In the past two days, there is a WeChat mini-game called "Sheep a Sheep" that suddenly exploded, and yesterday it was hung on the hot search for most of the day.
So far 2.48 billion reads!
If you haven't heard of it yet, haven't tried it out yet, then congratulations, you're not angry yet.
It's a very simple, logically classic match-3 game: you can get together three cards with the same icon to eliminate them, and as long as you eliminate all the cards in the grass, you win.
The rules of the game are very simple, the first level is "just have a hand", you can pass the level with your eyes closed and blind.
But by the second level... It's a completely different story, and the types of cards that need to be eliminated have exploded. What's even more tingling is that stacks of cards are stacked on top of each other, leaving no idea what deck will appear next.
Stacks of cards that look as thin as pieces of paper look like this in the eyes of netizens:
Due to the 7 slot limits below, this second level is simply an insurmountable peak.
Looking at the following data, at the time of more than 30 million players, only 24,000 people have passed.
With more than 40 million players, only 42,000 have passed.
At the time of more than 60 million players, only more than 200,000 people have completed the level. Why is there a surge in customs clearances? That's because by this time there are already angry players who have started to use plug-ins...
As the number of players continues to surge, the clearance rate does not rise but falls, and the media reports: the current clearance rate is less than 0.1%.
What is the concept of a clearance rate of less than 0.1%? Use this year's college entrance examination data as a comparison:
According to statistics, in 2022, the 39 985 engineering universities in the country enrolled a total of 60,960 undergraduate students, accounting for about 0.726% of the total number of fresh high school graduates in 2022 8394949.
In other words, it is much easier to pass a 985 school than to pass a sheep...
If this game is just difficult, it will not cause such a big uproar on the Internet.
The problem is that in the case of difficulty, he will try everything to seduce you to continue playing.
For example, engaging in regional competitions, crazy arch fire, all the time reminding you to win glory for your hometown.
Once you're hooked, you've already hit the sheep in a sheep routine.
The routine revolves around the props in the game. There are only two ways to get items.
One is to share the game with your friends, and the sharing interface looks like this:
Not only mocking you, but also arousing the competitive spirit of your friends, through this provocative sharing of words, to achieve a viral effect.
But the number of players alone is not enough, even if there are hundreds of millions of players, it is useless not to make money.
This brings us to the second way to get props in this game: watch ads.
The number of times you can get items by sharing them with your friends is limited. When the number of shares is exhausted, the game instantly shows its fangs: if you don't watch the ads, you have to start all over again.
Use props up to 3 times in a game, convert down, play 10 games, you have to watch 15 minutes of advertising; 50 disks to watch 75 minutes of advertising; If you play 1000 games, you have to watch the 25-hour advertisement...
As long as you look at the ads, the company behind the game can get a lot of money.
In the afternoon, there were two screenshots circulating on the Internet, one showing: the income of a sheep on September 14 was as high as 4.68 million yuan, and the income of this month was as high as more than 25.65 million yuan!
Soon Ma Hua came forward to refute the rumors: this data was forged.
But Little Ma Ge did not say whether this outrageous income was high or low.
Soon, another "sheep is a sheep" advertising revenue data spread on the Internet: on September 14, the income was as high as 5.75 million yuan, and the monthly income was more than 75 million!
At present, no one has seen anyone debunk this data.
The data reported in the media is even more exaggerated. According to the "City Express" report: the sheep earns up to 6 million yuan a day! More than 20 million daily active users!
Soon, more and more netizens saw through the "sheep is a sheep" routine and angrily scolded the developers behind it.
More game practitioners believe that the sheep has copied the classic game 3TILES.
On the left is a sheep, and on the right is 3TILES
The "sheep plagiarism" incident also attracted 310 million people to watch.
In the face of such accusations, the development team of sheep and sheep of course did not recognize it, saying that it was "similar in gameplay, but not plagiarism"
Some netizens strongly oppose...
But at this time, netizens didn't care whether he was plagiarized or not, and seeing through this game did not expect people to play at all, just to let you watch the advertisement to make money...
You thought you were playing a difficult game, but you didn't realize that you were just a ruthless advertising machine... There are also game practitioners who have verified this from the code level: the board elements are randomly generated, and people don't want you to pass the level.
Practitioners are very disdainful of this company:
From the explosion to the wild spray, the sheep is destined to be forgotten by netizens at the fastest speed.
But have netizens gained happiness from the game? No, everyone gains only unhappy, tortured, wasted time, repeatedly watching advertisements by routines, and finally being arched: the region you are in, is a dozen Oh!
The real winner is the only company behind the sheep. Even if their advertising revenue these days is not as outrageous as the internet rumors, it is definitely a lot of money.
It is not terrible for game companies to make money, what is really terrible is that their works deviate from the original intention of the game, not only can not provide fun for players, but even hype the game that should be pleasing to the player into a sharp weapon for harvesting leeks...
When you're playing with a sheep, are you playing the game, or is the game playing you?