Wen 丨 Koi Finance
The ice piers were so hot. It is conceivable that in the new year, the tide play field will still be optimistic about the capital market, and the recent surge in related concept stocks also proves this.
In fact, long before the ice pier, the development momentum of tide play has continued to rise. Since 2020, there have been as many as 572 new enterprises in Chaoju, 11 financing incidents, and a total disclosure amount of more than 1.15 billion yuan. Among them, only 52 TOYS completed a series C financing of 400 million yuan in 2021, refreshing the financing record of the tide play industry. Recently, Qiandao Tide Player also announced the completion of nearly $100 million in Series B financing some time ago.
Big manufacturers are joining the tide play track, bringing game IP and original IP. For example, yin and yang division, vegetable dog, etc. Although large manufacturers have unique advantages in TERMS, it will take a long time to turn them into traffic.
After all, the domestic tide play is still young, the original IP out of the circle is very few, the popularity of Bubble Mart's "elder" Molly is also declining, and it is difficult to predict whether the ice pier can continue to be hot after the Winter Olympics. Although the blind box brings young people a stimulating experience, it still lacks the novelty brought by the original IP, which means that the blind box will gradually fail, and the tide play field urgently needs to find a new direction.
Blind box is not a "long light" for tide play
As an emerging format, blind boxes have appeared a very obvious "double-edged effect" while rapidly rising, and the negative effects brought about by it have emerged. Due to the lack of unified industry norms, the legitimate rights and interests of some consumers cannot be protected, resulting in frequent chaos in the industry.
For example, false publicity, excessive marketing, the setting of "overlord clauses" and other phenomena are endless, and even Bubble Mart has been involved in disputes such as formaldehyde exceeding standards, prize redemption disputes and secondary sales. But this did not reduce the popularity of blind boxes, on the contrary, it also accelerated the development of the blind box economy and set off a boom in the opening of blind boxes for the whole people.
Recently, the #CFC blind box # on the hot search, while the search is also #KFC customer service response blind box was named by the CPA #: does not affect the sale, you can continue to buy. There is no shortage of comments such as "now the public has accepted that 69 yuan a blind box is not expensive" and "limiting the purchase volume of each person, scalpers buy a bunch and then sell at a high price", etc., and even derived from the behavior of buying and eating.
At the same time, the emergence of blind box APP is much criticized. Different from the blind box, the goods that are opened in the blind box APP are not only hidden in the price, but also the explosion rate is not guaranteed, and the guarantee mechanism is not set. This Schrödinger-like setting is undoubtedly a test for young Consumers of Generation Z.
The lack of IP output of the tide play track, inevitably over -hyped", which makes the development of the industry gradually appear bubble. In fact, not only the flood of blind boxes, but also the speculation of "big babies" in the second-hand market is also in full swing.
Bubble Mart launched the collector's collection Space Molly 1000%, the original price of Molly's "Earth Daughter" in this series was 4999 yuan, and it has sold for 88888 yuan in the second-hand market, even if the flawed "Earth Daughter" is sold for as high as 48000 yuan. There is also a mega treasure series 400% SpaceMolly return series original price of 899 yuan, the secondary market price is around 3400 yuan to 4000 yuan.
In August 2021, Ali auction began to auction 2 of the world's only DIMOS, Phoenix Nirvana and Autumn Bird Stealing Blue, with a starting price of 1099 yuan and a final transaction price of 160,000 and 140,000 yuan respectively.
Obviously, Tide Play is trying to harvest high-end customers, but this is obviously different from the mainstream that has always been, as Pan and Lin said, "The mainstream of Tide Play has always been young people, and Tide Play High Premium is a kind of exploration, but this may not be suitable for the target group of Tide Play." "In addition, if the scalping player wants to use the premium to build the tide play into a value-added product, then the tide play brand needs to strengthen the value-added concept of the product, otherwise it is difficult to achieve the expected effect."
The explosion of the tide play market relies on the interests and hobbies of young people, but it will not be eaten back.
In fact, in the era of "blind box for all things", even Bubble Mart can't take advantage. According to public data, the market share of Bubble Mart is only 8.5%, and it is clear that there are more business opportunities in the tide play market. Coupled with the continuous entry of capital, the 50 billion tide play track has become congested, but in addition to the form of blind boxes, the core pillar of tide play has returned to the original IP.
Original IP is the "main theme"
Looking at the IP empires of Disney and Bandai, it has supported a huge tide play market. Although the domestic tide play is hot, it lacks a very representative IP. The domestic film and television industry and the animation industry are still young, and the ability to create IP is limited, and original IP is also extremely difficult to get out of the circle.
For example, Bubble Mart launched Dimeo after the launch of Molly, LULU pig of 52TOYS, etc., but in addition, there are very few original IPs that are active in the public eye. In the case of full shortcomings, the original IP wants to go out of the circle, and it is bound to make more changes.
