Author | Akagi bottle
Edit | clearly
History is always strikingly similar, and "fried suits" have become the main sign of the current game out of the circle and popularity.
After three days of suspension, the popular game Goose Goose Duck on the Steam platform (translated as "Goose Duck Killing" by domestic players) was able to relaunch on January 12. The story stems from the influence of all parties brought by the sudden popularity of an old game, from the mediocre response to the popularity of popular hardcore end games such as "Apex" and "PUBG", becoming the party game with the highest online peak in Steam history, from the number of simultaneous online people from 1,000 to 640,000 in a short period of time, "Goose Duck Kill" took 1 month.
So far, "Goose Duck Kill iOS Mobile Game Direct Load", "Beginner Gift Pack Redemption Code", "Gift Pack Gold Coins" and other related goods have exceeded 10,000 sales on Taobao. Regardless of whether the product is true or not, players have opened up a full range of demand for "Goose Duck Kill".
Also because of its popularity, the influx of a large number of players has caused the game server to go down one after another. Since January 2023, #Goose Duck Kill Server Attack# and other related topics have frequently appeared in hot searches. The official issued an announcement statement for several days, saying that the "Goose Duck Kill" server has experienced about two months of attacks, coupled with the high number of players causing the server to be vulnerable, the game will be suspended for maintenance for 3 days.
As of January 10, Goose and Duck Kill, a werewolf killing party game, has received 26,700 reviews on Steam, of which 23,000 are positive. Video platforms such as station B, Weibo and social media are covered by relevant content. Some of the popular party games in recent years "Jelly Guys", "Mankind Failed", "Among Us", "Pummel Party" and "Duck King Battle" are coming and going, what is the popular logic of "Goose Duck Kill", which is also a party game? Where will its life cycle go?
Ninety percent of Chinese players, "rampage" goose and duck kill
In the many official announcements and data released after the explosion of "Goose and Duck Kill", Chinese players have been highlighted many times.
The main reason for several game server crashes is the large number of Chinese players joining. On January 2, #Goose Duck Kill# was on the hot search because of server failure, and the next day the server crashed again, and #Goose Duck Kill # once again appeared on the list. Herbert, a member of the game development team, also posted that the game server reached capacity, 100,000 more players than expected, and thanked Chinese players for their support in a statement. According to SteamDB, there were 560,000 online players, 90% of whom were Chinese players.
Coincidentally, this scene is familiar with the server crowding incident of "Sheep and Sheep" before. Players choose to complain on social media such as Weibo, which not only spit on the topic of the game on the hot search, but also attracts many "reserves" to join the game, which is also the logic of "Goose and Duck Kill" to some extent.
Server instability has always been a lightning point for multiplayer games, not to mention that "Goose and Duck Kill" is an "old game" that has been online for more than a year, and unlike "Sheep and Sheep" behind the A-share gigabit, "Goose and Duck Kill" is produced by American independent game studio Gaggle Studios, Inc., at first whether LE can survive the difficulties has made many players sweat.
It is understood that Among Us has spent a lot of time refurbishing the underlying code to solve the server problem. Will the "3 hours stuck outside and can't get in" situation become permanent history with the start of today's game? The answer is unknown. Referring to the "Sheep and Sheep" game server crashed three times in two days, when the server was crowded, the studio had to post "urgently recruit back-end server development, recommend/self-recommend entry reward 5,000", carrying the influx of players beyond expectations, which is not an easy task.
Turning the perspective to the game itself, the rich gameplay of the game is one of the reasons why Goose Duck Kill attracts a large number of players. As a multiplayer social game, Goose Duck Kill has a rich career setting and neutral characters that rival the ultimate "script kill" Blood Stained Bell Tower. The game is divided into goose, duck and neutral factions, supporting 4-15 players to play together. The game's opening video unveils the worldview: the duck empire collapses, and the goose and goose build an alliance to build spaceships in an attempt to discover a new world that has not been explored. The ducks sewed hoods overnight to pretend to be geese and mixed into the spaceship, and the big goose and duck brawl game opened in outer space.
