| The martial arts masters began to make moves. |
Text/Grey carrier pigeons
After so many years of 520, the focus of everyone's heated discussions is mostly heavy IP, or earth-shattering projects. There are still such new products this year: "Against the Water and Cold" mobile game, "Condor "... Among these 11 new products, there is no shortage of king fried or geeks.
But after watching this year's press conference, I found that NetEase has also begun to make a revolution in long-term products, quality upgrades, innovative gameplay, self-made levels... Too many styles of play are subverting the tradition of long-term stability.
Two years ago, we said that NetEase was a prime-age warrior. Everyone waited for him to stab out that sword before they could see it. But pulling the sword forward is only for a moment, fixed eyes, NetEase's moves are not only offensive and defensive, but also more new moves to foresee the next step in the market.
As in the past, we will first sort out the new product information, and then analyze the current situation of NetEase. Through this conference, you may know more about NetEase's future play.
So let's get started.
01What new products has NetEase released?
With the gradual stabilization of the decentralization of the version number, compared with last year, NetEase's playing style is no longer conservative, and many new products are ready to go:
From the perspective of layout, NetEase's determination to conquer the category is now more and more resolute.
The first is MMO (Non-Competitive Massively Multiplayer Online). This year, NetEase announced new MMO products such as "Against the Water and Cold" mobile game and "Dragon Spirit Domain". Compared with the past to attack the category with high quality and multiple themes, the ideas of this new product are more diverse, and they discuss the solution of MMO in the current situation from the direction of technology, gameplay, quality, and occupying market space. NetEase's ideas for offensive categories are more flexible.
The second is the competitive category. NetEase has been in the direction of competition for many years, and in the past, the list of new products often appeared that more than 1/3 of the products were of this type, and this year is still the same: "Extraordinary Vanguard", "Peak Speed", "All-Star Street Ball Party", "Mission Zero", "Raid: Legend of Shadows", "Codename 56"... Compared with the multi-dimensional solution of MMO, the keywords of NetEase offensive competition can be summarized as more subdivided and accurate. Taking several successful products from the past as a front, they are attacking more subdivided tracks to eat through the entire category.
From the perspective of product exploration, NetEase is using various methods to find its next blockbuster.
This new product reserve covers a variety of product play methods, including "Against the Water and Cold" with high investment and high technology, "Condor Shooting" with research category breakthroughs, "Codename 56" which builds a 3A pipeline, and "Raid: Shadow Legend" that drills down the subdivision track... NetEase now does not rely solely on methodology, nor on the longboard advantages of numerical values or content, but uses more flexible tactics to find new forces of its flagship masterpieces, backbone products, and subdivided products.
Here's a brief introduction to the 11 new products (in the order of announcement at the press conference):
1. "Against the Water and Cold" mobile game
The MMO mobile game adapted by NetEase's end-game IP of the same name opens up the world for martial arts, and puts forward concepts such as "make MMO great again" and "breathing rivers and lakes". Its importance needs no elaboration.
This year's promotional video continued to show off muscles, emphasizing that "the real picture of the mobile game, not CG", successively showed the game's multi-regional scene design, character environment modeling, skill special effects and other content. Its quality has surpassed many MMO end games. The game will open beta on all platforms on June 30.
2. "Peak Speed"
A triple-A realistic control racing game. NetEase has worked closely with Codemasters, a veteran British racing game manufacturer, using UE4 and Ego physics engines. The game focuses on realistic style, pursues real feel, and has obtained the genuine authorization of major vehicle manufacturers around the world.
3. "Condor "
An open-world game, developed by NetEase's War Soul Studio, does not take the traditional MMO route, does not do forced socialization/check-in/running rings, is a content-driven all-platform martial arts open world game. We've reported on it.
The concept mentioned in this announcement allows players to experience the "drama of rivers and lakes" of the 150-year historical changes of the "Condor Trilogy", and there are 360 lines of social occupations for players to experience the pyrotechnics of the Song Dynasty. The game will soon begin a new round of testing.
4. "Kyuki: Journey to the Wind"
A two-dimensional product, NetEase Games and Qiwu Studio, based on the "Jiugi IP" world fantasy adventure game jointly created by ancient technology.
5. "The Greater"
A survival gold mobile game. Players can loot loot and take them off the field to accumulate wealth. The game has been lightweighted and added RPG elements. We've reported on it.
Shortly after the game opened for pre-orders last year, the number of views across the platform quickly exceeded 30 million. Up to now, the game has been booked on all platforms with more than 15 million. The game will be launched on all platforms on June 8.
