Hello everyone, this is the positive shock game, I am the positive shock little brother.
Speaking of NCSoft, presumably everyone who pays attention to Korean games must be very familiar, NCSoft's terminal games have "Paradise", "Aion", "Guild Wars 2", "Sword Spirit", etc., of which "Paradise", which has been operating for 20 years, not only occupies 50% of the korean domestic terminal game market, becoming a Korean national game, but also has achieved excellent results overseas, and still supports NCsoft, a huge company.
"Paradise" can be said to be the bearer of Korean games, and its influence at that time was no less than that of the later "World of Warcraft" and "League of Legends".
In the era of mobile games, NCSoft relied on the national IP of "Paradise" to make "Paradise M" and "Paradise 2M" mobile games, and continued to sweep South Korea.
Among them, "Paradise M" is highly reproducible terminal game, and the blessing of national IP makes this game a fire without accident, 5.5 million people log in beforehand, and the first month's revenue exceeded 233 million US dollars (about 1.5 billion yuan), easily winning the global revenue championship. The pre-registration of the sequel "Paradise 2M" exceeded 7 million people before its launch, and it attracted a total of 129 billion won (about 760 million yuan) in the first month, continuing to break the Korean record.
Both games are still at the top of the iOS Korean game bestseller list, and "Paradise M" performs even better than "Paradise 2M", almost falling out of the top ten.
So, how will such a South Korean head game company perform in 2021?
First, "Paradise 2M" made a lot of money on the shelves in Hong Kong and Taiwan, China
As we said earlier, "Paradise 2M" already has a very superior gold absorption ability in South Korea. In March this year, "Paradise 2M" was finally listed in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the ability to absorb gold has not weakened.
Before "Paradise 2M" was released on Hong Kong and Taiwan, the number of advance reservations exceeded 3.52 million, setting a new record in the history of Hong Kong and Taiwan mobile games. And "Paradise 2M" in order to do publicity in Hong Kong and Taiwan, from the beginning of the game before logging in, whether it is the Internet, TELEVISION or offline, you can see the "Paradise 2M" everywhere in the sky of publicity ads, but also specially invited Jin Chengwu to do endorsements.
As can be seen from NCsoft's Q2 financial report, due to the release of "Paradise 2M" in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the sales of "Paradise 2M" reached 218 billion won (1.17 billion yuan), an increase of 43% month-on-month, and the results can be said to be very good.
However, unsurprisingly, the sales of "Paradise 2M" in Hong Kong and Taiwan are the same as in South Korea, not as good as the original "Paradise M", in fact, the advertising slogan of "Paradise 2M" actually explains everything, "Only Heaven, can surpass Paradise", "Paradise 2M" is aimed at those who are playing "Paradise M", but after all, the memory is only the first time will be the most beautiful, and the benefits after the second time will be diminishing.
And many players also said that "Paradise 2M" is not a mobile version of "Paradise 2 Online", but the second generation of "Paradise M".
Perhaps in order to take advantage of the chase, "Paradise 2M" also continued to enter 29 countries and regions around the world such as North America, Europe, and Russia on December 2, but compared with the good results of Hong Kong and Taiwan, in Europe and the United States, the ranking even barely entered the top 500 of the iOS best-seller list. It seems that this "Paradise" Korean MMORPG routine will not work for European and American players.
In addition, more than half a year later, "Paradise 2M" has also been "backstabbed" by NCsoft's own "Paradise W", I don't know how far "Paradise 2M" can continue to go in the future?
Second, the first new work in 2021, "Star Diamond Story M", was cold
Speaking of "Star Diamond Story", it is the first 2D cartoon type online game that has been introduced into the Chinese mainland, and it may be relatively unfamiliar to domestic players, which is a relatively niche Q version of childhood online game.
Star Diamond Story M is NCsoft's first new game in May 2021, which inherits the action and 2D pixel graphics that have been well received by players in the original game, and can also experience the undisclosed ending plot in the original game.
The producers said at the beginning that they were ready to make this game a cute version of "Paradise".
Do you hear what it means? Isn't this the intention to attract new and old players of "Star Diamond Story" after putting on the skin of the cute picture of "Star Diamond Story" on the basis of "Paradise M"? Change the skin set, little brother I can see a lot, but can the player buy it?
Sure enough, although the reservation of "Star Diamond Monogatari M" exceeded 5 million people before it was launched, and it immediately landed on the first place in the iOS Korean game best-seller list on the day of launch, it quickly plummeted. Coupled with the frequent appearance of charging props, with 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, etc. as a cycle, new charging props are constantly introduced, and even encounter the phenomenon of opening the charging mall because there are too many charging props, resulting in the phenomenon of caton in the opening of the charging mall.
As a result, the number of players in Star Diamond Monogatari M has decreased rapidly, and NC's goal of "making players in their 20s like war games" has also failed miserably.
The little brother looked at it for everyone, according to the iOS best-seller list, about 3 months, it has been squeezed out of the hundred. In terms of the size of NCsoft, it can be said that it is cool.
Third, the 7.46 million reserved "Sword Spirit 2" died violently on the shelves?
