When the entire industry is mentioning IP, it is actually not difficult to speculate on the risks of purely original products and the difficulty of success. But it is a pure original two-dimensional turn-based mobile game that is literally "negative Buff", but it has become the biggest hit in the Japanese mobile game market this spring, and this game is "Heaven Burns Red" (hereinafter referred to as HBR), which was jointly developed by WFS and Key.
According to Qimai's data, HBR was launched in Japan on February 9, and on the day of launch, it topped the free list of the Japanese App Store, and the next day, it also successfully entered the top thirty of the best-seller list, and in the past two months, although the results of the game free list have gone all the way down, the best-seller list is very strong.
In the first month of the launch, the HBR best-seller list remained within 15, until last week, it briefly fell to 36, but with the update of the version, the ranking instantly returned to the top ten, and as of the end of the article on April 2, HBR's best-seller list ranked 17th. According to Sensor Tower, HBR's rolling revenue in March reached about $31.4 million, or about 200 million yuan, making it the eighth-largest mobile game product in Japan in March.
Unlike many popular game teams who are well versed in the principle of "more words must be lost", after the game explosion, most of them choose to "hide their names" for a period of time, the team behind HBR can be said to be adhering to the spirit of sharing the Internet, when HBR was less than two months old, at the online meeting of the Data.ai held in Japan on March 23, combined with a series of operations before and after the HBR launch, shared the know-how of the game to continue to attract players and improve player satisfaction.
The following is the promotional PV of the game:
The magnum opus of the Great Demon King
Although the game has been online for nearly two months, GameLook still feels the need to briefly introduce HBR, and readers who already know the game can skip this part.
In the field of ACG, Maeda Jun and his Key Society can be said to be a well-known existence, and his portrayal of the character group portraits in the trilogy of "Kanon", "Air" and "CLANNAD" is still impressive. HBR, on the other hand, is Ma Zhijun's completion of Angel Beats in 2010. After that, the game script was re-created after 12 years, and with this alone, HBR gained a lot of expectations before it went online.
WFS, on the other hand, is a company that has developed high-scoring two-dimensional games such as "Another Eden", and the cooperation with Key on HBR can be said to be a strong combination.
HBR's story is also set in the apocalypse, when the earth is invaded by a mysterious life form called "cancer", and the defeated human beings have developed a special weapon called "Blazing Angel" in a critical situation, and the holder is naturally a girl with different talents. As a story-based game, HBR is more like a text adventure game (AVG) that combines card RPG gameplay.
In terms of gameplay, HBR also has many special settings, such as a clear concept of days, and the development of the plot will be closely related to the number of days and time, for example, the lunch-related plot will occur around 12 o'clock. In terms of production, WFS has obviously put a lot of effort into the production, HBR creatively added a lot of 2D drawing to the game, whether in the plot part or in the combat part, it is possible to mess with these four-panel comic-like supplementary illustrations.
Finally, in terms of turn-based, although WFS has made certain innovations in the game's mechanics, it is constantly changing, and the turn-based system of the game does not have too many surprises, but with exquisite close-up animation, the overall experience of combat is still excellent in similar products.
Control player expectations and make corrections in a timely manner
Back to the sharing of the team behind HBR on the Data.ai, in addition to WFS CEO Yoota Yanagihara, Tetsuya Iguchi, deputy director of DeNA's game business department, and Hayaichi Akagawa, representative director of live broadcasting platform Mirative.
In the first part, the trio discussed how to raise expectations and reviews before the game went on sale. In this regard, Yanagihara Yangtai mainly focuses on giving users two major aspects of surprise and security, and expounds three key points.
The first is to rely on the hard power of the team to improve the level of the game, in short, the game is high-quality. But this is not simply relying on heap technology and talents can be achieved, after all, in the field of two dimensions, Japan may not lack of creative, thoughtful individuals, how to combine the advantages and ideas of these talents with products as much as possible, it has become a difficult point.
In this regard, WFS first chose the "creator-oriented", as mentioned above, the game will occur according to the time of different plot settings, although it is very common in visual novels, but it is not common in two-dimensional turn-based games, in order to maximize the advantages of the Key Society, WFS chose to adopt this point of view, rather than blindly imitating the same type of game, "no mistake is success".
Of course, WFS is not blindly behind closed doors, groundless implementation of some innovative ideas, even if this time is set, it is the team in many internal tests, collect player feedback and continuous optimization and adjustment before being implemented.
