When the top IP encounters innovative gameplay, in addition to the birth of a phenomenon-level game, what kind of spark can it collide?
The answer to Harry Potter: Magical Awakening is to open up a new esports track – instant magic competition.
In the first official event of Harry Potter: Awakening of Magic, the Duel Masters Invitational Tournament, which ended on November 28, the top players competed in a magical showdown feast. Esports and magic, two seemingly far-apart words, have been perfectly integrated in this realistic version of the world of Hogwarts, thus opening a new era of e-sports belonging to Harry Potter: Magical Awakening.
Instant + magic + competition, accurate positioning of the event brand
By splitting "instant magic competition" into three keywords: "instant", "magic" and "competition", we can better understand why Harry Potter: Magic Awakening opened up this new esports track.
Unlike the turn-based mode of traditional CCG card games, Harry Potter: Magic Awakening's battles are more instantaneous, with both sides operating simultaneously during the battle, and all battle feedback is instantly visible. This not only makes the players' operation more confrontational and strategic, but also improves the viewing effect of the event. Thus, based on the characteristics of the product, "instant" became the first keyword.
At the same time, the players of Harry Potter: Magical Awakening also have a strong "Harry Potter" magic plot, and this empowerment derived from IP also makes this game more immersive and vital. In the game, there are also magical elements with a sense of atmosphere everywhere. What is particularly prominent is the various interactions and animations during the battle, which faithfully restore the fierce fighting scene of the wizards coming and going through the wand in the original game, and also makes the player feel as if they are in a hogwarts magic duel.
The full interpretation of the magical elements also makes Harry Potter: Magical Awakening a unique product label, which also makes the meaning of "magic" as a keyword of the event more prominent: this not only makes the event have a more distinctive style, but also makes it easier for players and spectators to be infected by its unique magical atmosphere.
The precise grasp of both products and users ultimately serves the core goal of "competition". As the inaugural official event of Harry Potter: Magical Awakening, the concept of "Instant Magic Competition" is also more concretely embodied: it is both a magic showdown feast staged in reality in the wizarding world of Hogwarts, and a competitive arena for the top players to compete for honors.
Watching the game is like watching a movie, immersively restoring the magical world
If the real-time combat nature of the product itself gives Harry Potter: Magic Awakening a natural viewing advantage to the matchmaking, the production team's painstaking efforts in the game packaging have transformed this advantage into a more immersive "magic" viewing experience.
During the competition, the event team uses the UE4 engine to make a virtual event packaging, build the event space based on the in-game duel club scene, and present the event information in a very imaginative and creative form, so that the audience can be quickly brought into the fantasy world full of magical elements.
Offline, the event side is more ingenious real scene to build a deeply rooted magic duel scene, and combined with the "Harry Potter" original Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin four colleges related settings, customized design of the academy exclusive scene, each scene has a unique color style, so careful stage design not only allows the contestants to give full play to their own strength in a more familiar environment, but also let the audience's viewing experience is like enjoying the battle plot in the movie.
This distinctive style of magic also continued into the event. In order to make the event more ritualistic and immersive, before the start of the competition, each player will pose as if they were dueling in the game, and these fully personalized poses seem to be a magical duel across dimensions with the eccentric students in the original book.
At the same time, a "live dance" was also staged at the finals. As the in-game ball kicked off, the two dancers began to dance, bringing the audience into the magical world of Hogwarts.
From the event packaging to the event link, the Duel Masters Invitational Tournament revolves around the core concept of "instant magic competition", fully solves the problem of heavy competition and light style that is common in previous e-sports events, and takes "magic" as the theme to present a unique e-sports audio-visual feast for the audience, and also provides another excellent model with distinct style for the overall creation of events in the field of e-sports.
Create a stylized academy label and let the event spread the breaking point continuously
How to effectively use communication innovation so that the audience can quickly form memory points for the event and the players is a common problem faced by all new e-sports events. Thanks to the full excavation of the product content, Harry Potter: Magical Awakening has found the label that is most easily disseminated and remembered - the Academy.
In the Harry Potter book, fans have a deep sense of belonging to the four major magical schools at Hogwarts: the Lion's House, the Eagle House, the Snake House, and the Badger House. The contestants also keenly used this as a starting point to take photos of the contestants' magic academy and emphasize the players' academic identity in the event.
On the eve of the finals, four landmark outdoor screens in the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen responded to the players of the four major colleges. The "academy" has also become a hot topic of discussion among players, after the Eagle Courtyard players won the championship of the 1v1 single-player mode, the topic of #Harry Potter Eagle Academy winning the championship was ranked fifth on the Weibo hot search list the next day.
The deep binding with the academy label not only makes the content of the event "more magical", but also helps to establish the personality characteristics of the contestants. In fact, in order to achieve the full exposure of the contestants, the event team launched a variety of forms and rich content of communication materials inside and outside the arena, from pre-game interviews, magical disguises to the contestants' dialect chanting, and the content that the audience liked and creatively became an important source of the continuous explosion of the event.
Not only that, in order to let the audience better understand the game situation, Harry Potter: Magical Awakening also recruited high-quality commentary and hosting teams based on this competition. Focus on the hot spots of the competition at each stage of the finals, predict, review and explain the event in depth, and witness the moment of winning the championship with the players in a very infectious way of commentary, which will raise the viewing of the event to a new height.
Under a series of outstanding event-building actions, the Duel Masters Invitational Tournament also handed over a dazzling report card: the cumulative number of people watching the event reached 46.746 million, the total number of Weibo events read more than 240 million times, and the number of event discussions reached 33,000. The super high popularity has also triggered weibo hot searches several times, becoming another phenomenon-level hot event in the field of e-sports this year.
epilogue
From preparation to production to dissemination, the Harry Potter: Magical Awakening Duel Masters Invitational closely revolves around the concept of "Instant Magic Competition", accurately interpreting the nascent Harry Potter event brand, while the enthusiastic participation of players and players makes this new track more vibrant and dynamic, which will also help the Harry Potter: Magical Awakening product itself to show stronger vitality in long-term operation.
With the end of the inaugural tournament, witnessed by tens of millions of spectators, the e-sports road of Harry Potter: Magical Awakening has gradually entered a better state. In the proposition of "Instant Magic Competition", what kind of chapter can "Harry Potter: Magical Awakening" write, which will also become the most anticipated topic on this new track in the future.