Wen 丨 Zinc Finance, Author 丨 Zhao Jiahe, Editor 丨 Gale
How much money can it take to tell a good story?
Just last week, a game called Eldon's Circle of Law was launched, attracting the attention of players around the world in the game circle.
This is the well-known game producer Hidetaka Miyazaki, following "Only Wolves: Shadow Death Twice", a soul masterpiece launched for three years, which quickly appeared on the hot search and broke the sales record as soon as it was launched, and the peak number of online users reached nearly 900,000. At the same time, the 45 media participating in the evaluation gave praise to "Eldon's Circle of Law", and many of them scored full marks.
It is worth mentioning that the game's world view and plot are set by George Martin. George Martin is one of the world's most famous fantasy novelists today, with his song A Song of Ice and Fire translated into more than 30 languages, and his adaptation of Game of Thrones ranked seventh in the "Best TV Series of the 21st Century."
In addition to the new games paying more and more attention to the construction of the game world view, many classic games are also gradually improving the game world view. For example, the reshaping of the worldview of "Glory of the King" in recent years has the shadow of Liu Cixin, the author of "The Three-Body Problem".
For game manufacturers, a complete world view can maximize the IP value of a game and lengthen the vitality of a game.
"Sell the game before selling the worldview"
George Martin, the architect of the Eldon Ring of Law game worldview, is not a game lover himself. But because of this, Martin can jump out of the game itself with an independent perspective, building a comprehensive worldview for each gamer and character.
"All they want from me is the construction of some worldview: a deep, dark, resonant world that serves as the basis for the game they plan to create." It just so happens that I like to create the world and write fictional history. ”
George Martin Blog
The eldon-Ring of Law collaboration with Martin was clearly one of the most successful business collaborations.
On November 4 last year, Eldon's Law Ring was expected to sell 4 million copies in just five weeks after it launched the pre-order trailer. In other words, the game earned nearly 1.2 billion yuan in pre-sales just by virtue of the tip of the iceberg of the open world revealed in the promotional video.
This achievement undoubtedly confirms the saying that has been widely circulated in the game development industry in recent years, "Sell the game before selling the world view".
A planner at a game studio in Hangzhou told Zinc Finance that the focus of good stories in game development is gradually increasing; the player group's preference for plots is also getting higher and higher. "There have been games like Detroit Change' that focus on plot interaction, and the sales are very good."
Detroit Becomes Human Again
But at the same time, he also mentioned that the construction of the game's worldview is not so simple. As was common in early games, having a story line and a few character backgrounds is not a complete worldview.
"The true game worldview is to be as immersive as air as the player. Just like the series of novels, the alternate world is created completely, and the huge plot bus branches behind each character cannot be messed up. For example, if we have a copywriting plan in charge of this piece, the head game company will often invite writers, screenwriters and other professionals to participate in cooperation. ”
Judging from the actions of those well-known game manufacturers, this is indeed the case.
Not to mention that Blizzard, which created the vast worldview of Warcraft, has published 24 official drama novels and a series of IP comics, which can be seen simply by turning to The Country.
In July 2021, Glory of Kings invited 25 online writers to create based on the game's worldview and hero settings. The first co-creation novel covers the world region of chang'an, yunzhong, haidu, jixia and Xuanyong, and produces a collection of co-created hero novels and five co-created regional novels. In October of the same year, it was announced again that it would reach a cooperation with Liu Cixin, the author of "Three-Body Problem", and its IP game would be inspired by his novel "Shiyun".
In addition, Tianyancha app shows that Tencent has repeatedly invested in the acquisition of game content research and development related studios: for example, Doji Studio, etc., all of which focus on the development of game IP content with strong narratives as the main direction of attack.
Image source: Sky Eye Check
It can be seen that the optimization and upgrading of the content ecology has been the direction of the game market; and the construction of a good world view is enough to support the amplification of the commercial value of a group of IP.
Good story for the game "sticker gold"
In fact, as long as the fundamental gameplay remains the same, content factors such as the plot worldview will not cause fundamental changes to the game's business model - the skin should be sold, and the in-app purchase should be purchased. A good worldview, or "universe", can often bring IP added value to the game.
But this part of the additional benefits, too, can not be underestimated. For a game, the richer the story line and world view, the more possibilities there are for the player's output.