The second is to prepare before going live. Yanagihara Yangtai said frankly in the meeting that WFS has had many unforgettable failures in the past, which is why the team did not choose to launch HBR until it repeatedly confirmed that it had done everything it could, rather than rushing to the market for the sake of grabbing the schedule and rushing to the market that they were not sure whether they were ready.
The last point is to have appropriate and adequate marketing campaigns that control player expectations. Before the launch of HBR, Yota Yanagihara said that WFS held ten official live broadcast activities before and after, and also linked up with Japan's popular Vtuber group Hololive to warm up before launching.
The game also invited members of Nogizaka 46 to shoot advertisements Image source: The game's official website
However, WFS is not blindly stirring up the topic of the game, in the live broadcast activities, WFS will be based on the audience's comments, the launch of live broadcast time points and other comprehensive analysis, and constantly preferential their follow-up live broadcast activities and marketing priorities, adjust the content and expression of marketing, while improving the quality of advertising, accurately control the expectations of players. Guarantee that after the game is launched, the quality of the game will at least reach the level of passing, and will not let HBR lose players due to too low expectations, or because the player's expectations are too fanatical, and eventually the expectations will be disappointed.
Enrich the value of games and cultivate a 0 threshold game community
The second part is how to maintain and enhance user evaluations after the game is launched, and feed back the growth of the game. On this question, Tetsuya Inoguchi, Hayaichi Akagawa, and Yota Yanagihara respectively made their own answers from the three aspects of the construction and expansion of the game community and the rhythm of game operation.
Inoguchi also believes that after the game is launched, it is important to adjust the game content in time according to the feedback of the players and correct the direction of the game, after all, there is a huge information gap between the development team and the players, and it will inevitably happen after the game is launched, the team believes that it is a key function, the player response is flat, and the team believes that it is the icing on the cake details, but it is quite popular with players.
It is precisely because of this gap in experience and information that Toruya Inoguchi and DeNA see a diverse, free community of players as treasures. Players should be able to express their different ideas and opinions in the community, developers also need to pay attention to this content, even if due to operational, technical and other reasons, in the short term, can not make timely adjustments to the player's feedback, but also to ensure that the direction of the game is consistent with the player's expectations.
HBR is clearly doing a good job in this regard
On top of the player community, Hayaichi Akakawa put forward the idea of "making players see the game as their own business", if players can see a game as a part of their own lives, this type of player player will not only be more willing to invest time in the game, but also more willing to share and expand the influence of the game.
To achieve this goal, it is necessary to reduce the threshold of live broadcasting, community, etc., activities that can gather users, so that players can share their lives and values with the help of games as much as possible, so that the value of games rises from simple entertainment to social and life carriers.
For the sharing of the above two, Yanagihara Yangtai agreed and added. He said that WFS games are mostly single-player games, so it is really important for players to exchange ideas and share experiences through the community. But in addition to the game community, the strategy and rhythm of game operations are equally important, "WFS is basically to look at player feedback, make predictions at the same time, and develop future services for the game."
Like RPG games on platforms such as consoles, mobile games also need to meet the criteria of a similar experience whenever players join the game. But on the basis of long-term and stable operation, game companies also need to often "come to a big news" from time to time, so that players can generate ideas that seem to be interesting in the game this month, next month, next month, or even half a year.
Targeted localization management, direct communication with players
The final part is the difference between the way games are run in Japan and overseas, in other words, how to do a good job of localizing content. This is still of some value to domestic companies that are going to sea on a large scale.
Toru Iguchi also believes that when creating game communities and publishing game products overseas, you can't blindly apply the local operation experience of game products, but to talk directly with local players, DeNA has found many differences between overseas users and Japanese players in its own experience of going to sea, such as not having the habit of reading long texts in the game, preferring clear goals rather than independent exploration.
Some of the differences in player culture, such as the different attitudes of players to microtransactions in various regions, can even fundamentally affect the game's character performance and level design. In the end, Toru Inoguchi also said, "A team that can think of a user's face is a team that can improve the performance of the game."
Wallpaper ending Image source: game official website
Yota Yanagihara also agreed with DeNA's approach, believing that game companies must have the consciousness of facing local users when they go to sea, and at the end of the meeting, Yota Yanagihara also summarized the success of WFS.
"The success of WFS comes from the experience of past failures, as well as the humble attitude of success and pride and complacency, and we will achieve greater success in accumulation and summary of ourselves."
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