In recent years, "escape room" and "script killing" have quietly surpassed traditional cultural and entertainment consumption activities such as singing K and bundy, and have become the "new favorite" of young people's entertainment. Many players will be unable to help themselves in the script killing game, and some players do not buy it, thinking that it is just an adult version of the "passer-by". So who exactly is playing Script Kill? Where do massive scripts come from? How to regulate the management of the industry? A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily paid a visit to this issue.
phenomenon
Offline trend entertainment TOP3: movies, fitness, script killing
Dim light shone on the floral wallpaper, a mahjong table was placed in front of the Western-style sofa, and several young men and women sat around the mahjong table, standing up in turn to introduce their identities: housekeeper, young grandmother, old man's son and illegitimate son.
"This story takes place during the Republic of China period, when an old man of a family was killed on his eightieth birthday, and everyone present could be a murderer." As soon as the host's voice dropped, a script killing game called "Pingcheng Affair" began.
Escape rooms and script killing, with their more experiential and social attributes, are becoming new forms of entertainment for young people. According to the relevant data of the "2021 Physical Script Killing Consumption Insight Report", in 2019, the number of escape room stores nationwide reached 15,000, and the number of script killing stores has exceeded 12,000. By April 2021, the number of script killing stores nationwide has reached 45,000. Script killing has become one of the top three of the offline trend entertainment methods preferred by Chinese consumers, second only to watching movies and sports and fitness. From the perspective of age level, chao seven have become a young group under 30 years old, and more than 40% of users spend more than once a week. Among them, the student group accounts for a relatively high proportion, accounting for about 28%. The data shows that it is expected that by 2022, the market size of China's script killing industry will increase to 23.89 billion yuan.
From the perspective of cities, the number of stores in Shanghai, Wuhan and Beijing ranks among the top three. As the secret room and script killing industry becomes bigger and bigger, the competition in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen is becoming more and more fierce. Xiang Xiang, who opened the secret room store in Sanlitun, Beijing, told the Beiqing Daily reporter, "This industry is fiercely competitive and changes quickly, and a theme secret room will be updated and upgraded from one year to one and a half years." In addition to hardware upgrades, we also have to work the 'software'. Zhang Xiang's "software" upgrade refers to the atmosphere creation of the secret room store. As the Chamber of Secrets has become more sophisticatedly crafted, spending per player has also risen. Beiqing Daily reporter searched on a group purchase platform, the average consumption of a secret room ranged from 150 yuan to 300 yuan per person, and there were also thousands of yuan per person's high-end secret room on the market. It is also in order to attract players and provide a better experience, now the professional secret rooms in first-tier cities have begun to find professional actors to do NPCs (non-player characters), so that the user experience is full.
The price and duration of an offline script kill is almost twice that of a movie, but for offline players, "pushing the script" (script killing) is more like participating in a movie, or burning their brains or tears, and they enjoy it.
focus
The core of the script killing is the sense of game experience Young players are willing to "kryptonite" for this
In 2018, online script killing was on the rise; After 2020, due to the epidemic "stay-at-home", entertainment methods are limited, and the number of script entrants has increased significantly. During the Spring Festival in 2020, the number of users of "I Am Mystery" increased by 8 million; in the same year, the cumulative registered users of "Hundred Changes Detective" have exceeded 10 million.
According to data from Ai Media Consulting, 54.4% of Netizens in China experienced online script killing in 2021. 39.8% of netizens experienced the script killing form as offline round table, and 15.1% of netizens said that they had not experienced the above script killing form. Recently, the environment layout such as offline physical script killing scene design and costume props allows players to have sufficient immersion and thus rapid expansion.
According to the "2021 China Script Killing Industry Market Scale Data Analysis" released by the Ai Media Report Center, 56.2% of the script killing consumer users are female users. The increase in female players has made some scripts with strong emotional colors such as emotional books, crying books, and CP books popular, which have driven the emotional market to a certain extent.
