In 2014, the Black Desert end game developed by Pearl Abyss was one of the first MMO products in the game industry to enable Unreal Engine 4 production and successfully form a huge influence around the world. It can be said that in the past many years, as long as the players involved in MMO games, even if they have not played, they must have heard of the game.
Based on the siphon effect of the terminal game in the global MMO market, when the time came to 2018, the "Black Desert" mobile game adapted from the terminal game IP was launched, and it was unexpectedly popular in many overseas countries/regions, and since then it has won more than ten industry awards such as the best game of Google Play in 2018 and the best game of Google Play in 2018.
Pearl Abyss once revealed at an exchange meeting in 2020 that the "Black Desert" series of games has accumulated more than $2 billion, of which the "Black Desert" mobile game, which has been online for more than a year, has contributed about one-third of the revenue.
On April 26, the "Black Desert" mobile game national service jointly issued by Tencent and Dreamworld was officially launched, and with the blessing of the "golden signboard" of the Black Desert IP, the "Black Desert" mobile game unexpectedly landed on the top 1 of the iOS free list.
Focusing on the "Black Sand Mobile Game" itself, what are the competitivenesses that support its position as the leading category leader after spanning a four-year cycle?
Super first-class sensory quality is the core competitiveness of "Black Sand Mobile Game"
Whether it is 2014's "Black Sand End Tour" or today's "Black Desert" mobile game, what players are most talking about is always its industry-leading picture quality and extreme refreshing sense of blow.
From the beginning of entering the game, it is believed that players will be quickly caught by high-precision character modeling and extremely delicate face pinching system. Especially the face pinch, although this system has almost become the standard of MMO games, but as large as the hairstyle, face shape, body shape, small to the skin gloss, facial details, makeup shades and other details can be freely customized "Black Desert" mobile game, the extension of the freedom of pinching the face is still amazing.
In addition, with the blessing of the "BlackSpace Engine" engine of Pearl Abyss's self-developed engine, the "Black Desert" mobile game also relies on an original Western fantasy world view, vividly depicting various scenes such as the sparkling sea, the mysterious and mysterious dense forest, the loess desert and other scenes in a realistic way, and even the details such as the reflection of the water in the ground area, the texture of the branches and ore are also very well sculpted, thus constructing a very immersive, real and vast fantasy world.
What surprises GameRes the most is the delicate and realistic "sentient beings" drawn by the "Black Desert" mobile game, when you pass through a town, you can see the mother of the baby, the porter who moves forward in the negative box, and the blacksmith who sweats like rain in one picture.
Such a meticulous NPC group shaping can be said to be very juvenile in mobile games, but the "fireworks" created by such details undoubtedly increases the sense of substitution for players.
In line with the above visual tension, there is also the rather amazing combat performance of the "Black Desert" mobile game, which is not only reflected in the brilliant skill special effects of the major professions, but also in the details of the attacks such as stiffness, toughness, card meat, and vibrating screen, coupled with the smooth connection of multiple skills almost no CD, the final "fist to flesh" sense of blowing.
You should know that the author's profession is witching, which should already be regarded as the profession with the weakest sense of blow
Perhaps because of the sensual quality of the "Black Desert" mobile game, GameRes found that in the process of national service publicity, Tencent and Chuangmeng Tiandi also accurately focused on the keyword of "beauty", and from an aesthetic point of view, they have launched multiple rounds of marketing to present the outstanding sensory quality of the "Black Desert" mobile game from multiple angles as much as possible.
For example, in the publicity stage before its launch, the "Black Desert" mobile game invited the star @ Qi Wei as the "Black Sand Aesthetic Ambassador", through the shooting of beautiful pictures and live-action PVs, to emphasize the scenery and beauty of the characters under the fantasy color of the work.
At the same time, there is also the "Black Desert" mobile game in Weibo, B station and other mainstream social media, through the joint beauty, Cosplay, dance and other vertical KOLs, around the face imitation makeup, dancing and other themes laid out the "content marketing matrix", all of which emphasize the unique "beauty" of the "Black Desert" mobile game to the public circle, but also for the "Black Desert" mobile game public beta has accumulated enough sound.
Weibo topic #Shenyan Character Awards under the "Black Desert" mobile game pinch face imitation makeup challenge
The B station video created by the joint dance UP master "Big Sister Sister Mutual Touch Finger South Qipao Version"
It can be said that as a product that has been launched in 2018, even after four years of its launch, the sensory quality of the "Black Desert" mobile game is still in the super popular list in the MMO field, which is also the source of its core competitiveness. After all, for MMO games that emphasize a sense of substitution and immersion, the audiovisual atmosphere and combat experience are always the unswerving underlying core appeals of every player.
Trapped in the mainstream framework of "Korean MMO", there is not much differentiation fun for the Black Desert mobile game
Since the boom of end-game after the millennium, MMO games developed by Korean manufacturers have been widely used because of the framework of "numerical cultivation to drive players to brush brush", so "Korean MMO" has also been jokingly called "kimchi games" or "fast food games" by countless players.
