Probably because of the impact of the epidemic on the research and development of game companies, the wind direction of the entire industry has changed this year. Domestic end games and independent games such as "Forever Devastated" and "Ghost Valley Eight Wilds" have blossomed, going out of the country and going to the world; EA, T2, Activision Blizzard have pulled their crotches, and "Halo", which was once not optimistic about anyone, has become the light of this year's FPS.
In contrast, the mobile game market does not have so many moths. The two-dimensional games represented by "Original God" continue to shine, and at the same time, IP adaptation mobile games also continue to shine. In the first half of this year, the "Douluo Continent" mobile game was launched three times, and finally achieved good ranking results in Chinese mainland and all over Asia, and NetEase's "Harry Potter: Magical Awakening" was a ride after it was launched in September this year.
As one of the most core concepts of the cultural industry, the value of IP to games, especially the mobile game industry, does not need to be emphasized too much by GameLook. According to the "2021 China Self-developed Game IP Research Report" released by Gamma Data, in 2020, China's IP adaptation mobile game market broke through the mark of 100 billion yuan for the first time, and the market size was 124.32 billion yuan.
But today, a large number of high-quality IP in the current market has been concentrated in the name of a number of large enterprises, earlier there is Changyou, as early as many years ago signed the mobile game adaptation rights of Jin Yong's ten works for 20 million yuan, in August this year, China Mobile Games also completed the acquisition of NorthSoft and "Immortal Sword" IP.
At this time, how to find a "new" IP is crucial. As one of the crystallizations of the early collision between the Internet and culture, it is undeniable that it is still a good field for the Internet industry to cultivate high-quality IP. And according to the report of Gamma Data, the source of mobile game IP is gradually "breaking the circle", and it is becoming increasingly close to the cultural and creative entertainment fields such as online text and animation.
So how can game companies make waves and find their own online IP? How should online authors improve their works from the perspective of IP growth?
The network text played a stable role, and the national animation IP rose
With the growth of users' investment in content consumption, the three major fields of literature, film and television, and games, which were once clearly demarcated, can no longer be separated from each other. In recent years, the adaptation of film and television dramas, animations and games that frequently appear in the screens of viewers and players has basically determined the position of online texts in the upstream of the IP ecology.
However, after several years of development and the baptism of a large number of products, players' attitudes and preferences have also changed for online texts and their IP adaptations.
According to the "2020 China Online Literature Development Report" released by the China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association, more than 70% of online literature readers are currently under the age of 30 (post-90s), and the proportion of post-95 readers has exceeded half, reaching 54.4%, and 60% of the paying users in the entire online literature market are also post-90s.
With the post-90s becoming the main force of online literature, according to the "202 Annual Report on the Development of Chinese Online Literature" released by the Academy of Social Sciences at the beginning of this year, light novels, two-dimensional yuan, workplace urban literature and other replacement of traditional shuangwen began to rise. At the same time, due to the upstream position of net text in the entire Internet IP ecology, the changes in the net text industry have also had a certain impact on games.
Due to the high degree of overlap between online text and games in the age group of players, Gamma Data's "2021 China Self-developed Game IP Research Report" shows that mobile games adapted from literary IP, including online literature, still maintain rapid growth in terms of revenue and product quantity in 2020, with total revenue reaching 7.88 billion yuan, while the annual flow of more than 500 million yuan of text IP adaptation games has reached 14.
At the same time, the popularity of online texts and the national tide in recent years has also made drastic changes in the entire animation IP adaptation game market. The gamma data report shows that users' freshness for the Japanese comic IP adaptation game has been significantly reduced, but there are still high expectations for the national comic IP that is closely related to the network text.
On the one hand, the theme of online text tends to be diverse, and the rise of urban workplaces, two-dimensional and other themes provides more possibilities for IP adaptation games in gameplay and system design, and this diversity can also reduce the aesthetic fatigue of players on the "RPG homogenization" of IP adaptation games, and may instead release the living space for some IP suitable for MMO, RPG and other traditional gameplay.
On the other hand, as one of the most successful representatives of Chinese cultural products going abroad, wangwen cooperation with Chinese mobile games that are currently gaining a foothold in the world may also form a unique cultural communication combination, by integrating online readers and mobile game players into the same IP ecology, while enhancing user stickiness, it can also expand the influence of IP.
Excellent web text IP, cool point and depth are indispensable
Nettext is entering a more thriving stage, and its importance is self-evident, so how can webpot be perfectly integrated with the game?
To answer this question, we must first understand the most basic principle of IP adaptation of the game, and at the same time, it is the most attractive point for fans, that is, "restoration". In the whole process of "restoration", the game, as a party to the adaptation, is more in a cooperative position for online texts, or anime, film and television dramas derived from online texts.
In other words, in order to achieve a more perfect integration of online text IP and games, game companies must pay attention to the details of the article's setting, world view architecture, plot and narrative when selecting IP, and select works that meet the business model of mobile game market product design as much as possible. In this regard, "Douluo Continent", which focused on IP adaptation of the game this year, can be said to be an excellent example.
The most basic character image, "Douluo Continent Soul Master Showdown" still ensures high-quality restoration
From the starting point Chinese network to Zhiyin Comic, and then to the "Douluo Continent" animation produced by Xuanji in 2018, the entire "Douluo Continent" IP has broken the circle step by step and entered the public vision. "Douluo Continent" is not only an excellent novel, but also a classic template for ipization of online texts.
