Recently, "part-time game face pinching division monthly income of tens of thousands" rushed to the hot search.
The emerging profession of game face-pinching artist has entered the public eye and aroused heated discussion.
The so-called "pinch face" refers to the player setting the image characteristics of the game character by himself, and the player can "pinch" his favorite character shape like a clay man.
A distinctive face in the game becomes the identity of the player's personality, but "five minutes of the game, two hours of pinching the face", want to pinch a good and unique image, both time and thought.
In order to save time and effort, some players will pay for the pinch face data they want.
Under such market demand, the profession of "face pincher" came into being.
Merchants who sell face pinch data on e-commerce platforms are mainly divided into two categories:
One category is mainly self-made or customized by face pinchers, emphasizing the original attributes of face pinch works, and the price span is very large.
The other is the so-called "pinch face collection" sold at a low price. They collect and sort out, network crawling means to obtain a large number of face data shared by players online, and then package and sell at a low price.
Is a face pincher really a good profession?
Where are the opportunities and risks inside?
Is it a new outlet for entrepreneurship?
In this regard, Wei Zhixin, a reporter from the Southern Metropolis Daily, and Shule had an exchange, and poor Dao thought:
Pinching the face is just the traditional art of game products.
From the early games can only choose their favorite characters, to more than a decade ago online games can simply customize their own needs of the character image (similar to the original QQ show), and now this highly free 3D modeling experience.
These are not related to the metaverse, at most they are just a necessary but untechnical plug-in in the metaverse, just as the metaverse needs background music, but the background music is not a metaverse element.
But even so, there is still a view that with the development of the concept of "meta-universe", such businesses that customize avatars for players will become more and more popular in the future.
In fact, under the long-tail effect reached by e-commerce, the demand for face pinching in online games that were originally scattered everywhere and small verticals was aggregated, and there was naturally a service when there was demand, but it was ultimately a niche category.
Similar to the personalized customization of dolls, dolls, cultural shirts and other physical models on the previous e-commerce platform, there are rich scenes but the market demand and scale are small, and cannot accommodate too many merchants.
In fact, the outlet of the face pincher is not the origin game, but social, and it is also a kind of promotion "talking" of social products.
Previously, there were media reports that the social software Soul has promoted its face pinching social play in many places, claiming that many face pinchers on the platform have earned more than 10,000 yuan a month.
Soul's gameplay is also the traditional artistic ability of the Internet industry in product promotion, and the content of this "many" is questionable, and the main purpose is to create gimmicks and attract people to settle in.
In other words, the face pinch business is suitable for small and micro entrepreneurs with relevant talents and no entrepreneurial principal to use as the source of the first bucket of gold.
However, attention should also be paid to intellectual property risks in this matter.
Media surveys have found that there are general phenomena in the industry such as embezzling face data and reselling player achievements.
As a result, the results achieved by gamers and face pinchers, whether they are intellectual property rights, and how they should be maintained, have also become noticeable with the popularity of this profession.
But this wave of intellectual property concerns may have been wrong at the beginning.
Personalized face pinching made by gamers and face pinchers through the face pinch function of a specific game is essentially a game service.
Its face pinching effect also belongs to the game's virtual items, and its intellectual property rights essentially belong to the manufacturers who developed the game.
Players have permissions to create, use, and so on.
In this state, in fact, the sale of face pinching services and the use of short videos and live broadcasts to show face pinching technology to obtain benefits are essentially similar to the player's game screen being broadcast live or short video without the permission of the game manufacturer, that is, it is infringing, and the face pinching work also has similar hidden worries.
However, if it is beneficial to the promotion of the game, many game companies will not be embarrassed by this, and may even be officially authorized, so in terms of intellectual property rights, there is no need to worry too much.
And for those who want to go into the face-pinching industry, my advice is:
First of all, there must be a strong desire to create.
Secondly, it is best to have the corresponding art skills and 3D modeling capabilities.
Again, it is not a quick success, this is a long stream of fine water, and as the outlet cools down, it is necessary to continue to turn to similar areas to get more and more stable benefits.
Finally, it is impossible to open the brain hole and combine face pinching with more artistic creations to form a more valuable cross-border form.
(Zhang Shule, Columnist of People's Daily And People's Post and Telegraph, Commentator of Internet and Game Industry)