"Suspend the suspension process", this simple 6 words, is of great significance to loyal players like Wang Rong (pseudonym) - after all, mobile game suspension is commonplace, but it is rare for players to "revive the dead" through rights protection means.
Wang Rong's game of "entering the pit" is exactly the 3D national style love dressup game "Cloud Dress Feather". In this game, players can pinch their faces to create their own characters, perform various rich costume changes, and feel an ancient love encounter.
Unfortunately, Wang Rong's "love" is fragile and short-lived. On February 20 this year, the official announcement of "YunSheng Haori" said that due to Tencent (00700. HK) is about to expire its agency agreement with the game developer and will officially terminate its operations in the Chinese mainland on April 28, while "all account data and character profiles in the game will be deleted in its entirety."
Thinking that the hundreds of costumes he designed would disappear with the suspension of the game, Wang Rong turned from "helpless" to "angry", and then "hugged" with a group of players to defend her rights. The protest also attracted the attention of the China Consumers Association. On March 30, the operation team of "Cloud Dress Feather" said that it would "suspend the suspension process".
"Suspension", rather than "termination", has made most people, including Wang Rong, worry that this is a delaying tactic after the "hurricane passes through the post". However, when the ownership of the game's digital assets came into the spotlight again with the farce of the suspension, everyone knew that this rights protection incident would not be the first, let alone the last.
The disappearance of "emotional sustenance"
Developed by Chengdu Xishan Jushiyou Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xishanju") and issued by Tencent, "Yunsheng Yuyi" has been open beta and operated since September 2018. Industry insiders told Yin persimmon financial reporters that the signing of an agency agreement between game developers and Tencent is a common operating method in the circle, "Xishanju" although good at game content production, but lack of promotion channels, "holding More than a billion netizen resources in China" Tencent, naturally become the ideal distribution agent.
"I've been playing games since I was a kid and I understand the pros and cons of most of the dressup games I run on the market." Wang Rong said that unlike most dress-up games, "Cloud Dress Feather" is more conscientious and can be played without money, "in the words of the player, it is not very 'kryptonic'".
Wang Rong introduced that the game's pass currency is Qiyu, by recharging, doing daily tasks can increase the value of Qiyu, the costumes in the game do not need to be thrown into the "real money" to get, "if a penny is not charged, slowly rely on daily savings can also be done." Even so, the players who share the same account with Wang Rong have now "krypton gold" tens of thousands, in comparison, Wang Rong is still quite restrained, but "spends a lot of thoughts".
"I like to design clothes for my character in the game and share them with other players." Wang Rong said that it usually takes only ten minutes to complete daily tasks, but if it takes several hours to complete the output of game content, "for example, in order to design and complete a 'Dunhuang Feitian' style dress, it took me three hours just to adjust the color."
"Some players see the heroine as a 'daughter', some players like the male protagonist in the main quest, and many players treat the clothes and accessories they spend time and energy collecting as a collection." In the view of gamer Lin Indigo (pseudonym), although other competitive games on the market have sucked most of the players, the players who stay behind have a deep affection for "Cloud Dress Feather" and regard it as "emotional sustenance".
Under the gorgeous coat is a harsh reality. After two years of initial operation, the plot chapter of "Cloud Dress Feather" has basically not been updated, and the frequency of new activities has also shown a "cliff-like" decline, but from time to time some recharge activities will be launched.
"Magic Pen Danqing Painted Scrolls" returned to the event
In January this year, the official also held a return event called "Miaobi Danqing Painted Scroll Neon Dress", "all the clothes that had not participated in any reproduction activities were released to attract loyal players 'Krypton Gold'". Wang Rong recalled that when the operation team issued the announcement of the suspension, there were only 2 days left before the end of the above activities.
Before the suspension of service, a large-scale re-enactment event was also held, and the practice of "cutting leeks" undoubtedly ignited the anger of players. Everyone reported through the National Internet Information Service Platform, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, 12315 and other channels, and also left messages and complaints under various media social accounts, and the relevant news once rushed to Weibo hot search. Under a lot of pressure, on March 30, "Cloud Dress Feather" issued an announcement to stop taking. In response to this matter, the China Consumers Association launched the "Investigation on the Suspension of Online Games" through Weibo on April 2 to promote the correction of unfairness.