A video of the beginner's guide to the game "Goose and Duck Kill" on station B received 2.21 million hits, and as the progress bar progressed, the barrage was brushed by myths such as "more difficult than math class" and "completely ununderstood". Some special characters in the game have wonderful settings, such as the pelican can swallow any player, after being killed by other players, it can "break the belly" on the spot to produce the swallowed player, the vulture needs to secretly devour the corpse of the killed player, and the pigeon needs to infect other players unconsciously. The wonderful setting and plot make the dazzling introductory instructions less obscure.
In addition, both the design elements and the main gameplay are too similar to Among Us, making the game also fall into the question of copying Among Us. A Steam connoisseur commented, "Goose Duck Kill borrows a lot of Among Us and its mod settings and blends, plus its own goose duck bird characteristic elements. ”
How long can "Goose Duck Kill" still be popular? This starts with the source of its out-of-the-loop.
Live broadcast industry "God assist", social into a game out of the circle password?
There are reports that at the end of November last year, several domestic game anchors brought fire to "Goose and Duck Kill".
Last November was a frustrating node for many domestic players, Blizzard NetEase officially announced that it parted ways, so that domestic players faced the imminent loss of classic Blizzard game national service positions such as "World of Warcraft", "Heroes of the Storm" and "Hearthstone", at that time, the issue of reemployment of Blizzard game anchors was also discussed over and over, and many game anchors said that they would change careers, and many of them randomly broadcast "Goose and Duck Kill" at the moment of decision.
It was a random start full of stories, but it had a more than expected. In December last year, in order to thank the anchor for "bringing goods", the development team Gaggle Studios issued an announcement that it would launch an exclusive skin for "Goose and Duck Kill" for Xiaotuantuan, Dasima and PDD, and the skin has been directly distributed to the anchor's account, but it has not yet been put on sale.
It is worth mentioning that the videos and topics of casual games such as "Space Werewolf Killing" ("Among Us"), "Jelly Guys: The Ultimate Elimination" and "Animal Party" are inseparable from the help of the anchor circle. The common features of this type of party game are rich game operation attributes, strong social attributes, and unexpected plots occur in each game, which is very comedic, so it is easier to spread through live broadcasts/game videos.
"Goose Duck Kill" is also very popular in South Korea, where the game industry is mature, and has always been ranked within the top 15 of the Korean strategy game iOS list. Sensor Tower data shows that "Goose Goose Duck" will grow by more than 1 million in the H1 Korean mobile game market in 2022, ranking in the TOP2 list.
Game agency is also a concern for some players, behind the huge traffic fermentation, how does developer Gaggle Studios occupy the initiative in China with a large audience? At the moment when the industry is discussing the list of agents, there are already companies that have taken the lead and seized the commercial territory of "Goose and Duck Kill", resulting in the developer's "trademark loss".
According to reports, a technology network company called Wuhan Mingyou, which is a subsidiary of the operator of "Snake Wars", has taken the lead in preemptively registering the trademark "Goose Duck Kill". In response, Goose and Duck Kill issued an official statement saying that it "is actively looking for cooperative companies and distributors in China, has not signed any agreement, and has no right to register trademarks or companies in China, and any third-party companies claim that the so-called 'official' is false." Previously, the developer also denied rumors that Tencent would own the exclusive rights to Goose Duck Kill and operate the game, saying that Goose Duck Kill has no plans to launch on the WeGame platform and will not leave the Steam platform.
How long will "Goose Duck Kill" be popular? Click on the B-station game area with unique community attributes, and the top three video content "Genshin" and "Naruto" are both mobile games. Many players who were invited by friends even registered for the first time and needed to open the accelerator to download the game on steam.
Leaving aside the unequal proportion of the mobile game audience and the mobile game audience, compared with the former, the latter has more free and rich application scenarios, and the mobile game transplantation of head and end game IP has long been the general trend. In the end-game product, the head product is still a heavy game such as "League of Legends" and "World of Warcraft", and the ceiling of party games such as "Goose and Duck Kill" is visible.
The scale of mobile market users has shown a trend of decreasing. In the first half of 2022, the actual sales revenue of the mainland mobile game market was 110.475 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.74% compared with the same period last year. The number of mobile game users was approximately 655 million, a year-over-year decrease of 0.22%. You know, mobile games have always accounted for more than seventy percent of the mainland game market, and the exact figure in the first half of 2022 is 74.75%.
After the brief freshness has passed, the continuous emergence of lightweight, more scene-based mobile casual games will capture the preferences of a group of domestic players, and players will also follow the next goal.