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| UGC+ is a more user-friendly design expression |
Recently, there has been another exciting atmosphere for women in the gaming market.
Not only in the latest issue of the release number, "Love and Deep Space" and "Welcome to Dreamland" reviewed, but also last Friday from Zulong Entertainment research and development of the dress-up game "In the Name of Shining" (hereinafter referred to as "Flash") finally ushered in the launch, and after the launch, it strongly topped the iOS free list and rushed to the best-selling list Top16, the current TapTap, Haoyu Fastburst, App Store ratings are 8.2, 8.8, 4 respectively.
As of yesterday's 3rd list, today came to the list 2
This is actually not too surprising. "Eflash" topped the free list last year after first landing in Japan and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in China. The game is made with the UE4 engine familiar to Zulong Entertainment, and pursues the ultimate in art quality and in-game clothing and skin presentation. Before the launch last Friday, it was officially announced that it had reached 15 million player reservations. It is foreseeable that after "Eflash" gets its version number in January this year, it may only be one less than a launch.
In 2012, from the pioneering work of the "Warm Warm Series" "Warm Dressup Story" to "Miracle Warm Warm" and the 3D version of "Shining Warm Warm", not only let the market see the potential of women to dress up games, but also brought word-of-mouth income to Paperwork, allowing it to firmly hold the first place for women in mobile games, and even the open-world "Infinite Warm Warm" was first exposed last year.
Perhaps based on this, Zulong Entertainment aimed at the female market and began to produce "E-flash" in 2020, which was launched in only two years. The financial report shows that Zulong has recorded losses within the year for three consecutive years, after the launch in the mainland region, can this game break back a city for Zulong? Can it be the next "shining warmth"?
01
Dressup Game 3.0:
Fineness explosion
Before playing Eflash, I was mentally prepared to use the "hard hold" state. After all, I have said before that "I think that dressing is too simple", but after the experience, I want to take back this shallow sentence. I have to say that the first experience of "Flash" was very pleasant, and the dress-up was really good (hao) to play (kan)!
The gameplay of "Flash" is a combination of dress-up, AVG reasoning, and business simulation. Among them, the core gameplay around the dress-up is matched with a very delicate and delicate design. The first is the "face pinching system" with a high degree of freedom, the character model of "Flash" is biased towards BJD style, the game has built-in girls and adults two body types, players can fine-tune from the whole, face, body, makeup four dimensions, face features alone has 59 detail points. In a previous media interview, producer Summer revealed that "Flash" created 300,000 characters, "this precision is a breakthrough in the female industry."
Pinch face system display
Player Reviews
The gameplay mainly revolves around the plot, from the two aspects of AVG detective and dress-up. In order to echo the theme of dress-up, the plot is set up conventionally, but more fashion elements are added, such as the female protagonist of the dressing blogger, the idol girl group in response to the scene, and of course, there are four male protagonists as standard. However, the identity of the sister's private investigator adds suspense to the story.
At present, the most popular male protagonist seems to be a black-skinned policeman
Indeed, the story is full of suspense, and at the beginning of the game, the heroine Ben was invited by her sister to go to the island to start a graduation trip. But unexpectedly, the pervasive "black fan" who lurks in the shadows and wants to harm the idol girl group makes this isolated island sitting alone on the sea constitute the horror atmosphere of closed environment movies such as "Fatal ID", and the plot becomes tense and exciting.
In-game characters with Live2d effects
In order to find out the initiator behind it, on the one hand, players must explore the crime scene from a first-person subjective perspective in the main plot, collect clues to complete reasoning, and on the other hand, borrow the power of clothing matching like "warmth", and complete the change of clothes with different labels with different scenes and spiritual realm tasks.
Explore the crime scene and unzip the back of the brown bear
Dress-up interface
Speaking of which, some of the reasons for dressing up are quite logical, and some are slightly contradictory. It's understandable to go for a walk by the beach to change into a simple and cute match, and wear warm clothes when it's too cold, but before the protagonist is frozen unconscious in the freezer, he will suddenly think of changing into cold clothes, with tense background music, even the protagonist can't help but laugh at himself: "I'm the only one who can think of changing clothes at this time."
The protagonist complains about himself, which belongs to complaining on behalf of the player
But no matter what, the dress-up is still pleasant. Each special costume will have its own set of action display PVs. Quick camera switching, or flowing hair slipping off the shoulders, the dance movements of the girl group based on the mo-cap technology are displayed, and you can feel the "showmanship" of the matching team and the burning research and development costs.
Action display
Player: Is this something I can get for free?
If you look closer, the delicate and delicate material of the clothes is also pleasantly surprised. Black leather belt with multi-faceted purple diamonds with bayonet mount, black dress with high fabric density, fine cotton thread pattern on white suspender stockings... The production team once said that in order to achieve 4K-level high-definition texture and texture, a procedural texture link was added to the production, and the overall material framework was formed through small modules, and multi-layer UV was used to match the procedural texture.
