Text | DataEye, by Leo Liu Zun
Mihayou's new work "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" was launched yesterday.
Unexpectedly, because of the advance of the service opening time, "the life of being backstabbed by Mihayou" appeared on Weibo hot search.
In addition to inexplicably winning hot searches, on the day that "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" was launched on the 26th, it ranked first on the iOS best-selling list and first on the free list.
Before its launch, "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" had 20 million reservations on all platforms in China and more than 30 million worldwide. It has exceeded the original "Genshin" by about 20 million. On April 23, the day the pre-download was opened, it topped the free app store list in more than 113 countries and regions.
What about the specific data of "Honkai: Star Dome Railroad"? How to do marketing, content? What are the advantages and disadvantages? How to learn from it?
Why is it said that Mihayou and Lilith's new works have been launched one after another, and the Shanghai game circle has officially ushered in a new trend? How to interpret it?
Today, DataEye Research talks in detail about Honkai: Star Dome Railroad.
Situation: Advantages and disadvantages are obvious
【DataEye Research Institute Viewpoint】
Let's start with a simple SWOT analysis of Honkai: Star Dome Railway as a background factor:
(i) Environment - opportunities:
1. Less competition: there are no two-dimensional games online before and after May Day, two-dimensional RPG turn-based, and there are no games of the same magnitude on the mobile game side.
2. Self-contained traffic: "Mihayou's new work" comes with its own voice volume, which can easily obtain various exposure resources (such as: home page recommendations and media reports of the application store).
3. Time window: The 5-day holiday on May Day will bring players the opportunity to fully experience,
(ii) Environment - challenges
1. High expectations: Nowadays, the aesthetic and quality requirements of two-dimensional players have been greatly improved, and players have high freedom of combat and operation, and high requirements are high. These are the shortcomings of turn-based RPGs.
2. Scarcity of attention: The two-dimensional track is very volatile and solidified, and this year's May Day travel tide is obvious, and there are a large number of new tours of large manufacturers before and after. Travel, new tours, and old games are all vying for player attention.
(3) Products - advantages
1. Industrialization: The development team of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" may exceed 400 people? (doubtful, ?report), basically the same development scale as "Genshin", Mihayu's industrialization ability may be concentrated on "Honkai: Star Dome Railway".
2, the world view upgrade: "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" inherits the Honkai IP world view, as well as some characters, extending the vision to the universe and planets, more grand, epic, and full of unknown and possibilities - the next planet, maybe the world of "Genshin", or the real world Mihayu Company front desk, or to which world of animated comics? The pattern opens.
3. Substitution: The character personality and remarks of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" highly overlap with reality, which can allow players to bring in and resonate, such as the saying "best worker" and the line "stealing idle when working, is to strive for value". Most other game worldviews are far from reality.
(4) Product - disadvantages
Low turn-based ceiling: "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" as a turn-based RPG, "row station, slash" turn-based, not free, no operation, which is very different from most games in Mihayou, the gameplay ceiling is low, the depth of strategy is difficult to do and the threshold needs to be considered, which may not be suitable for the public. More importantly, "platoon stations, pair chopping" is not conducive to using content to make, after all, it will appear unfree and rigid.
With these basic background understandings, let's look specifically at the data of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway".
Purchase volume delivery: take the product with effect, and take the role as the core
Since Mihayou does not follow the principles of eye-catching, conversion and other principles, but is content-oriented, the following statistics are slightly different from before.
【Facts & Figures】
(1) Delivery
DataEye-ADX data shows that in the past seven days as of April 26, the amount of material content released by "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" ranked fourth in the two-dimensional mobile game material list. On the day of the open beta on April 26, the game released more than 2,000 sets of material content, compared with 1,740 sets the day before.
(2) Creative content
DataEye-ADX data shows that in the past 30 days as of April 26, among the top 40 video materials that "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" plans to use, mainly character orientation (27 videos), background/environment + music (8 videos), and plot direction (8 video content).
【DataEye Research Institute Viewpoint】
Four types of materials, highlighting the quality and highlighting the hi points. The current material content of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" mainly revolves around characters, background world view, plot, music, and it is expected that there will be gameplay, battles, etc. later. Among them, the character orientation has the most material content, and the music, standing painting, and details are the top in the industry.
From the perspective of editing techniques and packaging methods: "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" mainly uses a combination of actual recording / plot + picture standing painting to show characters, and there are also live-action plots, photo frames, but not much.
From the user feeling, coolness, and hi point of view created by the material: cute milk cuteness, relaxed and fun, sense of substitution/resonance with reality, and cool sense are all highlighted by Mihayou, especially the first three, which are different from the grand, cool, and mysterious tonality of most two-dimensional games.
With roles at the core, there are pros and cons. The idea of Mihayou's content has always been around the character (not the worldview, weapons, gameplay, etc.), and everything revolves around shaping the character. There are pros and cons to this.