It is reported that the scripts currently circulating in the offline script killing industry are mainly divided into three categories: exclusive authorization (only one script store in a city buys), city limited (2 to 3 script stores in a city can buy) and boxed books (script shops with formal business qualifications can buy), with an average creation cycle of about 1-6 months. Because script killers usually only play the game once and have a low replay rate, stores often keep buying new themes to attract customers, which also prompts creators to constantly innovate.
The CEO of the script killing distribution studio believes that the core of script killing is still to serve the player, and the most important thing is to have fun.
Novels and film and television dramas have protagonists and supporting roles, in order to highlight the protagonist will have a clear story line, weakening other characters, but the script kill requires all players to participate, in a game, each player is the protagonist in the story, has its own story line. The player's task is to put together all the lines during the game, sort out the ins and outs, and finally review the whole thing.
College student Xiao Ji is a part-time script killing author, she introduced that most authors will choose teamwork, and script killing distributors sign a long-term cooperation, while most of the part-time authors will "find a job" on some public account platforms, or directly submit articles to the studios and stores that solicit manuscripts.
Empty New Language has launched a number of high-quality scripts. Grid told the Beiqing Daily reporter that script killing is a game with a social nature, "We define it as a second-person literature + game model, the core is still a game." ”
Playing script killing is like watching a movie, and the player is not watching and appreciating from the perspective of a third party, but really feeling from the perspective of the protagonist in the movie. "Players have their own stories in this movie, and they can communicate with other characters in the story, and if there is communication, there will be development, and only then can they promote the plot." Shop advocate Howe said.
Everyone's experience in this script is different, and for many players, script killing is not just a game, it can also be a way to show their attitude to life.
Young players are willing to pay for this, spend krypton gold to charge members, in order to enjoy the fun of the game, the core of the script killing is the sense of game experience. "We also often go to the script killing store to test the script and watch the players listen to what they talk about." The grid said that the good or bad of a script can be evaluated according to the degree of discussion of the player.
Industry
Professional actors and guest hosts and NPCs are also fan-gathering factors
In the eyes of many script killers, the professionalism of the host (DM) has become the main factor in their choice of script killing shop. A qualified DM must be very familiar with the content of the script, and his role is to lead the player to several rounds of game reasoning, promote the progress of the game, and at the same time answer questions for the player at random, which often tests the host's own skills and language expression ability.
DM has a part-time and a full-time, script killing development so far, most of the people who do full-time DM either change careers or choose to start a business to open a script killing shop.
Many part-time DM and NPCs are college students, and the salary is calculated according to the number of games, and one game can get more than a hundred, and the weekend turnover rate is high, and you can earn more.
After realizing the importance of DM, some offline stores have opened training specifically for DM, and the threshold of DM is not low. The store values DM's ability to express and interpret language. "We also need some people with acting skills, after all, script killing requires players to bring themselves into the character." Some insiders said.
Not only do professional actors make cameo appearances in script killing, they also assist NPCs in escape rooms. Xiang Xiang, a room escape shop in Sanlitun, told the Beiqing Daily reporter, "We have been looking for Nortel and Chinese opera students to do NPCs since 2018!" As the industry has become more and more popular, many professional actors have become our part-time assistants. The NPCs in our shop are all professional actors, and one role can be done with three preparations. As for why professional actors are used as NPCs, Zhang Xiang said bluntly: "First, increase the audience's sense of atmosphere; secondly, the amount of NPCs' lines is quite large, and it is difficult to find ordinary clerks to do it; third, we think that NPCs who escape the room need strong improvisation ability, and there are professional acting teachers who evaluate our difficulty than drama performances, so we use professional actors to ensure the high quality of the performance." ”
Actor Qiu Yang graduated from the Beijing Film Academy, worked in the escape room shop for 3 years, is the oldest professional actor NPC in the store, and is now the "director" of the store, with a monthly salary of more than 20,000 yuan. Qiu Yang said bluntly: "It is more difficult to be an NPC, although there is a script, but the players give you different reactions, you have to respond quickly." This reaction must be both reasonable and unimaginable to the player. In the case of a two-hour escape room, the actors interact with the audience about 20 times. For each interaction, we want to think 5 times the coping plan. Qiu Yang said.