Frankly speaking, the Black Desert mobile game has not completely jumped out of the shackles of this framework.
Playing from the official beginning of the game, the player's game journey is almost in the endless running map, through the mission, monster spawning, and most of the time, the player can use "automatic combat" to solve all problems, only need to timely carry out character cultivation and other operations to enhance combat effectiveness, like a "hang-up game" look.
It is undeniable that this set of templates is still favored by a group of MMO players who are eager for a fragmented experience, but if the "Black Desert" mobile game is limited to this, it obviously cannot support its popularity and achievements on a global scale.
Based on this, combined with the overseas version of the "Black Desert" mobile game, in fact, the depth of experience of the work is not limited to this, but in the mainstream "Korean MMO" framework, reasonable implantation of some operation, exploration, leisure and other dimensions of fun.
Taking combat as an example, in fact, with the deepening of the game, I believe that many players can feel that in some of the more difficult copy BOSS battles, it is entirely possible that the blind "automatic battle" will be hit by the combos that are gushing like a tide, and at this time, players need to manually find battle gaps, through "dodge pull counterattack" and other "micro-exercises" to pass, some bosses are about to release the big move, and even about 1 second of "bullet time" to give players enough reaction time.
Based on this, GameRes believes that the combat experience logic of the "Black Desert" mobile game can actually be summarized by "semi-automation" - that is, the attack is controlled by the AI, and the player manually moves and dodges, so as to enjoy the refreshing pleasure of smooth combat, and at the same time, it can also be substituted to harvest the sense of achievement of the delicate "micro-exercise" return.
The advantage of this design is that, on the one hand, the "Black Desert" mobile game avoids the fatigue brought by repeated brush brushing by weakening the player's participation time in low-difficulty battles, and instead creates a closed loop of "hanging up and collecting vegetables" to meet the fragmented demands of public mobile game players.
But on the other hand, the "Black Desert" mobile game does not completely "one size fits all" on the combat experience, making the game a complete hang-up game, but the necessity of practical operation is more placed in the difficult PVE copy and the PVP links such as arenas and guild battles in the middle and late stages, retaining the pleasure of hardcore players enjoying real-time combat.
Gorgeous duel between the masters of the overseas costume arena
Source: B Station UP Master @ Manchester Na by the Sea
As a 2018 product, although the "Black Desert" mobile game has not reached the height of "open world", it also uses a gameplay system called "knowledge" to guide players to explore the big world.
In short, in addition to the daily spawning tasks, players can freely explore in various regions, through the way of meeting different NPCs, collecting different crops, understanding the stories of different regions, etc., to gradually accumulate "new knowledge" to unlock more rewards, and in the whole process, players can not only appreciate the unique customs and customs of each region, feel the fun of free exploration, but also gradually establish a three-dimensional understanding of the game worldview.
In addition, life skills such as fishing, tree cutting, cooking, etc., "simulated management gameplay" with "territory" as the axis, and the "home door" system that encourages players to cultivate multiple characters also give the "Black Desert" mobile game a more diversified game fun, and the original intention is obviously to meet the needs of different types of players.
A "territory" gameplay that simulates the fun of management
Based on this, although the "Black Desert" mobile game still has the core of "Korean MMO", the addition and subtraction methods done in one system and gameplay make it more worth digging into the long-term compound fun than traditional MMOs, which is also the core driving force of its highlight market performance.
Can the introduction of the "Black Desert" mobile game revitalize the long-withered domestic MMO market?
In recent years, traditional social MMOs have obviously fallen into the quagmire of "green and yellow", and few high-quality new products can appear stably at the top of each list.
In the view of GameRes, the emergence of this phenomenon may be closely related to many factors such as the industry entering the stock era, manufacturers competing for more new outlets, and MMO difficulty in achieving large innovation breakthroughs, but it is undeniable that as one of the countries with a huge game user base and the largest MMO audience, the potential demand for users is still strong.
Source: Gamma Data, 2021 China Game Industry Report
In such a big environment, although the "Black Desert" mobile game has not completed a drastic innovation in gameplay, the rare Western fantasy themes in China, the first-class hardware quality polished by the realistic style, and the underlying design methodology different from the domestic MMO can undoubtedly make it form a certain degree of differentiation with the domestic self-developed MMO, thus bringing players a sense of freshness.
In addition, it is also worth mentioning that from the comparison of national uniforms and overseas services, Tencent and Dreamworld have also made a lot of efforts to "localize" the work, and in terms of actual experience, whether it is the unlocking of various functions and the advancement of the plot, they are more in line with the game thinking logic of domestic players.
After the integration and convergence of this advantage, the follow-up development and operation of the "Black Desert" mobile game in the domestic market naturally has a sufficiently broad imagination space. Of course, at present, the "Black Desert" mobile game has just been launched, and whether it is possible to continue its overseas glory in China is waiting for the market to give us the answer.