6. "All-Star Street Ball Party"
An all-star street sports mobile game, self-developed by NetEase, authorized by the official NBA players' union. The game is designed with trendy elements that highlight the personalities and characteristics of each star. The game has achieved technical testing of high frame rate and low energy consumption on iPhone5s and 100 yuan Android machines. The game will be tested on iOS and Android on June 16.
7. "Raid: Shadow Legend"
A Western fantasy card strategy RPG developed by Israeli game studio Plarium and represented by NetEase. The game uses 3D motion capture modeling technology and has won awards such as "Best Selling RPG Game in America" and "Best App and Game in the Microsoft Store".
8. "Mission Zero"
A 2v4 asymmetric competitive mobile game with a similar theme to an agent movie, where the infiltrator has to complete the mission, and the pursuer has to collect clues to find the player disguising his identity from the crowd. This year, the game began to recruit players to form the No. 0 co-creation group to participate in game tuning.
9. "Codename 56"
A next-generation adventure shooter, developed by NetEase Beiluo Shimen Studio, is a 3A apocalyptic wasteland survival theme game. The production team is joined by the Meimo 2 scene designer and the 3A studio concept designer. The game music invited Hans Zimmer and his team to participate in the production. Testing recruitment has recently begun.
10. "Dragon Spirit Domain"
A medieval fantasy MMORPG featuring a seamless class switching system, players can experience the battle of multiple weapons such as double swords, scepter, bows and arrows at the same time.
11. "The Records of the Generals of the Three Kingdoms"
A matchless action mobile game in the Three Kingdoms of Darkness. The game was developed using Unreal Engine 4. In addition to matchless gameplay, the game also has PVP, multiplayer competition, urban construction and other gameplay. The game will start its official beta in July.
It is worth mentioning that Sakura Studio was also unveiled at the 520 press conference.
The studio has offices in Guangzhou, China and Shibuya, Japan, and absorbs console game developers of different nationalities/cultures. This is also the first time that NetEase has released a separate PV video only around a console game.
At present, the studio is developing three products, including action RPGs, a new action game with a large number of fanatical fan series, and an original self-developed IP cooperative action game. The game uses a UE engine with an emphasis on game experience design.
At the end of the video, the studio released Slogan's "See cherry blossoms, connect to the future", hoping to attract more like-minded talents.
Other products that have been launched have also announced new project plans at this conference, so I will not repeat them here due to space.
02NetEase began to make new moves
Behind this press conference, NetEase has obviously changed its playing style and began to make new moves.
First, NetEase is promoting co-creation routes.
This mainly refers to UGC content in level production. At this conference, many of NetEase's products are developing level editors, allowing players to participate in content production without barriers as if they were playing games. It's not hard to see that this UGC co-creation practice enhances the vitality of the product.
For example, Ace Racing opens the racing park editor, allowing players to design their own tracks; "Werewolf Kill" also opens up template editing, allowing players to participate in the design; "Epic of Taya" not only provides players with a level editor, but also shares the level revenue to players; The new product "Mission Zero", which has not yet been launched, has also prepared this part of the function in advance.
Why did NetEase start pushing level editing? The reason for this must be the success of "Egg Party" and the exploration of products such as "Minecraft" in this direction. This co-creation approach not only solves the problem of content consumption, but also allows everyone to participate in the design, enhancing the product stickiness of core users.
Second, NetEase's head IP began to unify the sound caliber and output positive value centrally.
IP has always been the basic disk of NetEase's stability. For a long time in the past, they produced many product matrices, but because of different positioning, derivatives mostly acted separately. But in the past two years of launches, these products have gathered around their respective IPs and exported content with a complete brand image.
This year, the related products of Dream Westward Journey, Big Talk Westward Journey, Qiannu Ghost, Tianxia, Yin-Yang Master, and Heavenly Oracle are all speaking with their own unified brand caliber. The unified IP brand can provide cohesion for products and users, enable IP to form cultural phenomena faster, and provide users with self-identified brand benefits.
To this end, NetEase's leading IPs are also frequently carrying out cultural and tourism linkage to carry positive social values and output valuable content to users. For example, there is the cooperation between the Dream Westward Journey and the Cultural Heritage Bureau/Cultural Research Institute, and the Qiannu Ghost's National Style Zhi Yi Tinder Project; For younger products, there are also activities such as "Ace Race" Colorful Cloud South, "Endless Lagrange" Sapling Guardian Project and so on.