Material display of clothes
Everyday clothing is more readily available. In addition to the costumes that need to be drawn, the game is equipped with elaborate mainline suits. As the level increases or the main story progresses, players can unlock and craft free sets that are carefully matched with the official craft. In addition, the clothes can be customized. Players can not only dye the private color card in multiple areas, but also unlock different dress patterns and design patterns in the brand design room. These highly free UGC content may also bring the possibility for "Eflash" to have a fission spread effect on social platforms, introducing more new players.
02
Metaverse UGC Platform:
Simulation management still needs to be perfected
Unlike the interactive gameplay of the cabin in "Shine Warm", the home gameplay of "Flash" is more inclined to simulation management. However, compared to the costume change and the main plot, the current home still needs to be polished and improved.
Everything is inseparable, and the simulation operation also combines the core dress-up elements to integrate the gameplay. In order to decorate a house or replace a large villa, players can earn income from the signed shop in the Endorsement Queen contest, and then exchange it for furniture Oguri to buy house decorations and decoration parts to personalize the home.
Endorsement Queen Contest
At the beginning of the game, the sister first showed the player the seaside villa, but let it be bought from a small house...
However, the current operation of building and furnishing houses is slightly painstaking. In order to rotate the perspective, although the game provides two operation methods, the operation is still cumbersome, and the limitation of the mobile phone screen may be the main reason. Fortunately, the "Remove Wall" and "Top View" settings partially alleviate this limitation.
Once built, players can interact with the furniture, open the refrigerator and stovetop, and make a breakfast for two. Because the girl character is petite, you can see the details of the stool automatically floating to assist. However, facing the high outdoor hanging chair, you will see the protagonist flying up and sitting in the chair.
Stool assistance
According to the function, players can also find friends to live in in addition to a single house. In "Gameplay Preview", the production team revealed that there will be a variety of gameplay such as planting, cute pets, home parties, and decoration plan sharing platforms that will be launched in the future, similar to a set of designs that simulate social gameplay.
Gameplay preview
In addition, perhaps due to the characters' facial expressions, the heroine's lack of recording, and the cold tone of the house modeling, there is less companionship and interaction between the characters and the player.
On the whole, the design of the home system fits Zulong Entertainment's goal of "Flash" as the landing point for metaverse elements. Domestic manufacturers such as NetEase and Xindong are doing UGC community games, and although the core gameplay adopted is different, they all bring a lively community atmosphere. It is foreseeable that the high degree of freedom of "Flash" in the face pinching system, clothing matching, and home system, as well as the current game popularity, can explore a new landing point for the domestic UGC game platform.
03
Can "In the Name of Shining" turn the tide for Zulong Entertainment?
The success of "E-flash" can be regarded as Zulong Entertainment's first victory in 2023.
Prior to this, according to the annual report issued last week, Zulong Entertainment's final loss in 2022 was 779 million yuan, and the adjusted net loss was 732 million yuan, an increase of more than two times. This is also the third consecutive year that Zulong has recorded a loss during the year, with losses of 759 million yuan in 2020 and 238 million yuan in 2021 respectively.
In the forecast, Zulong Entertainment attributed the reasons for the decrease in revenue to: 1. In the first half of 2022 Chinese mainland the performance of "Noah's Heart" was not as good as expected; 2. In 2022, "In the Name of Shining" could not be launched on time due to the version number; 3. The revenue of some games that have been online for a long time is reduced.
"Noah's Heart" is an MMO that Zulong Entertainment is good at, and it is a two-dimensional style mobile game developed by UE4 and equipped with a seamless large map in the game, but in the end, it failed to get praise from players due to the large difference between modeling and vertical drawing, picture quality and krypton gold, and failed to get praise as expected after moving overseas.
So, can the currently online "In the Name of Shining" make Zulong Entertainment turn the tide?
"In the Name of Shining" is Zulong Entertainment's first women-oriented mobile game, produced by its Vvanna GIRLS studio, produced with UE4 engine, with a new generation of female production and planning team as the core research and development, in addition to mobile terminals, it also plans to expand on multiple platforms such as PC. It first appeared in the 2020 semi-annual report, with "Project A" as the codename, and has been put into research and development, and has caused a lot of heat after the PV was first exposed in August 2021. And the three days of the free list may be able to make Zulong Entertainment "remodel" and start again.
The fact that Eflash was able to be produced in about two years with the UE4 engine is not unrelated to the team's accumulated technology in the field of 3D game development. As early as 1997, Zulong Studio, composed of more than ten otakus from Tsinghua University, was just established and created the first 3D real-time strategy game "Freedom and Glory" in China. In 2014, Perfect World split the R&D team, and Zulong Entertainment launched the 3D national war mobile game "Six Dragons Battle 3D" after the independent portal. According to Liu Bing, chief artist of Zulong Entertainment, at the 2021 Unreal Engine Technology Open Day, when making the 3D game "Six Dragons", founder Li Qing also proposed to use Unreal Engine for game development for the first time. Then, when developing "Dragon Fantasy", Li Qing planned to use UE4 to create a cinematic effect on the mobile game screen.
