Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 Zinc Scale, Author 丨 Meteor, Editor 丨 Chen Deng Xin
Kayou's opening of shops in the city's core business districts is nothing new.
Compared with the restaurant and clothing brands that have closed down and demolished stores in the business district, Kayou's physical stores are in full swing.
When the concept of "children" is mentioned, many people will think of the figure of the post-00s, but in fact, the youngest post-00s are now 13 years old and are the "last bus passengers" of the children's consumer market with 0-14-year-old children as the main target.
The terms "post-90s" and "post-00s" once had a fairly high degree of popularity, and among the groups carrying this title were the original Internet natives, who had a historic impact on the market and even the whole world. Subsequently, perhaps people's attention is still stuck in the "post-90s" and "post-00s" groups are unwilling to move away, or perhaps people simply lost interest, when the "social successors" changed to "post-10s" or even "post-20s", people's attention to such titles and the groups behind them began to decline with the naked eye.
However, the consumption power of the new generation of children has not declined, and their "money-spending" news still appears in the news from time to time, arousing people's curiosity about where their consumption is going.
During the Spring Festival in 2022, the drama of children "throwing thousands of dollars" was staged as scheduled - the media reported that a 10-year-old boy in Henan Province carried his parents behind his back and spent a total of 9,800 yuan in 10 days. However, what is surprising is that the destination of this "huge amount" is neither a video game nor a live tip, but a small card with Ultraman printed on it.
Children's "social currency", the source of headaches for parents
Ultraman, as the world's top close-up IP, its reputation in China can also be described as a household name. Under the operation of the company behind the IP - Round Valley and Bandai, Ultraman continues to innovate, the content keeps pace with the times, and from time to time produces such word-of-mouth "explosive" masterpieces as "Zeta Ultraman", which makes the IP still have vigorous vitality after spanning more than 50 years, and even many fans continue to pay attention to the follow-up works of IP after adulthood, which is evident in its amazing charm.
As a super IP with global influence, ultraman's development on the road to commercialization has always been a topic of discussion among fans. Nowadays, in order to further monetize IP, In addition to designing more colorful transformation toys for sale, Ultraman is also constantly developing various other types of peripheral products, and Ultraman cards are one of them.
As mentioned earlier, this type of card product belongs to the game product type of trading cards. The so-called exchange card game, simply put, is a card battle game with the collection of cards and the construction of personalized decks as the selling point, they are not like playing cards, a deck of cards can contain all the cards needed for the game, but requires players to continuously buy card packs in a way similar to the blind box lottery, obtain random cards, and build combinations according to these cards, and finally carry out strategic games through the card deck under the restrictions of the rules.
When it comes to the blind box product model, I think it was a hot word in the first two years. Due to the influx of young players into consumption, the popularity of the blind box has gone all the way up, and even ushered in a "first year" of bursting out of the circle in 2020, sending the so-called "blind box originator" Bubble Mart, who made a lot of money, to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The attractive charm of blind box products is not an obscure secret, nothing more than through the consumer before opening the blind box can not know the mystery of the content, to trigger the curiosity of consumers, at the same time through the randomness of the blind box content, to attract consumers to buy repeatedly, finally, when consumers smashed a huge amount of money to piece together a complete set of blind box products, it will further produce a huge sense of achievement and satisfaction.
When the blind box is hot, some analysts in the market believe that the reason for its success is mainly the characteristics of the blind box just mentioned, which are more prominent for young people who pursue emotional stimulation. But they may not have expected that this blind box sales model also made children crazy.
Ah Wei, a "post-90s" teacher at a primary school in Chongqing, told Zinc Scale that Ultraman cards are quite popular in his primary school, and almost all boys are card players, and even some girls will participate in it. They hold so many cards in their hands that some children can even fill an entire mooncake box with them.
"Ultraman cards are children's 'social currency', and talking about how many card packs they bought, getting those cards, and deriving from them to discussing their favorite Ultraman and recently watched Ultraman episodes is a common way for children to start social topics." Ah Wei introduced.
For children who want to participate in such social activities, a pack of Ultraman cards is "admission", so it is self-evident why they are particularly enthusiastic about buying card bags.
However, the behavior of children buying Ultraman card bags in large quantities also brings some troubles to parents.
"For example, children under the age of 14 are quite blind in their consumption, and they rarely make a plan for the pocket money they can dispose of, often just after getting the money, the next day they all invest in the toys or snacks they want." Ah Wei said that he often hears complaints from parents, saying that he gave his children pocket money the first day, and the next day he took it all to buy card toys, and after the pocket money was spent, he began to pestering his parents to ask for more pocket money, which was very annoying.
