On April 20, Tencent's leisure and entertainment game "QQ Tang" officially stopped operating in Chinese mainland. This classic game, which has accompanied an entire generation, has since withdrawn from the stage of history.
Weibo, Tieba and even chat bars that have not been lively for a long time are filled with old players' nostalgia for the past on this special day. For many people, QQ Tang is not just a game, but also represents the passing youth and special emotions that can no longer be experienced.
Looking back at the long operating career of QQ Tang in the past 17 years, it has extraordinary significance for players and Tencent. As a core gameplay that can be traced back to 39 years ago, and a paper complaint was eaten shortly after it was launched, the success of QQ Tang is no accident.
What gameplay can fire for 39 years?
QQ Tang has the characteristics that most casual games must have - simple and easy to understand. Players don't need to strategy, don't need to spend time practicing, just by operating up and down left and right control direction + spacebar to cast bubbles, you can easily get happy. And this kind of gameplay actually comes from the classic game "Bomberman" on the red and white machine in 1983.
As the saying goes, "classics never go out of style", even after decades, bomberman gameplay is still highly sought after by players.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the Korean game company NEXON borrowed the core gameplay of Bomberman to make a new game called BNB, which was also the "leading boss" of the domestic game industry in 2002, took the agency rights and renamed it "Bubble Hall", which also laid the groundwork for the later story.
"QQ Hall" came later
At that time, Tencent was far from the current scale, and it was not even determined to expand its business in the game field. It wasn't until 2004 that Ma Huateng called Ren Yuxin (now Tencent's "three leaders"), who was still the manager of the development department at the time, to lead the development of the game. It was during that time that Tencent determined the development and operation strategy of board games and casual games.
At that time, the grand "Bubble Hall" had been operating for two years, and Tencent accidentally found that the audience players of this casual game were very much in line with the portrait of QQ users. Therefore, I put a lot of effort into developing the same type of game, and this new game that was launched in 2005 is "QQ Tang".
"QQ Tang" was not well received when it was first launched, in order to make the game look different. Tencent initially made many changes in map design and character movements, but the results of this did not bring praise. Fortunately, the team led by Ren Yuxin did not give up, and through continuous updating, improving functions and adding modes for half a year, the player data of QQ Tang reached the level of 100,000.
But at this time, Shanda was not happy.
"QQ Hall" vs .Bubble Hall
In 2006, under the persuasion of Shanda, the Korean game company NEXON filed a lawsuit against QQ Tang. They believe that "QQ Tang" infringes the copyright of "Bubble Hall", and the two sides are inseparable from each other.
But in this lawsuit that lasted for more than a year, "QQ Tang" finally laughed to the end. During the litigation, NEXON's allegations that "the screen content of the two games are similar" and "there is an unfair competition in the use of the word "Tang" were rejected by the court.
"QQ Tang" is a latecomer, but it has also become a more popular game because of the better player experience it provides, higher user stickiness, and the addition of a large number of new QQ users.
The success of "QQ Tang" has also allowed Tencent to really start to expand its game business. Two years later, in 2008, "QQ Flying Car", "QQ Dance", "Dungeons and Warriors", and "Crossfire" were launched one after another, gradually bringing Tencent to the top spot in the domestic game industry.
Until 2014, Tencent Games' annual revenue surpassed that of global game companies, beating Sony, Microsoft, EA, and Activision Blizzard with $7.2 billion in revenue. And every year since, this data has been growing.
Looking back at QQ Tang now, its appeal to contemporary players has been minimal, and Tencent has long focused on other games. At this time, choosing to stop operation is completely worthy of being called "the end of life" for it. ”
However, the era of Tencent games has already begun, and there are constantly new works playing the role played by "QQ Tang" in those years. Only this time they not only swept the country, but also went to the world.
One day, QQ Tang will also become a game like Bomberman, which only exists in the memory of players. But that's enough, isn't it?