Since 2017, Zulong Entertainment has also obtained relatively stable income with a number of popular models such as "Fantasy Immortal", "Sky Era", "Royal Sword Love" and "Dragon Fantasy", and IPO in Hong Kong in 2020, and its research categories have gradually expanded from MMOs to SLG, female orientation and other genres.
However, since 2017, Zulong Entertainment's adjusted net profit has shown an overall downward trend. In 2020, adjusted net profit decreased by 38.3% year-on-year to RMB219 million due to increased R&D expenditure due to continuous development of high-quality games, and turned to -RMB240 million year-on-year in 2021.
Zulong Entertainment desperately needs a blockbuster to reverse the momentum of consecutive years of losses. Also relayed by chief artist Liu Bing, "Li Qing believes that MMO has reached the peak of the market, but Zulong Entertainment's research and development focus is still on the large category of MMO mobile games, and only by insisting on promoting products and achieving the ultimate in this category can we make breakthroughs." From the annual report, it can be found that Zulong Entertainment still has 4 MMO games in the process of being established.
However, in addition, the march into new categories of games may also be an opportunity for Zulong Entertainment to gain profit growth, especially for women who have not yet fully tapped and have strong payment intentions to the game market. According to data, in 2020, the two women-oriented games "Shine Warm" and "Love and Producer" may bring more than 80% of the revenue to Paperpaper. Recently, Mihayou's "Undetermined Event Book" launched peripherals, which were originally scheduled to sell for a month, can be sold in one day. What is the paying power of female gamers? (Tactical Back)
04
There is still a dynamic female gaming market
The female-oriented game market, which is dominated by women, is still a treasure land that has not yet been fully cultivated.
According to the "2020 Game R&D Strength Survey (Mobile Games)", from 2018 to 2023, the average annual compound growth rate of the female game market is 18.4%, and the market size is expected to reach 95.8 billion yuan in 2023.
Whether the estimates from two years ago are fidelity is not entirely certain. However, the high attention and dissemination of many new products such as "There is a Family in the Depths of Taoyuan" and "Cat Apartment 2" after their launch shows that the female game market is still in a state of "more monks and less meat".
The domestic women's game market is centered on the four major countries and B, but in fact, the gameplay has not only been limited to love cultivation, but also expanded to puzzles, cards and other fields. Before the end of August 2022, nearly 20 women's games will be tested or officially launched. Since the release of the version last year, there have also been a number of women's development games reviewed. It heralded the collapse of the previous rumors that "Otome Games" was not good to review, and boosted women's confidence in game developers, "which makes people feel grounded."
However, compared with the market and player needs that are still waiting to be fed, R&D and operation are difficult for the team. Perhaps because of the serious homogenization of women to the game, it failed to let players exceed expectations, and soon suffered a decline in word of mouth after launch, and the flow of the month was miserable. Of course, there may also be reasons such as "cost reduction and efficiency increase" in the general environment, version number, epidemic and other reasons, such as the operation of "The Legend of the Spirit Cat" under Chaoyi Light Year just after half a year, and it was announced that the game would be suspended due to operating losses and personnel leaving. Fortunately, many games were lucky enough to press the pause button during the shutdown process and became autonomous.
This also means that in the case of more monks and less meat, women's games need to innovate and break through in order to avoid a cold start when they go online.
Speaking of women's dress-up themes, "Infinite Warmth" (open world theme) and "In the Name of Shining" have further upgraded their picture quality and technology, but this may increase development costs. After all, the innovation of gameplay is limited, and meeting the needs of players' art quality has become the ticket for manufacturers to enter the game. Previously, the production cost of "Box Court Dolls" was high, and for various reasons, it was converted to independent operation, and the game monetization was changed to IAA mode.
In addition, in addition to dress-up and love gameplay, there are also a variety of games with diverse gameplay. "Love and Deep Space" and "Welcome to Dreamland" are the games I am looking forward to at the moment. The former is developed by the original team of Love and Producer, focusing on next-generation 3D action; After testing the experience last year, I felt that the game is more solid in terms of plot, theme, standing drawing and gameplay, and has a good integration.
In 2020, IGG combined interactive storytelling with dress-up gameplay and launched "Time Princess", achieving revenue of more than HK $300 million in 2021 and HK $130 million in the first half of 2022. Chinese Online's "Chapter" has been at the top of the best-selling list in the United States for many years.
So can "Flash" shake the supremacy of the "warm series"? At present, from the perspective of game positioning, style, and detective themes, its goal of focusing on pan-users may enable dress-up games to break the circle of players, achieve a higher penetration rate in the field of mobile games, and become a strong competitor in the "warm series".