Image source @ Visual China
Wen | Rhino Entertainment, author | Xiaofu, editor| Park Fang
Universal Studios Beijing has been spat upon again.
On April 8, Universal Studios Beijing announced the launch of a three-month "Glory of the King" limited-time theme event, but just like the controversy caused by the first official announcement and Tencent interactive entertainment more than a year ago, this time Shangxin has become a new talk for netizens. Welcome, oppose, do not understand, netizens have their own opinions on this, it is difficult to distinguish between high and low.
Coincidentally, when "Glory of Kings" became the new "member" of Universal Studios, the Harry Potter Castle light show, one of the original fixed performances in the park, was also temporarily cancelled due to seasonal reasons, which was also the mainland premiere day of Universal Studios' ace IP "Harry Potter" and the new film universe "Fantastic Beasts 3".
A netizen boldly shouted out many people's doubts: "Can I know what Universal Studios planning thinks?" Why did he think there would be more people rushing to Glory of Kings than Harry Potter? ”
Is the collaboration between Glory of Kings and Universal Studios really a win-win?
Controversy reopened
According to the official introduction, the Universal Studios theme event takes the "Chang'an area" in the "Glory of Kings" game as the story background, and selects 11 popular heroes in the game, including the "Glory of Kings" hero parade (float performance), the "Glory of Kings" hero meeting (NPC interactive photo) and the "Glory of kings" limited peripheral sales.
The relevant person in charge revealed to the media that although the seasonal theme event was only 3 months, the preparation period was more than two years. All the heroic actions on the float can be found in the game, and the parade of the float is not a simple display, but also integrates the plot design of the stage play. From the role performance to the layout details, the summary is two words, with heart.
Judging from the return map flowing out of the network, the newly added "Glory of the King" float is indeed very gorgeous, and its main Chinese style elements are more orthodox and pure than Hollywood IP.
Some of the players and tourists who came to visit generally gave a positive evaluation of the theme of this cooperation. Among ordinary tourists, there is no shortage of positive voices.
In contrast, the negative discussion that has existed since the first official announcement continues to this day.
Overall, the spit on the Internet can basically be divided into three factions: respectively, "do not play the king's face is ignorant" passers-by can not understand the faction, "I really did not see where this is like the "Glory of the King" theme of the player is not satisfied, the rest of the "too local, put in this garden a little drama ah" IP water and soil disobedience faction.
And these negative reviews, in the final analysis, all fall in one place, that is, they think that Tencent's game IP and Universal Studios are not enough to match.
Local IP "water and soil"?
If Universal Studios embraces local IP, Universal Studios Osaka, a two-dimensional power in Japan, is the originator.
In recent years, the park has linked five popular anime and game IPs such as "Monster Hunter World: Ice Field", "Detective Conan", "Hunter", "Attack on Titan", "Sailor Moon" in the COOL JAPAN area, and also cooperated with the well-known games "Final Fantasy" and "Resident Evil 2: Remake" to create limited amusement facilities. These projects, without exception, have been widely praised by tourists, and due to the high demand, the COOL JAPAN theme linkage was also announced this year.
In addition, mario limited to the permanent local IP new area "Nintendo World", which opened in March 2021, has fascinated Nintendo players around the world.
Although it officially ushered in the opening of the park last year, Universal Studios Beijing actually has the layout awareness of local IP and opened the world's only "Kung Fu Panda" park. And after seeing the successful precedent of Japan's linkage of local IP, it also officially announced the cooperation with Tencent Interactive Entertainment before opening last year.
However, it is also the collision of Hollywood big IP and local IP, but Universal Studios Osaka can eat all tourists from all over the world, Universal Studios Beijing, even when fighting at home will be questioned. Tourists have a very different attitude towards Universal Studios at home and abroad, and the essence is still insufficient acceptance of local IP. In our view, this view of netizens is not entirely unreasonable.
The first is that the game has a wide audience but the number of IP-derived audiences is questionable.
"Has Glory of Kings popularized to this extent?" A netizen's question is very sharp.
As early as 2020, Glory of Kings announced that the average daily active life would reach 100 million in 2020, which is a well-deserved head product in the field of mobile games. But it should be noted that the gamers themselves are not equivalent to the depth of the game IP enthusiasts.