In addition, due to the randomness of the card pack, it is common to get duplicate cards, and these not-so-rare duplicate cards are often discarded by children everywhere, which increases the burden on the adults responsible for housework and also causes adults to not understand.
"Parents don't all understand what the concept of blind boxes is, and in the eyes of many parents, it is a waste of money for children to throw away a large number of duplicate cards after buying a card bag." Ah Wei explained.
The 36-year-old Lin Zongyu is such a parent, and he has little interest in Ultraman, and once angrily denounced the Ultraman card as a "conspiracy to cheat children of money."
Lin Zongyu discarded the card bag packaging at home
"Ultraman toys such as villains and shapeshifters are clearly priced and can be purchased directly. But the card is a bottomless pit, the child wants what card can not be bought directly, can only continue to buy the card bag, then who knows when to get together the card, buy the card to find that they do not like it and can not return, this is not a pit man? That's why children are willing to do this. Lin Zongyu complained.
And when Lin Zongyu knew that behind this kind of sales model similar to blind box exchange cards, there was already a huge market of more than ten billion US dollars, I was afraid that it was inevitable to "a question mark".
Rarity alone can be divided into more than 30 kinds, how deep is the small card routine?
According to the data of Huajing Industry Research Institute, the global container card game market size has reached a staggering $11.13 billion in 2020, and the scale of the mainland card game industry in the same year is expected to reach about 11.5 billion yuan, and the data is quite objective.
For parents, this is both unexpected and expected. After all, similar to the news that Henan boys spent nearly 10,000 yuan on buying cards in 10 days, they will appear in various parent groups and parents' circle of friends almost from time to time.
However, some parents will also be curious, ultraman card bag is not a thing of one or two dollars, their children occasionally buy and buy can not spend much money, how can there be Henan boys for this "throw a thousand gold" situation?
Talking about this, I have to talk specifically about where the "kryptonite point" of the domestic Ultraman card is.
Although the technical content of Ultraman cards is not high, under the IP restrictions, not any company can print Ultraman on the card and then sell it to primary school students. At present, in China, the main sellers of Ultraman cards are the following two, one is Kayou Technology, which is mainly engaged in toy sales business, and the other is Holley Technology, a well-known listed arcade production company.
Ultraman's copyright comes from Round Valley's Kayou Technology, which is the leading big brother of the domestic card toy track. In addition to Ultraman cards, this company also has IP card products such as Marvel, Douluo Continent, and Pony Paulie.
However, according to Tianyan, Kayou Technology's Ultraman cards account for more than 90% of the card market, leaving other card products far behind in terms of sales - even including their own other card products.
The selling point of Kayou Technology's Ultraman cards is mainly his rare cards.
Although the title of "Ultraman Card" is easy to misunderstand as a single product, in fact, the variety of Ultraman cards of Kayou Technology is quite rich. According to the type and rarity of the cards contained, the card pack of ultraman cards can be divided into classic version, deluxe version, miracle version, legendary version, glory version and other versions, and the price span has also risen from 1 yuan / bag all the way to 50 yuan / bag.
Since children are rarely aware of the concept of the secondary market, children often begin to buy more and more expensive card packs in order to get the rare cards they want as much as possible, and even start to buy card packs in box units, so that the cost will rise with the tide, and it is not surprising that they spend hundreds of thousands of yuan a day.
And when it comes to rare cards that make children "addicted", there are more doorways inside.
For children, the value of rare cards is often not in circulation (they rarely realize the concept of rarity as precious), but in the title of "rare", which is a magic weapon used by children to show off and improve their status in small circles when they "card socialize".
Kayou Technology divides its Ultraman cards into more than thirty kinds of rarity levels including R, SR, SSR, PR, HR, UR, etc. These rare card processes and materials are different from ordinary cards, in simple terms, they will be more gorgeous and beautiful, and can intuitively express the concept of "rare" to meet the child's vanity, and further help children set up a "rarity to rely on" contempt chain in the circle of "card social".
Source: Chongqing Longhu Times Street public number
And in order not to fall into the lowest end of the chain of contempt, some children who may not have much interest in rare cards also have to buy more expensive card packs to get more rare cards.
Driven by both active love and social reasons, the boom in buying Ultraman cards continues to surge among children, and card games have also made a lot of money.
Another Ultraman card company, Holley Technology, is another way of playing. Its Ultraman card is an adjunct to Bandai's Ultraman IP arcade game console, and in addition to being able to be used for exchange, the card itself can also link to ultraman game arcades.
