"In 2022, indie games with superior content and strong technology will surely usher in a broader market." Author | Amelie edited | Juni's first image source: Vanity Fair
The outlet of the game going to sea is endless all year round.
Under the policy outlet, after the "most severe in history" minor protection policy released last year, going to sea has gradually become the consensus of transformation in the game industry, and has also evolved into an inevitable trend in the development of the domestic game industry.
Under the wind of global market growth, compared with the serious industry competition in China, the overseas market provides an infinite and broad space, and the domestic new generation of game companies "counterattack" giants has long been out of the blue.
On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced that it would acquire game giant Blizzard for $68.7 billion (about 400 billion yuan) in cash, the largest acquisition in Microsoft's history, which directly promoted the global game sector fire, and Microsoft also became one of the top 3 technology companies in the global revenue of games, second only to Tencent and Sony.
Image source: Sina
With the increasingly sophisticated domestic game market, many games have begun to shift to overseas markets.
According to the data in the "2021 China Game Industry Report", the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets in 2021 reached 18.013 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.59% year-on-year. In the past 5 years, the average increase in the share of mainland games going abroad has increased steadily.
Image source: CNG
In 2022, the wave of games going to sea is destined to be unprecedentedly turbulent, the rise of new forces of emerging companies is undoubtedly a pioneer tide in the transformation of the industry, and some widely acclaimed game companies have the potential of "tomorrow's stars".
01
The game goes to sea and wins by surprise
Sensor Tower's latest statistics show that in the domestic games that went to sea last year, 42 mobile games had an annual revenue of more than 100 million US dollars, and the United States is the largest overseas market. The U.S. market has contributed $3.6 billion in revenue to the TOP30 mobile games, and has replaced Japan in the global market as the largest overseas market for Chinese mobile games.
"Original God" with annual income reaching the top
The game "Original God" has recently gone viral again.
In the European and American game markets that many veteran Japanese manufacturers in the two-dimensional animation country have not conquered for many years, MihaYou Company actually found a breakthrough.
At the beginning of the year, "Original God" topped the throne of China's 2021 revenue champion for mobile games at sea with 406 million US dollars (equivalent to 2.6 billion yuan). And that's almost half of the total revenue of similar games in the U.S. region. MihaYou also ranks third in the global revenue ranking of Chinese mobile game publishers because of this explosive game, after Tencent and NetEase.
Image source: Sensor Tower
At the end of last year, The Game Awards (TGA), known as the "Oscar of the game industry", held the 2021 annual awards ceremony at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, USA, and "Original God" won the 2021 Best Mobile Game Award, which is also the first original IP game developed by the Chinese development team to receive this honor.
Image source: Twitter
Veteran gamers have high praise for "Original God", believing that it is one of the most successful domestic games in cultural export in recent years. Not only can it go to sea to create a large amount of overseas income, but also to achieve explosive cultural output, as a member of the "National Cultural Export Key Project", "Original God" has obviously been entrusted with a heavy responsibility. Not only a large number of scene design, NPC images, names, etc. are Chinese style elements, a variety of beautiful scenes have directly triggered foreign players' interest in understanding Chinese culture, youtube on "Original God" in the Chinese pinyin, Chinese culture of the explanatory video playback has broken a million times.
But why is it the best way to eat in Europe and the United States?
Some gamers say that the construction of the Original God game is a low-end version of the metaverse.
With the continuous update and upgrading of technology, the boundaries of the game are becoming more and more expansive, and there is more room for imagination;
In addition to the design of the two-dimensional element, the core of "Original God" is the core of European and American role-playing games (RPGs) and massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG).
The proto-god attack power value is similar to the numerical design in the big production games "Diablo" and "Warcraft", and the reaction system is very close to the European and American RPG system designed for the rules of D&D (Dungeons & Dragons: the core is a set of mathematical rules, that is, the "law of the operation of the world" - which is actually non-existent for the game characters, but is crucial to the player);
Strong user reputation coupled with multi-platform advertising effect.
Initially, the "Zelda" style of gameplay is used to attract players to enter, and the exquisite production quality coupled with the hardcore system that gradually changes into the "Warcraft" series and "Baldur's Gate" in the later stage makes it easier to retain European and American players;
There are almost no opponents on the mobile game side.
With the same type of PC game, it is almost impossible to reduce the dimensionality of the "Original God", and there is no "Original God" in the same type of mobile game that can take into account the quality, capacity and program operation at one level; similar serial game modes are novel and interesting enough.
"Original God" does a large cross-platform update every month or two, and each update will introduce a new map/new story/new character/new gameplay game, which can be seen that its production team is at a good level.
Image source: Genshin
In general, "Original God" can catch fire in the American game circle, which is the result of its unique strength and luck.
Only a year and a half after the beta began, "Original God" is known for its solid production content, excellent music, excellent art and powerful technology. In the two-dimensional game's sea breakout competition, "HaraJin" hit the weak period of the Japanese industry, especially the PC game Japanese action role-playing game (ARPG) and other masterpieces. In addition, due to the epidemic, the home culture in the European and American markets has become increasingly strong in the past two years, and the Z generation gamers have a higher acceptance of multiculturalism.
The way out of the game culture of "Original God" is obvious, that is, to attract players through gameplay, screens, etc., and then to achieve subtle "cultural output" through elements such as plot and character design. Although there are geographical barriers to global culture, the desire of players in the new era to pursue the quality of games is common.
Not only in the U.S. market, but also in the fiercely competitive Japanese market, Chinese mobile games have also achieved impressive results. In 2021, "Hara God", "Wilderness Action", "Place Girl", "Idol Dream Festival"!! Music, Sopranos and Puzzles & Survival made six products on the top 20 of the annual best-seller list of Japanese mobile games. The Japanese market is also the second largest market for Chinese games to go global.
