"The game prefers the style of painting, the production is beautiful, the gameplay is novel and interesting; the anime will follow the novels that have been seen or liked before, such as Douluo Continent." Post-95 anime game lovers told Haiyan to the first financial reporter that she was willing to pay for her favorite games, such as Nintendo's games, and she could play 2-3 hours a day in her spare time, which had cost thousands of yuan.
There are many anime game lovers like Haiyan in China.
According to the "2020 China Game Industry Report" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Music and Digital Association (GPC) and the China Game Industry Research Institute, in 2020, the scale of China's game users exceeded 660 million, and the actual sales revenue of China's game market was 278.687 billion yuan, an increase of 20.71% year-on-year, and the growth rate increased by 13.05 percentage points year-on-year. The scale of "game going to sea" was further expanded, and the actual sales revenue of independently developed games in overseas markets was 15.450 billion US dollars, an increase of 33.25% year-on-year, the growth rate was 12.3 percentage points higher than that of the same period last year, and the level of internationalization was further improved.
"I think the development of domestic animation and games in recent years has been very large, and many excellent works have a unique national charm, which is obviously different from the works of other countries, and has its own fun and attraction." Haiyan said that domestic companies need to further precipitate, carefully produce fine products, and show China's strong artistic heritage through works.
The threshold for creation is constantly increasing
"A good game is not only a good means of entertainment, it is high-quality online content, excellent literary works, and a good cultural carrier." In our opinion, many users are not just for entertainment when playing games, in fact, the essence of watching novels and watching videos is the same, they are all here to understand the entrance of this content, but there are many ways to enter this entrance. Yu Yang, deputy general manager of Bilibili's game division, told first financial reporters that a game with content positioning needs to pay attention to three indicators: content quality, the hot time of the game, and the audience size of the game.
However, creating a content-based game is not as easy as it gets. From the dimension of the product, it is necessary to emphasize content innovation, require stylization, very high recognition, and gameplay to keep up with the times. Yu Yang said: "From 2016 to 2018, the two-dimensional game mainly emphasizes content expression, including characters and world views, as long as these are in place, even if the gameplay is slightly weaker, in fact, it can still get good results." However, after 2019, with the awakening of user aesthetics, the demand for the entire gameplay or the user's judgment of the comprehensive level of the entire game has become higher, and in the current content-based games, the gameplay must at least keep up with the times and cannot be eliminated by the times. ”
In this regard, Poker City Brand Director XiaoGan Suli agreed.
"Constantly meeting the discerning needs of young users is the biggest challenge for the operation of "Stir-fry jianghu". As a leisure game with a core user group for college students, this makes "Bursting The Stir", which has been operating for four years, constantly innovate in terms of gameplay and operation methods. XiaoGan Suli told the first financial reporter that in terms of content, the company has cooperated with the Dunhuang Research Institute and the world in the palace to launch dunhuang theme and forbidden city theme versions, deeply integrating excellent traditional culture with the game, continuously improving the experience of the game itself, and also through the brand cross-border cooperation with the first national comic IP Luo Xiaohei, the internet red catering brand first started half-step upside down tavern linkage to launch offline theme restaurants, restore the game scene, so that players can also find a sense of belonging in real life.
Pock City currently employs more than 800 people, mainly composed of game development, art, publishing, operations and other positions. "Stir-fry jianghu" is a casual mobile game with Chinese food theme launched by Poker City in 2017, with "inn" as the background. Players need to accept a variety of interesting jianghu entrusted tasks in their own exclusive jianghu inn, and they can also recruit various jianghu people for their own use. The game is easy and time-consuming, from collecting vegetables on the farm and training chefs, to developing recipes and running restaurants, the game fun simulates the operation process of the inn.
In addition, with the awakening of user aesthetics, the more requirements for game companies, the higher the competition for high-end talents.
