In the past ten years of rapid development of the mobile game industry, most of the early games have been left behind, but there are still some high-quality products that have passed through the cycle and are still active in the mainstream vision.
Among them, the mobile version of "Three Kingdoms Killing" launched in 2011 under the game card network is an "evergreen" masterpiece, which has not only been stable at the top of the iOS best-selling list in the past 12 years, but also ranked among the top 10 best-selling lists at major nodes such as anniversaries, and once rushed to the 6th place on the best-selling list during the anniversary celebration in July this year.
Data source: Qimai data
In our opinion, the excellent performance of the game is not groundless, observing its actions in the past two years, it is not difficult to find that the game is in the general direction by controlling the strength of the generals, slowing down the pace of environmental changes, the second is through the launch of innovative mechanisms such as the "Ten Standing Attendants", promoting the content refreshment, and the third is by issuing epic generals, skins, providing more benefits such as full reduction coupons to players, and pursuing higher quality and more warm long-term operations.
On December 16th, the game launched a year-end welfare season event with the theme of "Fun Love, Happy Carnival", aiming to create a player carnival covering both online and offline scenarios, and join hands with players to celebrate the good times at the end of the year, and the game has once again rushed to the TOP7 of the iOS best-selling list.
Thanks to the active participation of players, the popularity of the event has continued to rise after its launch, and many players have expressed their unfulfilled expectations for this year's welfare season and their ardent expectations for the event in the coming year on social media such as Douyin and Weibo.
It is not difficult to see that the game has established an important brand node contract with players with a successful operation activity, and pioneered the creation of an original festival with the theme of "giving back to players".
In fact, the year-end welfare season is not the first attempt at "festival-making" of the work, and in terms of its diversified layout in recent years, it is not an exaggeration to label it a "festival-making maniac".
On the road of "making festivals", we found that the work has always had the same starting point, that is, to take the preferences and demands of contemporary young people as the anchor, and strengthen the core of the original festival by outputting the trendy content that Generation Z users like to see, which is also an important driving factor for its product tonality and user structure to become more and more "younger" in recent years.
Just like young players often like to use "thriving" when ridiculing games, in the matter of "making festivals", it chooses to take the lead in playing stalks and "steaming", and continues to narrow the emotional distance with young people with various sincere "steaming (true) measures".
There is a video of the Three Kingdoms Killing, and there is a dense "thriving", which is undoubtedly famous
Insight into the needs and thoughts of young people, fancy "festival-making" resonates
It is observed that in recent years, "Three Kingdoms Mobile Version" has created three original festivals: the year-end welfare season, the old friends season, and the anniversary celebration, exploring the diversified integration ideas of "trendy culture" and "traditional culture" at different nodes, and taking the content preferences of young people as the starting point, constantly strengthening the "younger" tone of the brand.
Year-end benefits season: "steaming" benefits
Focusing on the year-end welfare season that is still in full swing, on the one hand, the game firmly grasps the love of young people for national culture online, and uses its own cultural background of the Three Kingdoms as the fulcrum to create the theme song "Luozi Jiangshan" for "Shen Xun Yu", and invited the popular singer Jing Hao to sing.
Among them, whether it is the strong national style tonality of the song, or the lyrics that reproduce Xun Yu's life and even restore his historical image, they have won many praises for the theme song, reflecting the game's vision of continuing to explore the diversified communication paths of "traditional culture".
On the other hand, perhaps inspired by this year's Halloween young people's COS carnival on the streets of Shanghai, the work captures the strong personalized expression needs of Generation Z.
During the event, players from all over the country flocked to the scene, including players COS game generals, players COS game stalks "thriving", and even players directly incarnated as game props "Ingot Tree...... Under the wanton "whole work" of young people, the scene can be described as lively and witty and interesting.
Through this phenomenon, we can actually see that the original intention of the game really wants to stand and play with players, and while exploring the innovative integration of "pop culture" and "traditional culture", it also hopes to give young people the opportunity to express their love for the game and the culture of the Three Kingdoms in their favorite way.
Of course, throughout this online and offline carnival, which is also the main theme of the festival, is the massive "steaming (real)" benefits.
During the period, the official in the game not only opened the collection of words to send epic skins, ingots tree welfare upgrades and other activities, but also released the Shen Xun Yu dynamic skin, Cai Zhenji and Cai Wenji winter solstice limited skin and other appearances;Outside the game, the official live broadcast on December 16 gave players all kinds of game gift packs, limited peripherals, and the COS competition also provided 10,000 yuan in cash as a reward for giving back to players various "creative stalks COS".
It is worth mentioning that during the welfare season, the official also grandly launched a series of music CDs, integrating the theme songs created for military generals and festivals in recent years, interpreting its long-term pursuit of trying to create "steaming" music and constantly surprise young people.
If we push the timeline further, we can also observe that the game has completed two successful "festivals" before the welfare season, and both also reflect its determination to take the lead in "steaming" in different dimensions.