According to a survey, 40% of the audience had not seen the original book before watching the "Douluo Continent" animation. For game companies, the accumulation of fans brought by this kind of circle breaking allows the game to bring its own traffic and attention, but at the same time, this attention also represents a stricter requirement for "loyalty to the original".
But fortunately, the innate conditions of Douluo Continent were excellent. In terms of plot, although the original work began with the starting male frequency, it is inevitable that there is a tendency of "big male protagonist", but fortunately, with the development of the subsequent plot, the novel inserts a large number of "literary dramas" that describe and narrate various characters in the martial arts section that is refreshing enough, realizing the relatively plump portrayal of xiaowu, Yu Xiaogang and other characters, so that they are no longer the tool people on the road of the protagonist to upgrade and fight monsters.
"Douluo Continent: Soul Master Showdown, which is exactly the same as the anime"
In fact, similar works also have the theme of Xiu Xian "The Legend of mortal Xiu Xian", which is different from the traditional xiu xian theme works that have soared all the way from the foundation to the foundation, and the original work also involves thinking about human nature and divinity, as well as a large number of depictions of the background of the times and the humanistic environment in addition to the protagonist.
For the game, on the one hand, it can enrich the content of the game by designing branches, and in the RPG and other genres, it also means that the game can open up more characters to meet the needs of different fans, rather than just the male protagonist", which is in line with the general trend of character payment in RPG mobile games at this stage.
More importantly, in order to make the game characters have flesh and blood literary drama bridges, in addition to making the characters no longer facetious, but also giving the plot depth. It may be that in the eyes of some players, only the two-dimensional and other selling game types need a good story, but looking at the game industry, it is not difficult to find that even if it is a strong competitive game such as FPS, and the plot and narrative are a crucial part of the game experience and IP ecology.
To a certain extent, in the shell of the traditional shuangwen, "Douluo Continent" also adds a discussion of friendship, love, growth, team and other topics that can resonate with players, which are the keys to enhancing the emotional connection with players for the game.
Coupled with a series of settings such as team combat in the original "Douluo Continent", it also provides a prototype reference for game companies when designing battles and levels, reducing the cost of players and fans learning game settings while restoring.
Critically acclaimed soft sci-fi web article "Crash Galaxy"
Of course, "Douluo Continent" also has its own limitations, that is, the worldview architecture in a number of online texts and games may not be new, in this regard, in recent years, the gradual recovery of science fiction themes may be more dominant, science fiction background IP whether in the game or film and television industry demand is also very large, but at the same time, because science fiction has a certain rigor, which is a challenge for ordinary authors, is not small to their own writing and knowledge structure.
There is no need to pan for gold in the sand, and there are more affordable options for using subsidiaries
To summarize briefly, for mobile game companies at this stage, combined with popular business models such as card drawing and character payment, the three characteristics that a suitable online article must have are: in-depth plot, excellent group portrait drama and innovative world view setting. However, rather than saying that these standards are suitable for the game industry, they should be regarded as criteria for screening ip by quality.
However, these standards also have obvious shortcomings, that is, they will be affected by subjective factors. Are there more stable, mature selection criteria? Of course there is, that is the national comic mentioned above.
The current situation of the national creation of internal volumes
Part of this is because the current national comics are crazy upwards, and while competing with peers for quality, many works have urgent needs for building IP ecology through games, or monetizing. And when the inner volume of the national comic meets the inner volume of the game, the large, medium and small companies in the two industries can find their own goals from it, have money to spend money, creative brain holes, and play their own advantages to become the new lucky people in the industry.
Secondly, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, most of the IPs that have been proven successful today have been pocketed by large manufacturers. However, the online text industry, which is now showing a new trend, will continue to produce new gold, including the next "immortal sword" or "Douluo" in the Internet field. But the job of "panning for gold in the sand" is obviously more suitable for the film and television industry than for game companies.
The national comic project that has been established is already a product that has been screened by the film and television industry and readers and audiences.
Although in recent years, many completely original national comic works have appeared in front of the audience, most of the national comics are still adaptations with a network text foundation, and the IP "breaking circle" of the entire industry still adheres to the process from online texts to comics to animation to live-action film and television dramas, and finally the game.
It is only different from the shooting, broadcasting and evaluation of live-action film and television dramas will be affected by the personal situation and wind evaluation of the actors, as long as the game company or IP party is willing, the animation works have the ability to do more than the comic circle, and even influence to crush some live-action film and television works at the same time, with a relatively fixed frequency, has been kept updated, through the film-game linkage and other activities, to maintain the popularity of the game or animation. And the market response received by anime works is usually more closely related to the quality of IP.
Not only the game to go to animation to pan for gold, animation has also become the focus of self-developed game IP construction
Of course, GameLook also understands that compared with net text IP, the general direction of the entire industry is self-developed IP, which is the field of enhancing the hard power of the industry. From the perspective of the entire game industry, IP adaptation is still the best choice for many companies to survive, and the traffic dividend of IP itself, unique content and fresh perspective, as well as the diversified entertainment needs of users under the IP ecosystem, are doomed to the market for IP adaptation games is still worthy of investment by game companies.
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GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
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