Thanks to the more interesting gameplay of the arcade, the richer audiovisual stimulation, and the high emotional bonus of ultraman IP, the Ultraman card of Holley Technology will be more inclined to older teenagers and even adult Ultraman fans than the ultraman card of card game technology that focuses on young children.
However, although the age distribution of consumer groups is wider, considering the limitations of arcade venues and the difficulty of arcade play, the influence of Holley Technology Ultraman cards among child consumers is naturally far less than that of the cards of Card Game Technology next door. But even so, Holley Technology still got more than 40 million yuan in revenue in 2020 by relying on ultraman cards, and landed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in June of the following year, which made people feel that ultraman cards were magical.
Unfortunately, whether it is Kayou Technology or Holley Technology, although it has tasted a lot of sweetness from the sale of Ultraman cards, it is always just a "corner of the security", maintaining its hegemony in the small circle, if there is no negative news such as "throwing thousands of dollars" such as children "help", they are even very difficult to get out of the circle.
Is it true that trading cards can only rely on big IP to "cheat" children's money?
The answer may not be so.
Trading cards, a blue ocean on a piece of paper
In the view of Lu Fei, a player of the exchange card "Game King", the domestic exchange card is still in its infancy.
"Domestic exchange card products, there is no strong basis for playing, more like a simple blind box toy." It's actually easy to misunderstand the track of exchange cards, making them mistakenly think that the upper limit of the track is very low. Lu Fei said.
The domestic Ultraman card boom will indeed give people the illusion that exchange cards are just "children's toys", but in fact, exchange cards as a global market of more than 10 billion US dollars of products, the best of them (Magic", "Game King", etc.) mostly because of the strategic play rules, but more popular with older teenagers and adult players.
Although the children's consumer group is indeed not to be underestimated, in the final analysis, they do not have independent economic resources, and the consumption concept is relatively naïve, the consumption model is relatively single, and it will also hinder the commercialization process of products with its main audience.
Taking Kayou Technology's Ultraman card as an example, its sales can indeed be described as "riding the dust", but this is largely based on the strong influence of Ultraman IP, not how good its gameplay content as a collection card is. This makes it difficult for even Kayou Technology itself to replicate the success of Ultraman cards.
The hidden dangers are self-evident, if Kayou Technology no longer has ultraman authorization one day, it is almost impossible to maintain its position in the domestic exchange card track.
However, in the current market where the basic disk is for young children, the popular IP + simple play seems to have become the mainstream play of the exchange card companies, and even many companies directly showdown the exchange card as "anime card", which binds the card sales with the animation IP to the death, as a major selling point.
"For the domestic market, there are still few local exchange card brands, the attitude of enterprises is relatively conservative, and binding animation IP can at least be guaranteed in terms of audience, so this model has quickly become mainstream." Industry analyst Kong Hui said to zinc scale.
Although the domestic exchange card is too dependent on IP, if from the perspective of IP, the exchange card is indeed a good new way to monetize. After all, the atmosphere of the domestic offline exchange card battle game is indeed relatively weak, and for domestic companies that intend to enter the exchange card track, the IP card model has won them more attention from IP parties.
As an IP derivative, domestic exchange cards have formed a relatively complete industrial chain, the upstream is a variety of IP licensors, the midstream is the card manufacturers and agents, and finally the downstream wholesalers and retailers. In the middle and lower reaches of this industrial chain, it is almost a blue ocean, and there is no industry leader, even if it is Kayou Technology, the IP held in its hands is only a drop in the ocean compared with the rapid growth of film and television animation IP in recent years.
Popular cartoons are made into trading cards
"The success of ultraman cards enables companies to better convince IP parties to believe in the monetization ability of IP cards, and considering the current output and development of film and television animation and even game IP, there is still a lot of room for development in the way IP cards are played in China." Kong Hui added.
When IP raises the popularity of exchange cards to a certain level, the market that has accumulated traffic can begin to explore more commercial operation space.
For example, with the popularity of the video game market in recent years, trading cards have also been moved online, and some blockbuster works represented by Hearthstone have emerged. And because the exchange card has a high degree of strategy, so they are quite close to the concept of e-sports, considering that the e-sports industry has just harvested the Asian dividend, the exchange card track may also usher in a lot of new players to enter the e-sports circle as the goal, and at that time, the physical card link online game, but also can further enhance the commercial value, become a new growth point for related enterprises.
Exchange-type cards are still a very immature small circle in China, and enterprises are still in the stage of trying and groping for how to develop and promote such products, but in any case, Ultraman cards will definitely not be the limit of domestic exchange cards.