Old Friends Season: "Steaming" Social
In March this year, with the launch of the original festival "Old Friends Season", "Three Kingdoms Kill Mobile Version" not only introduced new generals and skins, but also launched limited-time activities such as team gameplay "Like-mindedness", character collection gameplay "Working Together", and social competition gameplay "Old Friends Fighting Landlords".
Although they are presented in different forms, the starting point is to enrich the game experience, help players open up more social channels, and strengthen the social connection between players in a way that young people will like.
At the same time, there are two cross-border cooperation anchored by "brotherhood".
The MV of the song revolves around the "college campus" scene that carries the memories of young people's youth, and by restoring the brothers playing "Three Kingdoms" in the dormitory, sweating on the basketball court and other close-to-life clips, it awakens young people's understanding of friendship in a natural and sincere way, and also provides them with valuable nostalgic emotional value.
After the release of the song, the #南拳妈妈新歌回忆杀 topic also quickly appeared on the Douyin real-time hot list, with more than 39 million views of the topic.
Second, the game cooperated with Wanhe Tianyi, which had produced popular dramas such as "Never Expected", through the launch of a series of short dramas, presenting the friendship between old friends in the form of witty and vivid content.
From this point of view, the idea of "making festivals" in Friends Season is very clear, which is to create an important node that can not only highlight the characteristics of the game's "steaming (real)" socialization, but also strengthen the emotional bond with players. More importantly, whether it is the production ideas of linkage music or short dramas, they are faintly coupled with the interests of young users, which also enables Laoyouji to further empower the "youthfulness" of the product tonality.
Anniversary: "steaming" popularity
Compared with the above two new festivals, the anniversary celebration of "Three Kingdoms Mobile" has been held every year since 2021, and it has already become the most anticipated carnival of the year. Looking back on the anniversary celebrations in the past three years, it can be found that the work will gather popularity through various creative forms in addition to content renewal and welfare relaxation, and bring young players to "hi" together.
On the 2021 anniversary, the game joined hands with veteran singer Tengger and rapper Sha Yiting, who sang the theme song "Standing Out from the Crowd" and starred in an original funny short drama. Thanks to the well-made songs, as well as the witty memes such as #Tengger Long Hair# in the short play, this anniversary celebration has formed a strong circle-breaking effect, and the game has also attracted the attention and love of more young people.
In 2022, in addition to joining hands with Chinese musician Dai Quan and Shanghai Peking Opera National First-class actor Lan Tian to launch the anniversary theme song "Xindingjun Mountain", the work also held a "virtual party" in the game, which accurately hit the popular cultural needs of Generation Z users who are keen on "Yun Bundi", creating an unprecedented popularity carnival.
This year, the game chose to join forces with national first-class actor Meng Qingyang, and she performed a sable dance drama "Closed Moon", and also cooperated with B station Xin Xiaomeng, Jiuling, Macho Dance Troupe and other UP masters, focusing on the core content of the dance drama, deepening the brand symbol, so as to reach more pan-entertainment users.
After the popularity of dance dramas continued to ferment, the work opened a big screen in 10 cities including Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing, breaking through online and offline communication barriers, and sincerely inviting players across the country to celebrate their birthdays.
It is not difficult to see that there have always been two clear main lines for anniversary celebrations over the years: one is to insist on creating theme songs, short plays and other content through linkage with well-known artists, conveying the beauty of "traditional culture" in a novel form, and resonating with young people's growing love for national culture;
epilogue
If any product wants to succeed in the long run, it needs to innovate and change with the times, and change can not just stay on the surface, but needs to be based on the long-term perspective to plan and plan.
In recent years, there are two very clear new trends, one is the establishment of the industry stock trend, and the market involution is intensified, and the other is that young users led by Generation Z have become the mainstay of the industry.
In such an environment, this work has an early insight into these changes, and chooses to follow the trend, take the initiative to change, by adhering to the core concept of "younger", starting from the needs of young people, and through exploration attempts such as "making festivals", it constantly seeks resonance with Generation Z users. In the same process, it has also refreshed the perception of IP brands in the minds of old players again and again, and with the continuous spread of this freshness of "always playing and always new", its user ecology has become more stable and reliable over time.
It is precisely in such a positive resonance of "maintaining stability and promoting vitality" and "attracting new users to retain" that the work has been able to operate for 12 years for a long time, and it has endured for a long time in the mobile game industry with serious "involution".
Today, the "Three Kingdoms Kill Mobile Version", which takes the lead in "steaming", has launched corresponding original festivals at important nodes at the beginning of the year, the middle of the year, and the end of the year, and continues to provide players with a full sense of ritual by outputting a variety of sustainable and expected content, which also makes the game and players establish an increasingly solid brand contract.
Looking forward to the future, I believe that the long-term adherence to the concept of "youth" will continue to rejuvenate in the company of players, and the future is still promising.