Text | Gamewower
Women's game seems to focus on the element of love anymore.
Before "Love and Producer" knocked on the door of women to the market, no one would have thought that women to the game market can have such a huge potential, and in the case of accelerating the inward volume of women to the category, today's new games are no longer simply towards the "love" element of Otome games.
On January 13, the women published by Tencent Games developed by Changyou opened a public beta of the entertainment industry game "Brilliant Star Road", which ranked in the top ten of the App Store's free games as of press time. On the other hand, NetEase's self-developed "Absolute Interpretation" has already opened a public beta last month.
This is a head-on contest between Tencent and NetEase on the women's game track.
At the same time, due to the further expansion of the theme, women to the game market will also usher in a new change.
Women to the track, the contest between giants
When it comes to women's games in late 2021 and early 2022, it is necessary to mention "Absolute Interpretation" and "Brilliant Star Road".
Interestingly, "Brilliant Starway" and "Absolute Interpretation" are games originally scheduled for official public beta in December 2021, but for some reason, "Absolute Interpretation" is opened normally, while "Brilliant Starway" is announced before the end of the month to postpone the public beta to January 13, 2022, avoiding a direct duel with NetEase.
"Absolute Deduction" is an immersive entertainment industry cultivation mobile game developed by NetEase, while "Brilliant Star Road" is a growth mobile game of entertainment industry agents represented by Changyou Development Tencent. These two games belong to the same female to the game track, and both are more popular entertainment industry themes, but from the official positioning, it can also be seen that the content of the two is not the same.
According to the current open gameplay of "Absolute Deduction", the production team focused on allowing players to experience the work and life of stars, and the players in the game are the stars themselves. The "Brilliant Star Road" focuses on the agent that allows players to be stars, and players will experience the feeling of creating a star debut from scratch and experiencing the undercurrent of the entertainment industry.
Judging from the content of the current two games alone, "Absolute Interpretation" still adds a little love element to the life of the star, while "Brilliant StarWay" cuts the element of love more thoroughly, directly playing the slogan of "Career Heroine SLAY Full Scene".
Add a roll to the volume
To talk about the problem of women's play, it can be summarized as "thunder is loud, rain is small" 2020 is known as the "first year of domestic otome games", according to the statistics of the Mob Research Institute, in 2020, the size of the Otome to the game market accounts for about 30% of the overall female games, considering that the composition of women to the game contains pan-female games such as leisure, the proportion of the core women to the game Otome should be higher.
The quantity is up, but the homogenization of the content is more obvious.
Too much homogenized content has also led to excessive inward rolling of women into the market. Major manufacturers have rushed to the market-proven Otome game play, and the result is that the veteran voice actors are on duty in many games, and players fall in love with the same CV in different games.
It can be seen from the outbreak of the number of Otome games in 2020 that the current head manufacturers are still at the level of testing the waters for women to the market, investing a small amount of resources to make the gameplay that has been verified so far, and seizing the layout of emerging markets. This also means that most games can be defined as "skinning games" and there won't be much innovation in gameplay.
Moreover, although the number of games has ushered in a big explosion, the popularity of the game is still unable to keep up, and the App Store ranking of several otome games in the public beta in 2020 is still not as good as the "Love and Producer" in 17 years.
The homogenization of the content is obvious, there is no major innovation in the gameplay, the heat cannot go up, and the inward volume of women to the game will only become more and more serious over time.
"Dream Mansion" producer Khumbu even bluntly said: "Women to the drama game is a death track." ”
Simple love is no longer popular
However, even in the Otome game, love is no longer the original heroine simply falling in love with the male protagonists, and more games have begun to pay attention to shaping the identity of the female protagonist.
For example, Tencent's self-developed "Love of Light and Night", the female protagonist is in contact with the male protagonists as a newcomer in the fashion circle, and Miha you tests the "Undetermined Time Book" of women to the game, and has also caused some discussion because the female protagonist is too enterprising.
From the theme of the women's game in 2021, we can also see that although Otome's love still occupies the mainstream, the number of people who are not likely to appear in the female game in the past such as the career woman is gradually increasing, and the player's acceptance of such games is also getting higher and higher.
Players' pickiness has pushed manufacturers out of their comfort zone.
We have introduced in "DeepLy Cultivating Women's Paper to The Game, Exploring the Unknown Territory", and Paper Games is currently seeking a new way out, such as the more hardcore RTT real-time tactical stealth mobile game "Backlight Infiltration", and the 3D combat love game "Love and Deep Space", which inherits the world view of "Love and Producer" but adds action game elements.
Simple love can not satisfy users, so manufacturers began to seize the demand and start to work in other directions, not only in the games produced by industry giants.
It is no exaggeration to say that paper-folding games can even be regarded as the leader of women's games, whether it is on the official website or publicity, paper-folding is very clearly marked as a "women-to-game company", but now paper-folding has also begun to develop in the direction of diversification.
This also reflects that simple love can no longer grasp the hearts of players.
The possibility of women to the game
In fact, the Otome game, or the game with elements such as love cultivation, is only a small part of the female game, but the success of "Love and Producer" has made many people completely equate the Otome game with the female game.
In the women's game, there is also a more important type, the "warm series" IP led by the dress-up game, there is also a considerable number of user groups. This type of game does not involve the elements of love, but is more about the need to develop collection and maternal feelings, such as the "Warm And Warm series" of games, players usually call the protagonist Nuan Nuan "daughter".
After all, Otome is only a part of the female game, and the female game should not be completely "endorsed" by the Otome game, and the female game with diversified themes and gameplay can give the market a bright feeling.