"I think this incident is quite special, even in foreign countries, I have rarely heard of successful cases of player rights protection." Game practitioner Patch (pseudonym) believes that relatively speaking, male players are more concerned about winning and losing battles in the game, while female players are more likely to invest in "priceless" emotions. The official choice of "Cloud Dress Feather" to "suspend the service" may have something to do with the female players' clearer awareness of rights protection.
Lin Indigo recalled that the previous mobile game "A3" did not produce such a big "splash" as this time, and the female player's "crying and defending rights" is actually a manifestation of paying more attention to expressing their rights and interests. "After all, for many female players, stopping the service means that the entire emotional sustenance will disappear."
An "short-lived" fate that is difficult to break
Since "Cloud Feather" did not disclose the specific reason for the suspension of operations, many players were excited and worried about the wording in the new announcement that only "suspended" rather than "terminated", and when to resume listing and new user registration is also unknown.
Lin Indigo has observed the domestic game ecology, and she mercilessly compares Tencent games to a "clam mechanism", and directly cuts projects if the income is slightly unsatisfactory. "The situation in China is that there are large manufacturers monopolizing sales channels, and it is difficult for small teams to survive, but on the contrary, small teams love their own games and want to operate well."
"Most of the mobile game projects are to make money, some projects to make money for a few months; some projects want to do it for a long time, but it is likely to be cut off because of the bad data in the early stage." Patch told reporters that in this environment, it is more difficult to launch a boutique mobile game with thin water and long streams.
In Patch's view, the "oligarchy" phenomenon of mobile games is more serious, but even if it is the head of a category of games, the company cannot grasp too much pricing power, "because too expensive players will also 'bye bye'", so once the "data is not good", it is understandable to make a decision to stop serving.
"This data, specifically, refers to the number of logged-in users and revenue." Patch revealed that in tencent as an example, it will evaluate a game from two dimensions: user orientation and revenue, including new users, retention rate, and daily active number, and revenue direction includes daily turnover, return on investment, active user unit price, and so on. To put it simply, these dimensions point to the KPIs set by Tencent for the game project team, such as completing 100 million turnover and 10 million profits per month, "equivalent to the passing line of Tencent games".
Wang Rong designs the adjusted costumes in the game
"In fact, from the perspective of the industry, the production cycle of mobile games is as long as 1 to 3 years, the cost difference ranges from millions to hundreds of millions, and the average operating life is 2 to 3 years, and the most 'short-lived' is even less than 3 months." Patch said that like "Cloud Dress Feather", from the public beta to the release of the announcement of the suspension, nearly four years, that is, into the long tail stage of product operation, any product has its natural life cycle, with the operation time extended, freshness or playability is reduced, the emergence of new categories, etc., will bring product iteration, player loss and other results.
Silver Persimmon financial reporter noted that since the beginning of this year alone, there have been many well-known games such as NetEase's mobile game "Magic Book Revelation", "My Origin" issued by Tencent agent, and "Mecha Alice" under Station B. According to the incomplete statistics of the WeChat public account "Game New Knowledge", in 2021, Tencent's 48 models, NetEase's 17 models, ByteDance's 39 models, and 9 games of B Station will be removed from the shelves or suspended.
Screens of the Game of the Book of Illusions
If game suspension is fate, is there a better way to say goodbye to the player?
"It's only been two months since the latest launch of Cloud Feather, and it's been a real fit for players to accept." In Patch's hands, there was once a mobile game that went to the fate of "dying". "At that time, we only asked for breake-even, but in the end there were only 10 daily active users." Patch said that in general, the team will set aside 3 months for players to experience the content of the game version almost the same, and the love is almost consumed, and then publicly announce the suspension.
The reporter noted that "Yunbei Feather" once mentioned in the announcement of suspension compensation that players who have not consumed the qiyu in the game can participate in the compensation activities within the time limit, and choose to receive the value-added gift package of Tencent's "Miracle Warmth", "Brilliant Star Path" and "Yanxi Raiders' Phoenix In Flight" mobile games according to the balance of the qiyu.
Obviously, the players didn't buy it. Wang Rong said that this compensation is not fair to players, "keeping the data out of the single machine is the smallest cost we can think of to run, and it is also the best way to compensate."
