Image source @ Visual China
Wen | Wen Travel, author | Zhu Yuejing
Recently, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other five departments issued a draft notice on regulating the business activities of script entertainment (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), which intends to stipulate that those engaged in script entertainment business activities should register with the market supervision department at or above the county level and obtain a business license in accordance with the law, and the business scope is registered as "script entertainment activities".
The release of this notice has once again pushed entertainment activities such as script killing to the "cusp of the storm". Under the influence of variety shows such as "Star Detective", the script successfully "went out of the circle", won the favor of a large number of "Generation Z" young consumers, and also became a new economic growth point in the city. Some tourist attractions, hotels, ancient towns and other tourism formats have introduced script killing, "cultural tourism + script killing" model is gradually forming, but from the actual market situation, script killing has not yet been fully industrialized, there is no mature market system.
In particular, in the call for comments, the control of minors is specifically proposed, which also means that the industry has begun to strictly control, and the "barbaric growth" period has ended, which seems to face more challenges for practitioners. Can the script killing that has entered the "strict management period" still be done? What's wrong with the industry? Will the development of "cultural tourism + script killing" be affected? Wen Travel chatted with the industry with these questions, hoping to provide some thoughts and suggestions for people who want to engage in or prepare to enter the script killing industry.
01 "Barbaric growth" ends, "the strictest script killing order" to supervise
On April 1, in order to regulate the script entertainment business activities such as "script killing" and "escape room", the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and other five departments drafted the "Notice on Regulating the Script Entertainment Business Activities", which intends to stipulate that the script scripts used by the script killing entertainment business units shall set up age-appropriate reminders and indicate the age-appropriate range; they shall not engage in script entertainment business activities in residential buildings, buildings below the basement floor.
Official website of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism
The Circular specifically mentions the strengthening of the protection of minors. Specific norms have been made for the age and time of minors playing script killing, which has been called "the strictest script killing order" by netizens. In fact, this is not the first time that the script killing industry has been standardized.
In November 2021, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism solicited public opinions on the "Shanghai Secret Room Script Killing Content Filing Management Regulations", and after revising the management regulations, the "Shanghai Secret Room Script Killing Content Management Interim Regulations" was officially issued in the beginning of 2022, and Shanghai also became the first city in the country to officially incorporate the secret room script killing into the management. During the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, issues such as the supervision of script killing content and the guidance of development have become topics of concern to deputies and members.
Relevant deputies and members said that as an emerging business format, while integrating into tourism and promoting industrial development, there are still many problems in its development, which need to be scientifically standardized and guided. In addition, Liaoning Province, Tianjin Municipality and Chongqing Municipality have also issued local management regulations.
Xu Dongyan, co-founder of the NINES Reasoning Museum, said in an interview with Wen Travel that they fully supported and implemented the release of the opinion draft. He further spoke of the practical protection of minors in the form of script grading. Specifically, it can be implemented from the following points:
First, according to the requirements of the "Notice", set up a reminder of the prohibition of minors in a conspicuous place in the store;
The second is to put age-appropriate reminders and anti-addiction reminders in conspicuous places such as script covers and posters according to the age-appropriate requirements of industry experts for script players;
Third, when the player pre-orders the product, the player's age is initially checked, and the age-appropriate reminder and anti-addiction reminder are re-emphasized by telephone or message;
The fourth is to check the actual age of the player who comes to the store to experience it, and refuse to allow players within the non-age-appropriate range to participate in the game experience.
Affected by the epidemic, in the early 2020, everyone worked from home, isolation, etc. stimulated the demand for online social games, and the script killing APP ushered in an explosive user growth. After the normalization of the epidemic, demand has shifted to offline, which has also promoted the expansion of offline stores. According to the relevant data of the "2021 Physical Script Killing Consumption Insight Report", in 2019, the number of script killing stores nationwide has exceeded 12,000. By April 2021, the number of script killing stores nationwide has reached 45,000.
On the one hand, the scale of the industry is constantly improving, on the other hand, the industrial chain is constantly improving: an industrial chain with script creators - script distributors - script distribution platforms - online game APP / offline stores as the main axis has basically taken shape. According to the research report, the market size of the mainland script killing industry has increased from 6.53 billion yuan in 2018 to 11.74 billion yuan in 2020, which is much higher than offline entertainment consumption forms such as KTV, offline cinemas, and escape rooms, and the market size is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan in 2022.