Actor Wang Haocun told the Beiqing Daily reporter, "On the first day of work, I did not scare the player, the player frightened me. I don't think this job is easier or more difficult than acting in stage plays and filming. ”
This seemingly "scary" job also allows these NPCs to gain the achievements of being actors in the store. Zhang Xiang told the Beiqing Daily reporter: "The NPCs in our store have fans, and some people often brush their books many times for them. ”
observe
Secret room, script kill popular new industry to be new regulations
"Chamber of Secrets, Script Killing" has attracted more and more young people and even minors to participate in it. However, behind the increasing "popularity" of the market, it is accompanied by a series of problems such as security risks and illegal script content, especially the special protection of minors in the secret room and script killing industry is still blank.
Cheng Hui, director of the Seventh Procuratorial Department of the Shanghai Minhang Procuratorate, said, "According to relevant regulations, entertainment venues include song and dance entertainment venues and entertainment entertainment venues, so is the secret room script killing business unit an entertainment venue?" Do I need to apply for an Entertainment Business License? These are still controversial, and the industry is not clear about this. "In addition to unclear rights and responsibilities, some businesses use scripts that contain bloody, violent, superstitious, drug-related and other plots. The existence of these prohibited contents is obviously not conducive to the healthy growth of minors.
Kong Liang, a veteran publisher who has been paying attention to the development of the "secret room, script killing" industry, said bluntly: Most of this kind of "immersive entertainment industry" is similar to the book industry from the process of script creation, distribution, reading and finally "playing". However, in the development of recent years, whether it is the "review" of content or the "management" of "script killing" activities, it is still in a vacuum.
For the content level of the check, Zhang Hongxu, doctoral supervisor of art management, said frankly: "The secret room and script killing industry is easy to walk in the gray area, unlike traditional publications, which have a strict censorship mechanism. But chaos is also always a real problem that script killing cannot avoid. Yellow, violent scripts, horror, absurd topics, and seriously pirated scripts have made the entire industry once criticized. ”
A few days ago, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism officially issued the "Interim Regulations on the Management of The Killing Content of the Script in the Secret Room of Shanghai". Shanghai became the first city in the country to officially bring the Secret Room script into its management. In this regard, Zhang Hongxu said: "Shanghai first released a signal to regulate the script killing, and the new cultural format is not an extralegal place. ”
At present, for enterprise operators in most areas except Shanghai, they can only be in the "wait-and-see" stage. Many operators called for the introduction of national system regulations as soon as possible to ensure the unification of national standards, especially hoping that there would be a national association to assist the management department to organize the industry to do self-discipline and related guidance. This is more conducive to the in-depth implementation of relevant regulations by business operators and the promotion of the benign development of the entire industry.
This edition is written by Wang Lei and Zhang Ziyuan
Intern Huang Dongyi Coordinator /Liu Jianghua
Trend Archives
The script kills players generally with 5-8 people, through the role of the script, around the plot to carry out reasoning, restore the relationship between the characters, interactive communication, discussion, exchange clues, jointly uncover the secret or find the murderer. Usually, a script kill takes 3-6 hours.
Basic gameplay
The game is roughly divided into 8 stages:
The player chooses the role they want to play;
Read the script and get the necessary information;
Introduce yourself, introduce the plot, character relationships, and timeline of your chosen character;
Search for clues, combine your own action points according to the known plot, search for suspected objects or important locations, etc.;
Open search leads, and you may choose to disclose, archive, or transfer to others the leads you have searched;
Reasoning, based on the information and clues spoken by each player, reasonable inference;
Identification of the murderer;
Final review
Consumption
According to public comments, the Beiqing Daily reporter randomly selected 296 script killing merchants in Beijing, and their average per capita consumption was 139 yuan, of which 70% of the merchants' per capita consumption was between 100 yuan and 200 yuan.
Source:
Meituan's "2021 Script Killing Consumption Insight Report"