Blind box sales in 2021 are actually declining, taking Molly as an example, from 19 to the first half of 21, the revenue fell from 456 million yuan to 204 million yuan, accounting for 15.6% of the total revenue. Then after the blind box trend, the original IP has become a "life-saving straw", and the benchmark IP has become the "spokesperson" of the brand.
As we all know, the best way for the animation industry to benefit is to rely on IP derivatives, that is, handmade, dolls, etc., for commercial monetization. The tide play industry has gone the opposite way, animating the original IP and opening up a new industrial logic road. For example, ViViCat, an original IP with more than 500,000 blind box fans, has exclusive animations "The Daily Life of Vivi Cat" and "Very Vivi Cat", which have been online for 2 months and Tencent Video has exceeded 200 million.
In addition, cooperation with luxury brands has also doubled the value of original IP. "Scarce things are expensive" has more than doubled the price of these "toys", not to mention the flaunting of luxury brands, which has opened up the popularity of tide play IP. Hermès Group's luxury brand "Shangxia" and Bubble Mart IP DIMOO have launched SHANG XIA × DIMOO WORLD joint gift box, and there is no doubt that this cross-border cooperation is mutual achievement.
Today, there are countless tide play brands, in addition to the head bubble mart, Qiandao Tide Play Family, TOPTOY, 52TOYS, X11 and other new brands have squeezed into the track, and have successively launched benchmark IP. However, the intentions of each brand are different, such as X11 using "one city, one store, one theme" to set off the sense of atmosphere, and the sub-brand TOPTOY of Mingchuang Excellent Products attracts traffic with all categories. With the rush of capital, the tide play track was very lively for a while.
The heat of the track has allowed a large number of original IPs to be launched one after another, but it is an indisputable fact that it is difficult to get out of the circle without IP supported by film and television dramas and animations. As the track continues to heat up, although the output of original IP has increased, if the update rate of domestic IP cannot keep up with the development of the tide play industry, then the explosion of the tide play track is just making a "wedding dress" for foreign IP to enter China.
Is the big factory a new opportunity to play the track?
The tide play market has been looking for ways to break the situation, whether it is cooperation with luxury brands, or the launch of the national tide IP, without exception, it is to enhance the "body value" of tide play, so that the tide play field is no longer limited to the blind box this category, there are more directions of development.
In particular, large manufacturers have entered the game, and large factories with IP have entered the tide play, can they make up for the scarce tide play original IP?
The first to enter the tide play industry is one of the two-dimensional gathering places of station B, launched the tide play crowdfunding; then Tencent in November 2021, led the investment of 160 million yuan in Dreamland; Ali Pictures launched the tide play brand "Koi Na Fun"; NetEase pushed the sale of Harry Potter, Marvel, Yin and Yang Division and other IP tide play products; Little Red Book opened the "Cloud Tide Play Exhibition" and so on...
The strength of the big factory to play the track so crazy is to hold a number of IP, such as Tencent dabbling in novels, games, videos and other fields, holding a number of well-known IP; NetEase has a large number of game IP waiting to be developed, of which only Yin yang division has a large number of roles to choose from; and Ali Entertainment has incubated IP with the film industry and Youku.
In general, although the big factories entered the market a little later, they have the potential for development. It can also be seen from the achievements made in a short period of time that the big factories have developed rapidly in the tide play track. According to the data, in the second and third quarters, Ali Pictures launched the tide play brand "Koi Na Fun (KOITAKE)" and the trend IP and daily necessities brand "KOILAND", with sales of GMV exceeding 50 million.
But if you want to compete with the industry giant "Bubble Mart", the big manufacturers still have a long way to go in the tide play track. In a short period of time, it is not so easy to create a top IP, even if it is an Internet manufacturer with IP advantages. On the one hand, after the big factory entered the tide play track, it was still dominated by the blind box form, and there was no innovation and breakthrough. On the other hand, the game IP held by the big manufacturer has not entered the tide play track, but more of an attitude of testing the waters in the tide play track.
In fact, the big manufacturers did not take the most advantageous game IP as the core of the tide play track, and the probability was because the benefits created by the game IP itself were much higher than the benefits brought by the tide play, so whether the game peripherals were hot sales was not so important. In addition, as a new player entering the track, the big manufacturers are still debatable how to maximize the benefits of game IP, and they are not eager to convert IP to benefit. Therefore, to this day, the layout of the tide play track is in the initial stage of the big factory, and no breakthrough has been made.
With the wave of blind boxes gradually retreating, the big factories as the fresh blood of the track, so that the domestic tide play IP is not only relying on the well-known image of foreign countries is just around the corner, but this is also bound to require the strong cooperation of the big factories, otherwise it is just a paper talk.
The tide play track has attracted countless capital to compete for entry, but the ones that really stand out are in the minority, and even large manufacturers are difficult to take advantage of. After the blind box fails, who will become the next winner is still unknown, but in the end, the probability is a competition between original IP, after all, in essence, the most attractive to the public is the IP itself.