Take the representative of "Selling Skins", "League of Legends", for example, which began to hire professional writers to create the "League of Legends Universe" since 2017, and has now expanded to a huge world structure with 13 power regions and 3 parallel universes. These vast worldviews don't just serve the context of the story, their greater value lies in putting "gold" on the skin.
Since the launch of the "League of Legends Universe", almost every time The Fist Company has launched a theme series of skins, it can find corresponding clues in the derivative parallel universe worldview.
For example, the KDA series of skins corresponds to the KDA universe, the short film has exceeded 100 million hits on YouTube, known as "the best-selling, most eye-catching, and most successful skin in the history of LOL"; the story background of the source plan skin takes place in the future cyberpunk city, the official release data in 19 years, the source plan Yasuo sales of 15.46 million copies, even at the current unit price of 69Q coins to calculate the creation of more than 1 billion yuan in revenue.
Several local tycoon players told Zinc Finance: In addition to the feel and appearance, the story behind the skin is also an important factor to attract players to start. "Players buy more than skins, just like other goods, stories are always better than skins."
In addition, the commercial value brought by the mature worldview does not only exist within the game, but also radiates to the real purchase scene. The worldview is so grand that it even produced a "chronicle" of "World of Warcraft", and it has the most say in this.
In 2016, in order to create momentum for the "Warcraft" movie, Blizzard officially authorized a number of domestic genuine peripherals for the first time. There are 10 models in total, half of which are each in the alliance and perimeter, including decorative alliance/tribal badges, as well as more practical power banks, charging bases, etc. It is said that the authorized amount around a product starts at a minimum of $500,000.
Hand-made around the tribal alliance
In the end, the domestic box office of the "Warcraft" movie was worth more than 1 billion, which was not satisfactory, but the relevant surroundings were swept away by the fans of the game. According to the data revealed by Zeng Maojun, CEO of Wanda Cinema Line at the time, "Before the release of the movie, the sales of related peripherals had already broken 100 million." ”
Thanks to the deeply rooted worldview and storyline, players who shout "for the tribe/alliance" in the game do not hesitate to spend money to find that sense of belonging in reality.
Like a good soup bowl, people can't say what direct benefits a good worldview brings to the game, but it brings "1+1>2" commercial value all the time.
Film and television cartoon IP, multi-line possibility
Although the "Warcraft" movie eventually hit the box office, it cannot be denied that it represents a general direction for the development of game IP. After all, with a mature world view, excellent story lines, and a large player base, such game IP will often become the "fragrant food" of film and television adaptations.
1993's "Super Mario Bros." may have been the earliest attempt to make a game film, but it did not make a good start with a Douban score of 5.2. The first comment below is "It has nothing to do with the game, just the name of the character".
Super Mario Bros.
For the adaptation of a game IP, the most important point to succeed is to retain the game plot as much as possible while making a reasonable adaptation, so as to take into account the two major viewing groups of players and passers-by.
This is also another possibility that good stories bring to game IP.
In the past 30 years of repeated defeats and battles of film and television and game companies, film and television adaptations have appeared more and more frequently, and the results have become better and better.
The most well-known in China is league of legends based on the framework of Piltwolf and Zuan's "Battle of Two Cities". Ten days after the anime series aired, Tencent Video's views exceeded 200 million, while the Douban rating was stable by 9.1 points; overseas, only six episodes were released to break the previous multi-national ratings record set by "Squid Game". Of course, Fist also did not forget to launch a series of Twin Cities Battle skins.
"Uncharted Sea", which will be released in China next month, is based on the game of the same name, and after landing in North American theaters on February 18, it became the first weekend box office champion in North America in 2022.
For the increasing maturity of game IP adaptation, Sanford Panic, president of Sony's film division, explained: "The story in the game is more perfect and advanced than in the past. ”
In today's "IP universe" flooding, a good story is the core competitiveness of a game IP adaptation. Once the plot and worldview are mature, it is equivalent to having an inexhaustible library of materials that can develop different possibilities: novels, movies, anime... Gaining heat through IP adaptation, attracting new players, while also rejuvenating classic IP, forming a virtuous circle.
A good story brings much more than just a few IPs to the game, but a vast market of imagination.
As the times progressed, the core of the game was reconstructed from generation to generation. The current hot gameplay modes may be replaced in the future, but those vivid experiences and emotions can be remembered by players forever. At least at the moment, the "value of a good story", especially the commercial value, is being affirmed and discovered by more and more people.