The acquisition of creative themes has always been a "big problem" for casual game manufacturers, in order to make products that can quickly absorb volume, daily life, social network hotspots, and imagination can become a source of inspiration for manufacturers. Recently, at the top of the overseas game list, there have been a number of casual games based on popular TV variety shows such as "Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets" and "Words of Fortune: Word Games, Crosswords, Puzzles". So let's talk about it today, how do these games transform variety content into blockbuster games? Can variety shows become the next genre library for casual game manufacturers?
《Affairs 3D:Silly Secrets》
"Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets" by Turkish publisher Alictus is based on the American fire-based paternity testing variety show "The Maury Show". This variety show revolves around dna paternity testing and lie detector testing, staged a dazzling dog blood plot and emotional grudges, the child's mother and the man with the suspicion of being a father on the stage choked and scolded each other, the drama conflict was shown vividly on the stage for a few minutes, after the paternity test came out, the exaggerated performance of both sides or joy or sadness also made it difficult to stop laughing, you can casually watch a period to feel it.
Under the coaxing of the host and the live audience, there are often out-of-control scenes on the recording scene of the program, and these scenes provide a lot of topics and jokes for off-camera viewers. "The Maury Show" is also under the enthusiasm of the audience "eating melons", from 1991 to the present, maintaining the evergreen heat for 30 consecutive years.
"Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets" is a game product that includes paternity testing, lie detector testing, cheating and other gameplay based on the core content of "The Maury Show". In the game, players can play the role of the host to announce the DNA identification results; they can determine whether the lie detector has cheated on the person by the lie detector reaction; they can also play the cheater, avoid the lover's sight, talk to other people, chat with other people or escape the scene of the cheating.
Part of the game content of Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets
Through the concise picture, the game reproduces the classic picture of the guests dancing after knowing the result, and also adds a new way of cheating and catching adultery in the series, with the blessing of the popularity of "The Maury Show" and the help of creative gameplay, "Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets" has won the love of a large number of players overseas, and at present, the game has reached the 11th place in the list of google play free games in the United States.
《Words of Fortune: Word Games, Crosswords, Puzzles》
The variety show "Wheel of Fortune", based on Sony's "Words of Fortune: Word Games, Crosswords, Puzzles", was first broadcast in 1975 and can be called a national level variety show in the United States. In this variety show, guests from all over the world will lock the reward amount or gift of the game by turning the turntable, and then only need to answer the correct word game to get the corresponding reward. Because of the game's inclusion of cash prizes of up to $1 million and an intense quiz process, the game has always had a large and loyal audience in the United States.
The game "Words of Fortune: Word Games, Crosswords, Puzzles" released by Sony basically made a complete reproduction of the variety show, and designed the game to be carried out in the form of letters, reducing the difficulty of the game and effectively improving the player's game coolness.
The game from easy to difficult level settings, the addition of various auxiliary tools and reward means, further enriched the player's game experience, from the actual experience of the teahouse, the game can indeed be called a boutique puzzle super casual game. Currently, the game is at number 10 on the List of Free Games on Google Play in the United States.
Why are there few explosive variety games in China
Vision back to China, in fact, there are many domestic developers have tried the gamification of variety shows, such as the "Chinese Restaurant - 3D Genuine Licensing" released by Caohua Interactive, and the "Where Did Daddy Go Mobile Game" developed by Lanfei Interactive Entertainment are all game products that have been officially authorized by Variety. However, judging from the actual line of the product, there is no special variety game in China for the time being. So what exactly is lacking in domestic variety games? After horizontal comparison, The Tea House believes that it can mainly be discussed from the selection of variety IP and the core gameplay.
In the choice of variety show themes, the two explosive models of overseas manufacturers choose programs with more concentrated fun points and large user magnitudes, which not only facilitates the extraction of the core gameplay of the game, but also helps manufacturers to first win this part of the traffic of loyal audiences in the purchase stage.
It can also be seen from the purchase materials of the two overseas games that obtaining the attention of variety show audiences through the display of variety show content is the same strategy they use in the measurement stage. For example, the delivery material of "Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets" makes extensive use of scenes from variety shows, and the content reproduced in the game is fused and edited.
"Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets" buy material (Source: App Growing)
"Words of Fortune: Word Games, Crosswords, Puzzles" is not much to buy, but most of the materials it uses are also used in variety shows.
Words of Fortune buying material (Source: AppGrowing)
From this point of view, the rational use of the traffic advantages brought by variety shows is an effective solution to promote the rapid absorption of such games. In contrast, in China, due to the restrictions of various factors, domestic manufacturers have not yet directly quoted the explosive content of the program in the material.
Taking the relatively prominent market performance of "Chinese Restaurant - 3D Genuine Licensing" as an example, although the national popularity of the variety show based on the game is not as good as the above two overseas variety shows, it has achieved good attention in the hot broadcast process. During the concentrated purchase of the game around the eleventh holiday last year, the purchase materials used were still mainly game demonstration videos, anchor game videos and star store managers, and did not fully play the advantages of the variety show theme.
"Chinese Restaurant - 3D Genuine Licensing" Purchase Materials (Source: AppGrowing)
Moreover, from the perspective of the core gameplay of the actual line game, the core gameplay of the two overseas products not only restores the conflict points and excitement points in the variety show: "Affairs 3D: Silly Secrets" is the result test of DNA paternity test and the exaggerated performance of the tester, and "Words of Fortune: Word Games, Crosswords, Puzzles" is the cool feeling of the turntable reward process It also supplements the game content, increases the overall gameplay of the product, and enhances the player's gaming experience.
The domestic manufacturers in the core gameplay extraction and streamlining design is obviously still lacking, from the player feedback can also be seen that some product content is boring, lack of sufficient gameplay and cool feedback, resulting in poor player experience, poor user retention effect in the later stage.
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In general, the variety show with its own attention does have a unique traffic advantage in gamification, but this does not mean that winning the variety show IP will win the market steadily, and developers still need to consider how to use the advantages of variety show traffic while grasping the highlight content of the program, planning a high-quality product with enough gameplay, and achieving a win-win situation in the quality and traffic of the game.
And from the actual situation, developers also have to consider the balance between the cost and benefit of variety IP acquisition. After all, casual games, especially ultra-casual games with advertising as the main monetization method, have a low overall revenue efficiency and magnitude, and the acquisition price of variety IP with wide attention is obviously not too low, so whether the ROI of high-investment products can be run correct is also the key that game developers must measure in entering variety games.
Therefore, the teahouse believes that the development of variety games is worth "investing in", but it also requires careful evaluation and research and development by manufacturers.