"Enterprises in the process of competing for high-end talents, will be the threshold of talent, cost, etc. very high, now the cost of making a successful game is getting higher and higher, a few years ago, a start-up team financing 3 million ~ 5 million yuan may make a successful game, but now the accuracy of the game, the fun of the game, the aesthetics of the player and other aspects have been greatly improved, and then with 3 million to 5 million yuan it is difficult to make a successful game." Hu Rui, vice president of Lilith, told the first financial reporter that if you find a particularly exquisite innovation point, such as a particularly exquisite design, ugly and cute, etc., even if the art action is not so perfect, it is still possible to succeed.
Post-00s users account for more than 50%
While the quality of content and the threshold for entry are constantly improving, capital is also paying more and more attention to tracks such as animation and games.
Taking Quick Look as an example, recently, some media reported that Quick Look Comics will receive 100 billion won (about 570 million yuan) invested by One Store Company funded by several major Korean consortiums such as SK Telecom, Naver, LG and so on. During the 17th China International Animation and Game Expo (CCG EXPO 2021), Quick Look Comics responded to the first financial reporter: "At present, a new round of financing is indeed being carried out, and One Store is on the contact list. In addition, there are several in contact and communication with other top investment institutions at home and abroad. The exact amount and number of rounds are not yet available. ”
Founded in 2014, Kuaikan owns the Kuaikan comic app. In August 2019, Kuaikan received TENCENT's US$125 million investment, with a cumulative financing amount of nearly 2.5 billion yuan.
The number of users and commercial operations of Quick Look are the reasons why capital is quite favored.
At present, the monthly active users of quick-look comics exceed 40 million, the ratio of men and women is 4:6, and the proportion of young users is high, of which post-00 users account for more than 50%. Quickwatch has more than 5,000 authors, more than 8,000 works, and more than 200 cooperative CP (content providers).
In terms of commercialization and monetization, Kuaikan has built IP development, advertising, content payment, games, e-commerce and other businesses. In January this year, Quick Look Comics released the "Columbus" plan, announcing that it would land in Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States, and build its own channel layout for overseas distribution. It also announced that it will achieve the goal of overseas turnover of 300 million yuan and 40 million yuan per month. In this regard, Quick Look Comics said: "At present, Quick Look Comics has carried out strategic cooperation with tapas, an American comic book platform, to develop Sino-US comics and novels for the international market. At the content distribution level, Kuaikan's works have covered 11 languages and cooperated with 30 platforms. ”
In addition to reading comics and playing games, Generation Z, who have distinct personality characteristics, are interested in classical Chinese culture such as Hanfu and folding fans.
"The category of Hanfu will generally adopt the form of pre-sale, after designing the style, it will be hung to the store for sale, and after the consumer places an order, it will find a foundry for production, so that there will be no pressure on inventory." Wang Li, head of the original Hanfu of Yuanji Guofeng, told the first financial reporter that on the basis of pre-sale, the company will select some hot-selling styles to prepare some spot, and then carry out some marketing to increase sales.
The current monthly sales volume of Yuanji Guofeng is 200 to 300 pieces, and the sales volume is less than 100,000 yuan, which is still in a state of loss. The team expanded from the initial 5 people to 12 people, including operations, designers, platemakers, samplers, etc., basically after 95 and 00, all belong to Hanfu enthusiasts.
In terms of new product research and development, "the company's designers will first make a batch of design drafts according to their own aesthetics, and then look at the design style, sales volume, evaluation, etc. of Hanfu in other stores on the market, and then decide which styles to go online." The development cycle is one month, and at least 4 new products are available every month. Wang Li, a hangzhou girl born in 1994, said that there are not many Hanfu companies that apply for patents, and there are only a few forms, and each one only changes the color matching, pattern and other details on the basis of the form.
According to the "Z Generation Circle Layer Consumption Report" released by CBNdata, the post-95 vintage clothing in the National Wind Circle maintained rapid growth, and the sales of the antique clothing in 2019 increased by nearly 600% year-on-year; the consumption amount of post-95 girls and second-tier cities in the model play circle has nearly 50%.