This change also makes NetEase IP products more powerful, concentrate efforts, and consolidate user cohesion in the long term.
Third, NetEase is doing large-scale technological upgrades.
NetEase has always attached great importance to technical iteration. For long-term products, they are constantly iterating on quality, so that they continue to maintain the quality of the current market leader products, and look for opportunities to integrate new technologies. For example, the "Qiannu Ghost" mobile game has completed two quality upgrades in the 7 years since its launch, and the Huaxu Realm gameplay announced by the computer version of "Fantasy Westward Journey" this year introduces new 3D rendering technology.
To this end, NetEase is building an international 3A-level R&D team by introducing high-end talents. For example, Codename 56 has absorbed many members of former 3A studios; Tetsuya Akatsuka, head of Sakura Studio, also mentioned in an interview that the studio's most important goal is to develop next-generation console games, help NetEase accumulate development experience and processes in the field of console games, and at the same time, create game IP for the global market.
In addition, NetEase is also trying to introduce cutting-edge technology to enhance playability and improve research and development efficiency. In the upcoming open beta of the "Against the Water and Cold" mobile game, intelligent NPCs are being tried: players interact with NPCs without settings; Automatically generated social relationships between NPCs... These explorations may also keep NetEase products at the forefront of experience design.
Fourth, NetEase is still looking for ways to get out of its comfort zone and research innovative designs.
NetEase Love emphasizes differentiation and has been implemented into new and old products. This year, the momentum has spread to agent products. For example, "Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Link" is developing new PVP gameplay, and the long-acting "Shadow Poem" national server is also fighting with Cygames to develop a new gameplay unique to the national service. These attempts show NetEase's emphasis on innovation.
03NetEase's strategy for the next three years has begun to show its edge
As I said at the beginning, behind NetEase's move, it is not just the hit, but the strategy that can affect the next 3 years.
Seeing this, you may question, who game release will not draw some 3-5 years of pie? What's more, NetEase has accounted for 11 new products this year, which is much weaker than the amount of dozens of models a few years ago.
The key is that strategy is not a masterpiece, but a trend.
NetEase's number of new products this year is certainly not much, and existing products do not seem to have too radical strategies, but compared with the past, it can be found that the projects at this conference are more or less different explorations, showing some interesting commonalities that can be refined:
The first is the citation of cutting-edge technology. According to the 2022 full-year financial report, NetEase invested more than 15 billion yuan in R&D throughout the year, with a R&D investment intensity of 15.6%, accelerating the self-research breakthroughs of cutting-edge technologies such as metaverse, intelligent robots, and digital twins... These technologies have been supporting game projects in recent years.
NetEase Fuxi Lab has been researching AI technology for many years. In the past, its AI technology has provided a lot of support for the project team in the fields of anti-plug-in and human-machine battle. With the deepening of research, many research results of Fuxi Laboratory have begun to slowly penetrate into more specific R&D, operation, and marketing processes... There will be more and more cases such as the mobile game "Against the Water and Cold".
The second is the addition of the long-term layout. Judging from the content of the press conference, NetEase is scheduling multiple resources to solve long-term propositions together, while using innovation and quality iteration to add vitality to long-term products; On the one hand, use a unified brand caliber to enhance the cohesion of products and users; On the one hand, prepare for new products, prepare their weapons for long-term combat in advance... NetEase has put long-termism on its agenda and shown greater patience.
Finally, there is the layout on the player side. In the past, NetEase relied on values and content to move forward; Later, NetEase integrated the two, and integrated industrialization and 3A quality, and obtained the advantage of longboard, which is easier to conquer the subdivision track. But now NetEase has bigger ambitions.
Behind the UGC level editor that formed a trend this year, NetEase is bringing itself closer to players, making players part of the vitality of the product, and also wants the product to become its own ecology, which can expand the past subdivision track into a circle with large DAU flow.
As a result, NetEase's future exploration process has another help, that is, the power of players.
Before, it was said that NetEase was like a martial arts master, but now his way of making moves has begun to gradually appear. NetEase uses products and self-developed genes as weapons, in the breakthrough of new products and the transformation of existing products, he strives to be more cutting-edge, more patient, more open, cultivate internal strength, improve martial arts, in order to cope with unpredictable long-term battles.
This press conference also makes me look forward to what kind of confrontation NetEase will bring us in the market in the next 3 years.
Game Grape Recruitment Content Editor,
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