The scripts killed in the market are mainly divided into exclusive books, city limited books and boxed books, exclusive books are only sold in one city, city limited books are generally only sold in three copies in one city, and boxed books do not have a limit on the number of sales. "At present, part of the script in the store is purchased from the online platform, and part of it is going to the offline exhibition. Taking Beijing as an example, the price of exclusive books is mostly more than 4,000 yuan, and the most expensive scripts can even exceed 10,000 yuan; the price of the city limit book is mostly around 2,000 yuan, and some scripts are also between 500 yuan and 700 yuan; the price of boxed books is basically around 500 yuan. At present, there are fewer exclusive books in stores, after all, the price is higher. Mr. Zhao, a script killer in Beijing, said.
He also said that each store has its own set of standards when selecting books, first of all, it will look at the theme and type of the script, and then according to the characteristics of its own store and the needs of users, it will adjust the script killing, and the content will avoid vulgarity, violence and so on.
In addition, if you want to retain guests, you must have your own differentiated content, one is to have an exclusive script, which can attract guests; the other is the embodiment of the service; the third is that the script will have its own adaptation, so that users can experience better when playing, but it will not affect the overall framework.
02 What went wrong with the script of The Runaway?
According to the data, the script kill originated in the United Kingdom, the prototype is Mistery of Murder ( , which belongs to the live-action role-playing game. Usually the time is 2-5 hours, the number of players varies from 4-12 people, and the gameplay is divided into closed play and open play.
In the past two years, driven by variety shows such as "Star Detective", script killing has also changed from a popular variety show to a phenomenon-level online and offline social activity. There is a demand for business opportunities, a large number of script killing stores in the country raw flowers. According to enterprise investigation data, there are more than 10,000 board game-related enterprises nationwide, of which nearly 400 are script killing companies, and 5957 new registrations have been added in 2021 alone, the largest in the past decade, an increase of 85% year-on-year.
At present, mainland script killing stores are mainly concentrated in first-tier cities. In May 2021, Dianping had 663, 634 and 551 "script killing" stores in Beijing, Wuhan and Shanghai, respectively. According to the "2021 Entity Script Killing Consumption Insight Report" released by Meituan, Wuhan, Beijing and Zhengzhou have the fastest growth rates, with an increase of more than 50% year-on-year. Tianjin, Changsha and Shenyang are close behind, with stores growing at more than 40%.
The spurt of growth of stores, all the way to the rapid development of the industry, followed by a series of problems, Wen Travel through communication with the industry, the main findings are the following points:
First, it is currently in the cooling-off period of the industry, and the initial "barbaric growth" has passed, but there are still some merchants in the marketing or some phenomenon of rubbing the edge ball. In addition, many stores in the market have been closed, or even transferred, if the store can survive at this stage, the future can also become one of the boutiques.
The second is the "price war" between stores. For example, the single price of the script in the third- and fourth-tier cities is about 89 yuan, and the first-tier cities will be more expensive, but the industry peers may set the price at 49 yuan or even lower to attract consumers. Even peers will maliciously bad reviews and so on.
The third is the distribution of pirated content. According to the industry, if the price of the book killed by the genuine script is about 500 yuan, the pirated script may only need 100 yuan to 200 yuan, plus the content liquidity is relatively large, the content rights protection is also more difficult, and even sometimes the texture of the pirated version is better than the positive version.
Fourth, there are too few good DM, because a good DM can determine the effect of the entire script killing experience. When playing script killing, the player is only one aspect of participation, more importantly, the guidance of dm, if the DM acting ability is outstanding, it is also a plus to increase the user's sense of experience. ”
"How can a good DM be?" For us, on the one hand, it has its own characteristics in acting, and a good DM will study the characters, lines, etc. by itself, and even have some of its own adaptations to make the experience of the game better. On the other hand, it is a matter of time, because the script kills the general work to end late, so we will try to find people with plenty of time. In addition, the script killing has a social attribute, to use the current word to describe, that is, 'bringing social bullshit', the personality should be cheerful and lively, and the communication ability should be outstanding. Mr. Gao, the owner of the Yantai City Three Thousand World Script Killing Stores, said.
03 How far can "cultural tourism + script killing" go?
The emergence of script killing provides a new consumption scene for the public social, leisure, etc., and this way of being liked by young people has also attracted the attention of all parties, gradually moving from commercial streets to tourism, scenic spots, hotels, cruise ships, etc. are using script killing as IP to cut in, trying to walk out of a new road of development.
In May 2021, Hangzhou New Century Grand Hotel signed a contract with NINES Reasoning Hall to develop an immersive live-action game product of "Hotel + Script Killing", and then the hotel management brand "Baidawu" also announced the launch of the script killing brand "Sweetwater Town". Subsequently, cruise ships also became one of the players killed by the script.