Patch also took note of the players' suggestion that "the game is turned to a single machine, and the data is stored locally", but he does not think this advice is realistic. "The turning machine has additional development and production workload, if it is a large-scale game turning single machine, the development time is at least half a year, and then there are bugs, but also follow-up maintenance, continue to update." And it is very likely that it will not be maintained, then the manufacturer may fall into the name. Therefore, Patch said that no manufacturer is willing to pay this cost to turn a single machine.
The ownership and pricing of virtual property is inconclusive
Behind the farce of the suspension of "Cloud Dress Hagoromo", it is more of a reflection of the deep contradiction between players and manufacturers around the virtual property of the game.
"The time and energy invested by the player in the process of playing the game, as well as the game characters, equipment and other related items purchased with money, all have property value and are virtual property." Zhu Junchao, founding partner of Kenting Law Firm and head of the game law team of Nuocheng, said.
However, regarding virtual property, Zhu Junchao also admitted that the existing law does not clearly stipulate whether gamers should have ownership or use rights. In the current general user agreement, the essence of the contract signed by the two parties is a service contract, and the service contract generally stipulates that the player only has the right to use the account and cannot freely dispose of virtual property such as game accounts and game props. In other words, virtual property such as the costumes designed by players such as Wang Rong in "YunSheng Feather" is owned by the game company, and Wang Rong only has the right to use it.
If "Wang Rong" wants to get the ownership of the virtual property, it is equivalent to the mobile game having to be operated permanently, and the game is not allowed to stop operation regardless of profit or loss. "This condition is unreasonable and unfair to game companies." Zhu Junchao said bluntly.
After the game is suspended, in addition to the difficulties in the ownership of virtual property, the pricing and refund of virtual property is another problem.
With reference to the Interim Measures for the Administration of Online Games and the Notice on Strengthening the Management of Virtual Currency in Online Games, when an online game operator terminates its service, the online game operator must refund the virtual currency that the user has purchased but has not yet used, in the form of legal tender or other methods accepted by the user.
In addition, the Measures also stipulate that online game virtual currency trading service enterprises shall comply with the regulations, including that when providing services, they should ensure that users use valid identity documents for registration and bind bank accounts that are consistent with the user's registration information.
It seems that it can be done according to the regulations, but in practice it is not. "As far as I know, there are no refunds." Patch said the prevailing practice is to transfer virtual currencies that have been purchased but not yet used to other games operated by the company. The game props that have been consumed are "more troublesome and not well priced" to deal with.
In the case of "Cloud Feather Dress", the player purchases the prevailing currency, Qiyu, and the unused Qiyu can be refunded at the same price. But other game items such as clothes that have been purchased and consumed are difficult to price and refund. "Because the player has already enjoyed the game experience, it is impossible to refund the recharge consumption that has been consumed." Zhu Junchao thinks.
The reporter learned that the era of free games is no longer a simple one-time purchase, but a long-term service process. How do I price a "final step"? In fact, there is no good agreement between game developers and players.
At the level of special legislation for virtual property, Zhu Junchao suggested that what can be filled at the legislative level in the future is that when game companies release mobile games, they clearly stipulate the minimum operating cycle of the game, so that players also have a psychological expectation and reasonably arrange the various costs invested in it. And not to the point that "after the player recharges the game, the game company briefly goes online to complete the 'cutting leeks' and runs away at any time." ”
"For some virtual items whose economic value is not yet clear at the level of the whole society, it is still difficult to legislate specifically." Weng Guanxing, a partner at Shanghai Yingtai Law Firm, said in an interview with Yinxi Financial Reporter that because of the virtual props in online games, it is difficult to define their ownership and property attributes, and there will be potential financial security risks.
Weng Guanxing added that legislation is of course necessary, but from the perspective of the social value and cost of legislation, its priority may not be as good as that of other departmental laws for the time being. "As far as I know, a number of NPC deputies have proposed special legislation on online games and publications, and I believe that the legislation in this regard will be gradually improved in the future."
However, in the face of player voices and public pressure, the "final interpretation right" that game companies usually use, as well as ownership claims to all digital content, will inevitably encounter increasing resistance.
Overall, most game companies and players are still in the stage of ignorance and exploration when facing the problem of virtual property, and the game between the two sides is often intensified into a zero-sum game of "distribution according to the noise". How to achieve a win-win situation by finding a balance of interests will be a new challenge for the entire game industry and ecology.