Then now look at the core or rub the edges. The director of the pet hospital has the most plot rubbing edges and the best feedback. ”
But then, Henry also noted: "It's a paradox. Players want to see the most straightforward and simple content, but if there is too much content, they can't launch it on Steam. Since we have invited Mikami with the greatest sincerity, if we can't get on the game because of the rubbing, the gains outweigh the losses. ”
There are 8 heroines in "I'm Crazy for Love", with different personalities. The biker girl wears a leather coat and loves rock and roll; Football commentators love sports; The ancient heroine behaves dignified and has the appearance of the ancients...... In terms of overall style, Ronaldo hopes to present a light-hearted and happy romance movie atmosphere as a whole, allowing players to follow the male protagonist and explore the past experience like a marquee to find a sense of love.
In terms of specific gameplay design, the whole game is a non-linear narrative, and half an hour after the game starts, players can choose which line to attack. The order of the player's choice will not affect the finale, but with the choice, it will affect whether everyone can be attacked. In addition, there are 8 mini-games included in the game.
Regarding the theme, Ronaldo added, "Everyone in the game who is crazy about love represents a typical view of love, such as white moonlight, such as hobbies. It's a bit like Mr. Jin Yong's "Dragon Babu", which talks about the eight emotions of Buddha. ”
When reviewing the plot issues, Ghost added, "At the time, we wanted to do a more advanced story, but the market didn't work out well. Now I think that I should add some more cool logic. ”
In addition to the review of the plot and mechanics, Henry also made a further analysis of the match between the player portrait and the game setting, "Many of our players are otaku, and the players who can play this kind of game are because they have no experience in love, so they will come to play, our love setting is very complicated, and they may not be able to accept this kind of love aesthetics, and they may still need some more direct love experience." ”
Henry and his team are also exploring how to cater to players and grasp the platform's acceptance of some content while doing a good job in plot and UI design.
With an investment cost of tens of millions, we want to be a regular army of interactive video games
In the context of the recession of the whole environment, the aesthetic fatigue of players, and the low overall lower limit of the interactive film and game industry, Henry still decided to make high-quality products, "We are the way of playing in the regular army".
In order to be able to do a good job in the project, the time for the game to be launched has also been postponed again and again, "The launch in April and May was a joke at the beginning, and it is impossible to complete it in such a short time." The earliest was set for June 26, but we didn't think it was good enough, and we made changes to many problems, and it was difficult to adjust the plot direction. ”
Regarding the time when the game was launched, Henry also told a small episode that made people cry and laugh, "We were originally scheduled to go online on July 14, and sending an email to Steam was also July 14th, but the United States time was July 13th, and Steam's reply to our email became the 13th online." This shortened the time for brute force testing, resulting in problems such as lost saves on the first day. ”
Speaking of this, Henry also lamented, "We fought in the regular army, but we were defeated by the irregular army. ”
"The irregulars in the industry are all mixing with AI in terms of music, or finding a pirated imitation of a paragraph. This is low-cost and cost-effective. But we have already invited Sanshang, so we don't consider the cost performance, as long as it is the highest, take the strategy of holding high and fighting high, and the music copyright alone will cost hundreds of thousands.
Long-lasting operation, word of mouth is king
When asked about the release, Henry admitted, "We have a limited budget, so we don't really do how to publish, mainly run our own account and community. A good product not only needs to be carefully made, but also needs good publicity and continuous operation. ”
Regarding the publicity platform, Henry pointed out, "We didn't choose Douyin, first, there is no way to cast the content about Mikami Yuya on Douyin, which is one of our major publicity points, and if we can't publicize it, it will have no effect; The second is that most of Douyin's users don't know Yua Mikami. In the end, we chose to vote for some up masters at station B, and gave the game to some anchors for free, so that they could try it out and broadcast it live. In fact, the live broadcast effect we have seen and the feedback we have received from players are very good. ”
Similarly, when comparing with other suspense-oriented games, Henry also said, "We are a love-oriented game, mainly looking at the plot, with little logic, and players won't want to play anymore after watching it." Unlike suspense, players will want to explore new plot points after watching it. ”
Faced with the problem of poor reputation and low conversion rate of live broadcast, Henry admits that he has not yet found the right path, and can only hope for a long-term operation plan to save his reputation.
At this point, Henry's team decided to cut the distribution budget and use the funds to give back to players. "We want to do something for the players. First of all, we will do some promotional activities during the festival. Secondly, since the players feel that the content of the rubbing is too small, then we simply do not do the publicity, do not leave the budget for the publicity, and take out the money to make a DLC and give back to the players. ”
In addition to these, when it comes to long-term operations, Henry also mentioned, "If we want to operate this game for a long time, we do need a stable investor, but the stability of this field is a bit poor, and it is a bit difficult to raise funds." ”
In the planning of the early publicity strategy, Henry's team is constantly trying to make mistakes. With the clarity of the entire long-term operation plan, a set of independent publicity and distribution models that are fully suitable for interactive video games may be formed in the future.
Regarding the future, Henry emphasized, "We will increase our efforts to reward players, and there will be various activities and benefits in terms of game content. Players' satisfaction and support are what drives us forward. ”
Henry said: "The market for interactive video games is developing, and it is also the success of previous games that can lead to today's works. And thanks to the support of investors, we can step into the blue ocean. ”
At the end of the interview, Henry also emphasized that he learned a lot in the production of the whole project, "You have to shoot well, but also pay attention to the design of game mechanics. In the future, we will also be more determined to bring good works to players. ”