Source of this article: Times Weekly Author: Zheng Xutong Qi Xin
Editor's Note:
After 00, May Fourth New Youth.
Born in the golden 10 years of China's rapid economic growth, this generation, from the growth environment to the psychological state, is new. They are born with a straight eye for the world; they have a stronger sense of personal and spiritual pursuit; they are willing to pay for what they love. Reject all labels, they cannot be defined, they can only be narrated.
Times Media Group launched a special topic "This session of the post-00s, can be handled", let's take a look at the May Fourth youth in the new era.
For many post-70s, post-80s and even post-90s, it may not be until they see e-sports become a competition item at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games that their impression of the game begins to change.
For a long time in the past, many people equated gaming with entertainment, or even not doing business. However, in the eyes of this generation of young people represented by the post-00s, games have long become a mature industry, which can be hobbies, entertainment, side businesses, jobs and even ideals.
According to the "2021 China Game Industry Report", in 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's game market was 296.513 billion yuan, an increase of 6.4% year-on-year, and the scale of domestic game users reached 666 million. At the upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games in September this year, e-sports will be used as an official competition for the first time, and the results will be counted into the national medal table.
"I hope that through the form of games, more people can learn and spread traditional culture." Chen Zelin, who is after 00, is still in college, but he has his own observations and ideas about games.
Among the new generation of young people, there are not a few like Chen Zelin. Recently, The Times Weekly interviewed 3 young "gamers", including Chen Zelin, who are open-minded, dare to think and dare to do, hoping to explore more attributes of games in addition to entertainment.
Use the game to make the ancient city "Meta universe"
Chen Zelin has loved art since he was a child, but when he entered the university, he failed to choose an art-related major.
A year ago, Chen Zelin, who had just studied in college, began to devote more energy to hobbies in addition to studying, and gradually walked out of a path of "restoring traditional architecture with game creation".
"I chatted with my classmates and found that many people's knowledge of my hometown teochew was limited to food, not the historical background. It was a fuse, and I began to build the ancient city of Chaozhou with the game Minecraft. Chen Zelin said. The chaozhou ancient city built in the game was made into a video and released by the account of the B station of the Guangdong Communist Youth League.
On Station B, the video reached 87,000 views, and that's just the beginning. Since then, Chen Zelin has joined a team called New Style Creation and has become the leader of the team. After making the ancient city into a series, the team received more and more cooperation orders from museums, local cultural and tourism bureaus, enterprises, etc., and many institutions hoped that the ancient buildings would be presented in the form of videos and so on.
Chen Zelin was impressed by the ancient city project cooperated with the Quanzhou Cultural and Tourism Bureau, and the finished video of the project was played 6 million times on the whole network.
"A major difficulty is that Quanzhou is located on the ancient Maritime Silk Road, and some architectural structures have been added in the later period and are inconsistent. Although the partners provided architectural information, the project was still done by 5 or 6 people for more than 1 month, and the team members went to the ancient city to investigate nearly 20 times, and sometimes they could only complete the construction of 1 part in one trip. Chen Zelin said that it is very difficult to take on a project of such a scale, and he and his team members contacted many research institutions, visited experts in architecture, literature and history, and garden, and strived to present the daily functions and cultural connotations of the building, and express the spirit in the picture.
Seemingly simple game creation, but in practice, it takes a lot of energy. In the project of his hometown Chaozhou Ancient City, Chen Zelin used his spare time to learn traditional architectural knowledge and create, often staying up until two or three o'clock in the morning, only the Daxiong Treasure Hall of Kaiyuan Temple, he made a total of 7 versions before and after.
Now, the project has also received commercial cooperation, Chen Zelin plans to present the whole picture of the ancient Chaozhou City in addition to the restored buildings such as Zhenhai Tower and Chaozhou Fuya, or will be reflected in VR this summer.
In the process of entrepreneurship, Chen Zelin also developed a deeper connection with his hometown. "When he visited a librarian in Chaozhou, the curator was very excited and looked forward to the young people passing on the traditional culture." Chen Zelin recalled. Affirmations from experts, audiences, etc., made him more certain of the value of what he did. Since then, he and his team have further expanded the charm of Foshan, the former site of the Xi'an office of the Eighth Route Army, jieyang ancient city and other projects, including panoramic experience videos.
At present, the cooperation income from all parties has been able to pay the salaries of several fixed members of the team, and Chen Zelin can also bear his own living expenses and tuition fees. But Chen Zelin, who is still in school, admits that he is not in a hurry to set up a company. "Our original intention is to lead more people to learn and spread traditional culture, and play a guiding role."