Moreover, Glory of Kings itself is still a young game.
Like the local IP linked by Universal Studios Osaka, without exception, they are all national-level big IP with a history of more than ten years. "Final Fantasy" and "Resident Evil", which are also game IP, are the top games that have swept the world in the last century, and their popularity is self-evident. The slightly younger Monster Hunter is also a representative RPG masterpiece in Japan, and it has been 18 years since its birth.
Now that he has reached the age of six, "Glory of the King" still has a lot of room for growth in seniority and influence. From the root cause, the national popularity of the "Glory of Kings" IP has not reached a sufficient height.
The second is the lack of matching between IP and live entertainment projects.
The fusion of Universal Studios' cinematic sense and live-action entertainment projects is naturally not difficult for the park's permanent Hollywood themes, but seasonal theme cooperation activities must take this into account.
Take the collaboration at Universal Studios Osaka, for example. In the themes of Final Fantasy and Attack on Titan, the park uses the most skilled VR roller coaster to reproduce the classic scenes in the work; the female-oriented "Sailor Moon" theme chooses to present in 4D. There are also room escape games such as "Conan" linkage, "Resident Evil" haunted house with full degree of restoration, these local IP have chosen amusement facilities that are more in line with their own content.
But the float chosen by Glory of Kings seems to be a little too "conservative". On the stage effect, it is difficult to compare with the classic repertoire of the theater in the park; on the connotation of IP, if it is not a deep player, it may be difficult for players to read the performance display content. The lack of storytelling and worldview of "Glory of Kings" as a MOBA game itself makes the layout of real-life entertainment even more difficult.
Finally, the IP development chain at the root is a relatively single problem.
Glory of Kings isn't ready, at least for now.
Compared with RPG games, MOBA games themselves are more competitive, on the one hand, they have a larger space for adaptation and creation, but on the other hand, they are also inherently deficient in the development of derivative works.
Therefore, it can be seen that the vast majority of cooperation in "Glory of kings" is stuck in a relatively shallow IP linkage. It's a safe and intuitive means, like those floats at Universal Studios.
"League of Legends", which is older and more influential in the same game category, has also spent a lot of time to create a game worldview and the laying out of hero stories, so that last year's "Battle of Two Cities" can get such excellent word-of-mouth feedback. And "Glory of the King", which only announced last year that it will launch a series of animated movies and release an animated drama trailer, still needs more time to precipitate content.
A little more time
What "Glory of kings" has encountered so far is indeed a common problem in China's local IP development and even the layout of live entertainment.
The film industry, which is more focused on content production than games, has fallen too far in the IP development and live-action entertainment industries. Including "The Gathering Number", "Di Renjie Tongtian Empire" and other head domestic film IP, the huayi brothers movie town that was once very popular has now disappeared. In this field, only Huaqiang Fantawild, which is deeply rooted in the "Bear Haunting" series, truly makes IP and live entertainment "bigger and stronger".
Most of the more domestic games are still actively exploring and testing the waters in the development of IP derivatives. In the field of mobile games, perhaps the most impressive thing for the fan group is the "Yin and Yang Division" big movie "Samurai Order" in the Spring Festival file last year.
Of course, this does not mean that the domestic game IP score is completely absent. For example, "Glory of the King" and "Peace Elite", the two ace IPs under Tencent, although they have not yet entered the big screen, are also intensively carrying out cultural output actions. Such as creating various theme game skins, cooperating with cross-border brands, linking up with parks to launch offline theme real-life experiences, and so on.
For example, "Peace Elite" launched a set of "Wind Flower Snow Moon" series of skins that integrate different traditional Chinese elements during this year's Spring Festival. "Glory of the King" also recently cooperated with the Wuhan Garden Expo Scenic Area to create Cai Wenji's real-life theme garden, in addition, the adapted and licensed film and television drama works developed around "Glory of the King" are also gradually rolling out.
Admittedly, just looking at the round of cooperation between Universal Studios and "Glory of kings" may not be a perfect debut, and the traffic bonus for the two is difficult to match those mature international IPs. Compared with the mature IP development system of neighboring countries, domestic IP still needs to continue to work hard. But because of this, the future of "Glory of Kings" is more imaginative.
Better yet, give the local IP some more time.