Pros: One of them is because of this type of game mode, the core is to pay for love – love for the character. Second, Mihayou's grasp of the character of the group portrait has been verified (for example, is Danheng very similar to who is inside?). ), with high certainty. Third, industrialization, the best display "stage" is the details, and the character details are the most exposed to players.
Cons: In addition to several characters of the IP (Bronia, Xi'er, Uncle Yang, Himeko), "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" as a new game, the new characters make the audience very unfamiliar, not to be brought in, difficult to resonate, not to mention the background world view has also been upgraded. The content of the reservation looks like "inexplicable people, saying inexplicable things and doing inexplicable things".
"Performance-oriented, carousel advertising". In general, Mihayou's understanding of product effectiveness is "bringing effect with quality", that is, attaching great importance to brand content, and driving material conversion through content dissemination and word-of-mouth volume.
When we look at the click distribution of the material of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway", we find that a large number of clicks are often generated in the first few seconds, and the completion rate and subsequent clicks are not good. This shows that the user who clicked on the material already knew Mihayou, had trust and recognition, and looked at the first second was "confirmed eyes".
This is also why, the beginning of the material enlarges the black background + Mihayou LOGO, and there is also a very high click conversion - brand communication as a funnel, buying volume of materials to do "closing".
"Bringing effect with quality" will also cause some problems: if the material is also done more branded, "PV sense", the pace is slow, the churn rate will be high, and the completion rate will be poor. There is a situation of 6 seconds to determine the winner or loser on the data (within 6 seconds, if you do not click, you will lose). Of course, Mihayou is also more Buddhist for the purchase volume, and it is best to have a conversion, and if it is not converted, it will be used as a "carousel brand advertisement". Their internal assessment is more long-term, look at the whole, and look at word of mouth. Instead of stopping and replacing any material that doesn't run well.
More lighthearted, more modern and more exciting. In order to solve the problem of "6 seconds to determine the victory" and solve the problem of "new game, everyone is not familiar with it", the operation of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" this time is to make the material content more relaxed and lively, more modern, more exciting, and more hilarious and cool, avoiding the pace of too slow and protracted. At the same time, thanks to the advantages of the subject matter, you can do resonant materials such as "the best worker", "Party A urges the draft, and then changes the version".
The idea is very good, practice, whether it can achieve the effect, it remains to be verified by subsequent data.
Any company has adaptation patterns and path dependencies, and Mihayou is no exception.
Brand communication: the whole network hot attracts "trouble"
【Facts & Figures】
In terms of social media communication, we invited DataStorytelling to provide relevant data (DigitalStory's official profile: China's leading one-stop big data and AI intelligent application provider, built a full-value chain solution from data collection, processing, analysis, modeling to commercial applications, and has 50+ applications such as DataStory's radar, DataStory, and DataStory). Statistical time: January 1 to April 26, 2023 at 3pm.
In terms of the number of content, as of 3 pm on the 26th, the number of content on the entire domestic network reached 658,500. Among them, the "three-test PV" at the end of January, the "jump test (three-test)" on February 10, the "fixed news" on March 25, and yesterday's public test, formed four outbreaks of content quantity. In particular, yesterday's public beta generated more than 82,000 blog posts on Weibo, which is only the data as of 3 pm on April 26.
In terms of audience interaction (likes, retweets, comments, coins, etc.), it reached 98 million! Among them, the transition test (three tests) was the most engaged, mainly focusing on 4 million times of medium and long videos (including B station) and 2.9 million times of short videos.
In terms of platforms, Weibo accounted for 38.97% of the number of content, short videos accounted for 37.62%, and medium and long videos accounted for 12.24%.
In terms of focus, in addition to the game name and company name, "jump test", "genshin", "gift pack", and character names are all high-frequency words.
【DataEye Research Institute Viewpoint】
It is not only a new game launched, but also a hot spot on the whole network. In the past year, the explosion of three tests of PV, jump test (three tests), fixed files, and open beta, and four interactive volumes, has objectively formed a warm-up for the game. Thanks to the accumulation of several previous games, "Mihayou New Game" has long broken through the scope of games. Among them, Weibo and short videos are the main content concentration, and the medium and long videos belonging to the B station with a higher two-dimensional concentration are not outstanding in the number of content - once again, the game has broken the circle, which is a hot event on the whole network, not limited to the category of two-dimensional games.
△Weibo related topic data
Speculation controversy ensued, but overall neutral. Under the premise of high attention, Mihayou's every move will lead to all kinds of speculation and controversy. For example, on the day of the launch on the 26th, due to the advance of the service opening time, "the life of being backstabbed by Mihayou" appeared on Weibo hot search; For example, when the live-action commercial for "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" was released not long ago, the lines were speculated to allude to other games, which caused a lot of discussion. Suspicion, anger, controversy, grandstanding... The drawbacks that you can imagine after the popularity of the Internet sinks are all coming to the face. However, from the perspective of discussion bias, 91% of the content is still neutral, and only 2.49% is negative.
I have to sigh that being questioned is the fate of the expressor!