Chen Zelin said that in addition to several fixed members of the team, more external members participate in the restoration of 3D ancient buildings through online collaboration, and the external members include mechanical engineering, broadcasting and other college students in different majors, and there are dozens of them, most of whom are post-00s. The youngest creator is a native of Fuzhou, still in the first grade of junior high school, and has already made many local ancient buildings in Fuzhou with "Minecraft".
Play is both a hobby and a job
Some people achieve their ideals through games, and others play games into work.
Li Hua, who has loved games since he was a child, is a post-00s, and after graduating from college this year, he entered a game manufacturer to develop games.
"Games are mature commodities, and the big players in the industry have strong cash flow. Being able to make money means that career prospects are better. Li Hua said that this is the main reason why he chose to enter the industry, so he refused a professional and well-paid offer.
What Li Hua did not expect was that then Internet companies generally began to adjust their business, news of layoffs appeared in an endless stream, and the game industry also experienced changes such as tightening the protection of minors and accelerating the trend of high-quality products.
"Fresh graduates are relatively weak in ability, and I don't dare to lie flat at all, for fear of low performance and being included in the layoff list." Li Hua understands that whether it is games or other Internet products, the survival of the fittest is accelerating. To catch up with the trend of high-quality games, fresh graduates need to run faster.
In recent weeks, Li Hua has worked frequent overtime and studied after work, constantly flipping through the company's internal learning materials. "Coding" beats faster and knows more about game engines, but that's not enough. In the past 1 year, the actual work has subverted Li Hua's cognition, and between the ideal and the reality, he is still cultivating.
As a veteran player who has played games for nearly 20 years, Li Hua imagines that the game development is that the team is moving towards the same goal and making an interesting work. "For example, there is a sense of immersion, a sense of heaviness or a wonderful story, in short, it can be called a cultural work."
But in fact, the division of labor in large factories is quite refined, the entire production chain is composed of functions such as planning, procedures, testing, art, products, etc., employees are extremely functional, the team can control the direction of the game, there are very few people, and the direction is often modified.
"Sometimes I feel like the direction is good and the work is very enthusiastic. After a while, I found that the direction changed, and the work was boring. Li Hua said. Games are commodities, not works of art" "Eating (making money) is eating (making money), playing games is playing games" is Li Hua's deepest insight in the past year.
Despite this, Li Hua still does not want to be just a screw with no idea, nor does she want to do a "skin changing game" in order to make money. The only way to find a balance between ideals and reality is to "roll" to win others and become a strong person in the industry who can pick projects.
"More and more job fairs are about the game, recruiting people who are both enthusiastic and capable. I first honed in the big factory, and later I also want to go to such a project team. Li Hua said that now, he is consciously contacting the excellent games in the industry, analyzing the story trend and technical realization from the perspective of insiders, and silently cultivating.
Make games a side hustle
Like Li Hua, Wang Guisheng, who is also a post-00s, also regards games as a mature industry and makes profits from it. Since the age of 13, Wang Guisheng has played Dungeons & Dragons (hereinafter referred to as "DNF"), and now this game has become his side business.
Usually, Wang Guisheng will start this side business after finishing his full-time job every day, by participating in daily game activities and other activities to obtain game coins, and then selling them through the trading platform to make a profit.
"The number of game coins obtained every day is relatively random, depending on luck, converted down to 8 hours a day, 1 month can earn nearly 2,000 yuan (RMB)." Wang Guisheng said that although this money is not much, it can also subsidize part of his daily expenses.
According to Wang Guisheng's experience, if you want to make money by playing games, you need to have upfront investment. Taking DNF as an example, each game character has a limited opportunity to participate in the activity, and the more players have the game character, the more opportunities to participate in the activity, the more game currency can be earned. To this end, Wang Guisheng recharged 5,000 yuan in the game, deducting expenses from income, and now he has made a net profit of about 20,000 yuan.
Turning playing games into a side hustle, Wang Guisheng started from college, and he still clearly remembers that he sold game coins for the first time and earned 400 yuan, which was equivalent to his living expenses for 1 week at that time. Since then, he has been selling in-game coins from time to time. After work, Wang Guisheng needs to bear his daily expenses, so he takes the matter of playing games and selling coins more seriously.
Recently, Wang Guisheng also began to play "Fantasy Journey to the West" under the recommendation of others, and he heard that some players rely on this game to achieve a monthly income of 20,000 yuan.
Similar to Wang Guisheng, many young people regard playing games as a side hustle. His DNF trading group numbers nearly 1,500.
In Wang Guisheng's view, based on the huge number of gamers in China, the trading market for commodities such as game currency can maintain considerable activity. According to market research firm Niko Partners, the total number of gamers in China will exceed 768 million in 2022, and the total revenue generated by games will reach 42 billion US dollars.
(At the request of the interviewees, Li Hua and Wang Guisheng are pseudonyms)