In May 2021, Fliggy launched the scenic spot "Script Kill" tourism product, and the first Fliggy customized immersive tourism product was set on the Yangtze River Cruise, with the story of the Republic of China as the main line. In terms of scenic spots, the "Impression of Anren Happy Environment Today" invested by OCT Group, "Summer" and "Apricot" created by Chengdu Qingcheng Mountain One Point Detective Case, etc., have greatly improved the quality of tourists' script killing experience by combining local scenery and humanities with script killing content.
The tourism industry chain is constantly trying to combine with script killing, and gradually forming an integrated development model of "cultural tourism + script killing".
For the development model of "cultural tourism + script killing", Xia Qun, a senior industry insider, analyzed that the traditional tourism model is relatively monotonous, and the real-life experience or immersive performance enriches the tourists' sense of experience of tourism, which will be more attractive to young people, and will also attract the attention of the elderly, because tourists enter the experiential performing arts, and can feel the traditional Chinese culture immersively.
He also further analyzed that each scenic spot should be adapted to local conditions, mutually beneficial materials, and should not be imitated. Considering things can be considered from the 4 dimensions of the Dao spell device, for each scenic spot, each cultural IP, we must find a suitable development path for it. If the scenic spot wants to do it, it must first find its own culture, according to the local characteristics and then build it.
In addition, whether the culture is suitable or not, but also through the early academic discussion and academic reshaping, sometimes can not be planned instead of planning, there are many scenic spots have similar problems, after all, a model to hit the world is impossible.
Speaking of the view of the integration of cultural tourism, Xu Dongyan told Wen Travel that script reasoning is a content industry, and what various cultural tourism projects need is also content as the core attraction to empower the scene, especially the Z generation of people have different needs for scenic hotels, etc., to meet the growing cultural needs of the people, is the reason for the emergence of cultural tourism + script reasoning.
Excellent traditional cultural content needs to be displayed and passed on, and script reasoning is the most novel and beloved form of this culture at present, and this combination is also the most anticipated combination.
At the same time as the market is developing rapidly, capital and enterprises are also paying attention to this track. According to Qixinbao data, in 2020 and 2021, the number of investments increased to 164 and 178 respectively, and the total investment amount was 3.359 billion yuan and 2.254 billion yuan, respectively. In the first three months of this year, the number of investments was 33, and the total investment was 574 million yuan.
In addition, the script killing platform is also constantly obtaining financing from enterprises. According to reports, on April 20, the pan-script killing head brand "Amazing Academy" obtained a new round of financing; on April 11, Beijing Xiwen Technology Co., Ltd., which is associated with the script killing platform "Reasoning Master", underwent industrial and commercial changes, adding two New NetEase Group companies as shareholders, and last year NetEase also invested in nines Reasoning Hall.
The industry is constantly developing rapidly, but from the perspective of investment changes, although the overall growth trend is still showing a growth trend, since 2021, the growth rate has slowed down significantly. Especially in the current script killing industry gradually entering the regulatory era, this situation may continue.
For the future development of the industry, Xu Dongyan said that the industry has a standard, the epidemic began to shuffle, the situation of barbaric growth will be contained, as a content industry, all walks of life will also carry out cross-border empowerment, all kinds of excellent IP will be presented in the script reasoning, will see a variety of excellent cultural tourism + script project landing, the script reasoning industry will eventually be integrated into the immersive game, the narrative depth, the depth of the package and the depth of interaction will be comprehensively improved.
At the same time, the two industry players also expressed their full expectations for the script killing industry, and if they want to go further in the future, they also put forward their own suggestions:
First, the standardized operation of the industry, such as in policy supervision, but it also needs to be moderately managed, and it cannot be killed with a partial generalization and a stick;
The second is the problem of script copyright, to prevent piracy, which mainly depends on the efforts of stores and other aspects, and there must be self-restraint;
Third, content review, we must grasp the scope of the "degree", and we must not overcorrect;
The fourth is not to demonize excessively, cultivate the public's recognition and awareness of script killing, and develop user habits.
From the perspective of the platform side, Xu Dongyan believes that script killing is a content industry, and if you want to achieve long-term development, you can start from the following aspects:
First, the content orientation of the industry should be positive and in line with socialist values;
Second, the script should not be limited to killing, but the script reasoning and other forms, covering more possibilities;
Third, the development of content needs to attract more cross-border content creators and improve the dimension and depth of content creation;
Fourth, more cooperation between IP such as film and television and games will enhance the influence of the industry and the attractiveness of content;
Fifth, content empowers scenes, and more cultural tourism + scripts empower cooperation.
In general, if you want to go long, relying on external help is not a long-term solution, and you can only be vigorous if you master the "hematopoietic" function.