Fortunately, players are still relatively rational.
The comparison with "Genshin" is a common topic. On the one hand, I have to sigh that "Genshin" is moving towards a "national game", on the other hand, the aesthetic and quality requirements of two-dimensional players have been greatly improved, and players have high requirements for high freedom in combat and operation, while turn-based RPGs happen to be not superior in terms of freedom.
Pearl Jade is ahead, and if "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" leaves a controversy that is "inferior to "Genshin", it will be a huge pressure. This is unfair to the project team.
4. Significance: Shanghai game "IP sequel tide" opened
【DataEye Research Institute Viewpoint】
Mihayou and Lilith launched new tours one after another. Shanghai game companies, represented by the four tigers of Shanghai Games, collectively ushered in the "wave of IP sequels" this year, such as:
This phenomenon is worth investigating:
(1) Reason:
1. The restoration of the edition number directly brings about the emergence of new tours, as well as a more macroscopic: the change of public opinion wind and policy wind direction - the game is no longer "spiritual opium", but is promoting the real economy, helping cultural export, and promoting technological innovation;
2. This group of enterprises, most of which are a group of enterprises doing IP and content, attach great importance to the value of IP, and the competitive environment with higher uncertainty and greater risk also needs IP to improve the success rate;
3. Most of these IPs were launched from 2015 to 2020, and have been content bottlenecks and declining flow.
(2) Impact:
1. The product and marketing models are routine, and the IP sequel is no longer as stunning as the previous one. Among the several IP sequels that have been launched, most of them are micro-innovation + picture quality improvement based on the gameplay of the previous work, and apply the marketing method of the previous work, the degree of amazement is greatly discounted compared to the previous work, "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" has the courage to completely open up another track, and "Love and Deep Space" has room to upgrade 3D, but there are still relatively few such examples.
2. Smooth continuation? A different way? Further, what does the IP sequel mean for the previous one? What does it mean for gaming companies? Shanghai Game Company split into two major routes: one road is "stable continuation", represented by Lilith's "Awakening of Nations"→ "Awakening of Ten Thousand Dragons", giant "Journey"→ "Original Journey", etc., the gameplay is micro-innovative, low risk, high certainty, in essence, inheriting old users, recalling lost users, a little "not enterprising", and it is easy to form a situation of "new and old products grabbing users";
The other way is "another way" representative is Mihayou "Honkai: Star Dome Railway", which is separated from Mihayou's other gameplay, and chooses a track with a low ceiling, which is very courageous, courageous, and decisive in the context of the "IP sequel tide".
3. Technical ability is improved, and the effectiveness is reduced for the improvement of game experience. As we all know, Shanghai game manufacturers are good at industrialization, but in the absence of major technological breakthroughs (such as VR), the improvement of industrialization capabilities, the promotion efficiency of game experience improvement, theoretically will gradually decrease - if the past investment of 10 million, improve the experience by 10%, may need to invest 50 million in the future to produce the same performance. In addition, the package body of the mobile game is also a bottleneck, as strong as "Genshin", and its package size has been the main reason for many players to cross-end games, and even uninstall. How else can the sequel of the Shanghai game manufacturer be rolled?
4. Go overseas to roll. The vision is broadened and the pattern is liberalized. Shanghai game manufacturers "IP sequel tide", greater ambitions, the market may be overseas, such as "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" turn-based RPG, aimed at Japan and South Korea, "Ten Thousand Dragons Awakening" aimed at the English market. This is also the biggest opportunity and advantage of Shanghai manufacturers. With the blessing of industrialization, IP content, and Chinese culture, it may set off a new round of domestic games going overseas - IP continues to make a sea tide.
△ "Honkai: Star Rail" global iOS bestseller ranking of the overseas version of "Honkai: Star Rail" (dot data, April 26)
5. IP, from the power of capital to the power of word of mouth transformation. In the past, when we mentioned IP, we often meant two things: first, investment and acquisition, typical of Tencent, which is essentially the power of capital, top-down power; Second, spend time and energy to do content, and slowly roll the big IP "snowball", typical of Shanghai game manufacturers, the essence is the power of word-of-mouth, the power from the bottom up. The emergence of the "IP sequel tide" means that the power of the latter (IP word-of-mouth) is rising nationally and even globally! Its essence reflects the rise of user power and the unprecedented importance of user voice.
Back to the present, in the Shanghai game "IP sequel tide", in addition to the other way of seeking stability and avoiding risks among peers, Mihayou dares to do turn-based RPGs that have never been done, which is bold, risky and courageous.
The DataEye Institute recommends:
There is no need to expect too much from Mihayou's new work, there is no need to watch "Broken Iron" with the glasses of "Genshin", and be wary of "holding and killing without knowing it".
We need to give some tolerance to the brave and the risk-takers – they can choose stability, but they don't.
"Honkai" doesn't want to be the second "Genshin", or even the second "Honshin 3"
- That's what friends should do.
Let it be itself.