When it comes to NCsoft's most anticipated game in 2021, it's Sword Spirit 2. NCsoft CEO Tatsu kanazawa also showed great confidence in "Sword Spirit 2" and took the initiative to promote it, saying that it was to create a "top-level free action system"! Coupled with the game's advertising CG is also really good, little brother I this game old driver wants to play.
So, how hot was Sword Spirit 2 before its release? The 7.46 million reservation number is enough to explain how popular Sword Spirit 2 really was before its release!
However, what I never expected was that "Sword Spirit 2" can be said to have overturned at the beginning.
After the launch of "Sword Spirit 2" on August 26, players found that where is "Sword Spirit 2", this is the martial arts style "Paradise M"! That's right, NCsoft it's up and down again, and, standing on the pile, automatic combat, no action to speak of, not even as good as the previous game, and the previous propaganda is basically a different thing.
And "Sword Spirit 2" was previously advertised not to engage in krypton, the result is just to change the name of the Krypton gold package, really when the players are stupid?
This time, Korean players finally can't sit still, they have been on NCsoft, it can be said how fragrant the previous publicity is, how disappointed and angry players are now. This directly led to NCsoft's stock price falling from a minimum of about 837,000 won to 650,000 won, and in just three days, the market value evaporated 3.5 trillion won, about 21 billion yuan, which is the lowest point of NCsoft in recent years!
NCsoft saw that things were not good, and the day after the game went live, it apologized to the players and began to take some special measures against Sword Spirit 2. First, he said that "I want to delete the Spirit Stone and give the BUFF white of the Spirit Stone to all players at the same time", and also said that "all players who purchased the package providing the Spirit Stone before September 1 will be provided with 220 + 220 lucky draw opportunities."
At present, the kryptonian gold system of "Sword Spirit 2" can be said to be the most valuable in the history of NC mobile games. Compared with "Paradise M", which will feel that it cannot be played without spending money, it is much better, and the reputation and income of the game have also picked up.
However, the matter of "Sword Spirit 2" did have a great impact on NCsoft. According to NCsoft's Q3 financial report, after the launch of "Sword Spirit 2", NCsoft's total sales did not increase but declined, and the total revenue was only 19.39 million US dollars (about 120 million yuan), which failed to make up for the gap caused by the decline in the revenue of the "Paradise" series.
IV. "Heaven" of the last paragraph of "Heaven W"
On November 4, NCsoft officially launched the latest work of the "Paradise" series, "Paradise W".
The game has attracted much attention because of the "W" (Worldwide) meaning of global service as a selling point, as well as the official promotional words "Paradise Ultimate Edition" and "The Last Paradise", and has won more than 13 million player reservations worldwide before its launch, which is regarded as NCsoft's annual turnaround.
So, did Heaven W turn NCsoft over?
In terms of results, "Paradise W" really turned NCsoft over this time, becoming NCsoft's most gold-sucking game at the moment.
According to the data, it took only two days after the listing of "Paradise W" to get 17 billion won in revenue, that is, 91.73 million yuan, far exceeding the previous record of 10.7 billion won set by "Paradise M". At present, the number of users and revenue have set new records for the company. In November, it directly won the first place in the Google Play revenue ranking, and the total revenue ranking was second only to Tencent and Mihayou, which really could not do it.
And "Paradise W" has been online for more than 1 month now, and continues to compete with the popular "Odin" in South Korea for the first place, and in The Hong Kong and Taiwan regions of China, it is still in the top five positions of the iOS game best-seller list, and even in Japan, which has always been unimpressed by such games, it currently has about 50 good results.
How to say it, although "Paradise W" still continues to change the soup without changing the medicine of the big R operation, all kinds of pit money kryptonite routines abound, many people at the beginning of the game are not optimistic, but in fact, the player while playing while cursing Krypton gold ...
The younger brother speculated that perhaps this was due to the fact that "Paradise W" put all countries into the same server, indirectly triggering a direct kryptonite war between the local tycoons of various countries.
For example, there are local tycoon anchors in Bay Bay who spend 500,000 diamonds (80,000 yuan) to draw cards almost every day, and there are also "skinhead brothers" in South Korea who claim to have 1.7 billion deposits (400 million yuan), spend about 800,000 yuan on the fourth day of listing, and threaten to use money to smash players from other countries. Compared with the content of the game, "Paradise W" seems to have made more local tycoons focus on the fighting power of the card.
The poor little brother is trembling, the world of rich people, we really don't understand.
It is said that NCsoft plans to expand the operation scope of "Paradise W" to North America and Europe in 2022, I don't know if it will cause more countries to fight between local tycoons?
The younger brother said to you: As a Korean netizen said, "As long as you change the skin, you can make money, then NCsoft will not go to make a good game." "After the year 2021, NCsoft has paid a terrible price, but "Paradise W" has made it continue to make a lot of money. The little brother now only hopes that NCsoft will not make a "Heaven 2M" set of "Aion" skin, it will become "Aion 2" this kind of thing!
A startling question: Do you think NCsoft's will be the next generation of paradise?