It is foreseeable that in 2022, independent games with superior content and excellent technology will surely usher in a broader market.
02
Casual mini-game Love Fantasy, "honors student" out to sea
There are many games about Fantasy( fantasy), the latest called "Love Fantasy: Match & Stories" (Love Fantasy: Match & Stories) "Beautiful Girl + Match 3 + Visual Novel" casual mini-game, excellent results in the sea, in a short period of time to achieve the top 3 of the total list of American games.
Image source: Apowersoft
This casual game targeted at European and American women is from the Smillage Game Studio of the "Small Game Blockbuster Maker".
Smillage in the early days to the tool matrix and content community products- based, after the transformation of the game in 2020, it seems to have found the doorway to create a blockbuster, they chose to casual, ultra-casual as the track to cut in, began to develop and publish a variety of three-choice one way to play the product, two years to try a variety of games, including last year a called "Catwalk Beauty" hit, the two took three weeks to develop, three weeks on the line climbed to the second place in the United States iOS download list; the current cumulative download volume has reached nearly 100 million.
"Love Fantasy" was released in March last year, and it finished second in the US overall list in its first week. At present, there are 800w+ downloads, and the iOS version rating has remained at a high score of 4.8. At the moment when the fusion gameplay is booming, this manufacturer has pointed out the new ideas of the fusion gameplay for everyone in a unique combination.
Image source: Google Play
In the game match-3 track, it is not an easy task to break through from the old game that has dominated the chart for many years.
On the one hand, the production of such casual games is difficult to formulate, and in addition, in the design of levels, emotional curves, and material changes, a large amount of data accumulation is required. But the blue ocean of the market on this track is visible to the naked eye: the 2021 match-3 game report released by data analytics company GameRefinery mentioned that match-3 games are now the largest game subcategories in the US iOS market, creating 16% of the market revenue.
Let's see how Love Fantasy is made —
The first is the scenario design of this game:
Set to solve match 3 puzzles, through the player character constantly breaking through their old rules and regulations, constantly improving themselves to become better;
Create the beginning and end of the story, suffer from ugly things, and attract players to understand the subsequent plot through the story setting;
The "big heroine" cultivation plan, the player chooses the new style of the heroine by himself, plus the sense of substitution in real life, and independently chooses the fashion trend and emotional fortune.
Furthermore, the highlights of this game are:
Suitable for gamers of all ages, easy to play;
Get the protagonist's clothes and pants and other equipment by playing fun and entertainment, and the emotional story of the protagonist through the ups and downs;
Just fit the audience of women to the game, there are dramatic romantic love stories, and the game values can be recognized by the public;
The game is rich and interesting, catering to young people's trends and affinity.
As Lu Zhengchao, CEO of the game's development team, said:
In the past two years, the feeling of creating boutique products and the anxiety about the unstable foundation have always been the biggest driving force for our team to move forward, so the transformation and exploration have not stopped for a moment: hyIP has systemic risks, so we don't do it, ultra-leisure to do industrialization to stabilize, so we reissued.
Looking back, if you only take making money as the goal, then the path taken in the past two years will be completely different, which is good or bad, I don't know, but it is also a great blessing to be able to stick to yourself. For the foreseeable future, we will continue to explore, ultra-leisure is not the starting point, match 3+ is not the end.
03
Go out to sea to break through and adapt to local conditions
The way out of domestic games is obvious, and it is no longer a choice question of "out or out", but a mandatory question of "how to get out".
When really stepping into the road to the sea, how to use a more refined strategy to compete for the attention of players in various regional markets and various sub-categories, rather than "flood irrigation" simple purchase, needs a clearer guide for connoisseurs.
The European and American markets have aesthetic habits that conform to their own cultural heritage, military style, European and American realism, magic style, Disney or DreamWorks cartoon style, etc., which have higher requirements for art quality and precision; in the Japanese and Korean markets, medium and heavy mobile games, light mobile games and leisure games are all exquisite, especially Japanese players pay attention to "word of mouth", "die-hard fans", and have high brand loyalty.
Image source: zhihu
According to TikTok For Business's recently released New Positions for Global Gamers: 2021 Global Mobile Gamer White Paper:
In the French market, more than half of puzzle gamers say they are doing it to relieve stress, but in Japan, as many as 46% of players say that playing puzzle games focuses on gaining a sense of achievement;
Casual/arcade games perform the most prominently in the mature gaming market, with the highest market share in the United States;
Role-playing games are the most popular among Asian players, especially those in Japan and South Korea.
Image source: TikTok For Business
Overseas market is very large, but there is no unified standard, each local cultural habits are different, no matter which country to go to sea, you must first do market research according to your own product type, localization of the game reputation is also the key to the game.
But it is not difficult to see from the top games such as "Original God" and "Love Fantasy" that whether it is luck or marketing advantages, the content itself is still the first productivity of the blockbuster.
Under the premise of superior content, traditional simple skinning numerical games have gradually lost their living space, and are replaced by more high-quality content. The core of the game going to sea is also based on this, first of all, it is fun, and then it is the cultural output. The global market is vast, and the liberalized market automatically adapts to the preferences of a new generation of young people.
The new era of games going to sea has come to fruition, and it is believed that the future AAA games and independent games that go to sea will surely usher in a broader market space.
reference:
1.Are video games China’s next cultural export? (SupChina)
2.Genshin Impact's Latest Controversy Shows Games Can Be Powerful Ambassadors For Art. (Kotaku)
3.China Focus: Chinese-made games regale global gamers with cultural feast. (xinhuanet)
4. New Positions for Global Gamers: 2021 Global Mobile Gamer White Paper. (TikTok For Business)
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