The card market will reach 27.66 billion yuan in 2025.
This will be yet another game myth.
Zhejiang Card Game Animation Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Card Game"), known as the "Bubble Mart in the card industry", is considering an IPO in Hong Kong as early as next year.
Ultraman, as a global IP that has been active for 57 years, seems to have never had a mid-life crisis, and has been on the tuyere of traffic for a long time.
Not only the Japanese parent company has made a lot of money by relying on Ultraman, but even the card games of Chinese IP agents, even relying on a pack of 9 Ultraman cards, the annual income is as high as 3 billion yuan.
Founded in 2019, Card Games has now become one of the most influential brands in the anime derivatives market.
Ultraman cards aren't a novelty.
In the 80s and 90s, there were already cards with the theme of "Water Margin" and "Yu-Gi-Oh" card games.
Its official name is "Trading Card Game" (TCG) for short. Each card has the attributes and special abilities of the IP characters, and players can strengthen their roster by collecting rare cards.
TCG cards have developed into the post-00s and post-10s era, and the game attributes have begun to weaken infinitely, with more emphasis on "philately", "blind box" and "social" attributes.
According to the official website, in addition to Ultraman, the global head IP licenses obtained by card games include Marvel, Naruto, Pokémon, Harry Potter, My Little Pony, etc.
High-quality Chinese comics include Luo Dalu, Ye Luoli, Qin Shi Mingyue, etc.
In addition, there are also original IPs, including "Card Game Three Kingdoms", "Wei Jiang" and so on.
On Weibo, Douyin, Bilibili and other platforms, the number of views of videos about unboxing Ultraman cards can reach up to one million times.
For many fans, the greatest pleasure of buying Ultraman cards is often to open rare cards such as "out-of-print cards" and "collector's cards".
And because the unit price of general cards is about ten yuan, such trading card games are often built on the basis of a large number of cards.
In addition, up to now, the Kayou Cup Hero Showdown has been successfully held for three years, becoming the largest TCG series event with the largest number of participants in China.
In addition, from the Water Margin card entrained in snacks, to the star card, star card, IP card...... The number of collector card consumers in mainland China has increased rapidly, and "small cards" have begun to enter the mainstream consumer market.
According to the "2023 China Collectible Card Market Research Report", the size of China's collectible card market will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 42.1%.
Based on the huge fan base in the fields of sports, animation, film and television, and music, as well as the wide audience of heavyweight IPs such as Ultraman, Pokémon, and One Piece, the scale of domestic collectible card enthusiasts will continue to maintain rapid growth in the next few years.
It is estimated that by 2025, the market size will reach 27.66 billion yuan.
Is card gaming too reliant on IP?
What kind of imagination can the event bring?
Where is the future of card games?
In this regard, China.com Xie Xuan, "Harbor Business Observer" Shi Zifu and Shule had an exchange, and this monkey thought:
A card at the beginning is just a rudimentary way to play, and there are still more scene breakthroughs in the follow-up, rather than simple trading and blind boxes.
Taking Ultraman IP as an example, its advantages and disadvantages are very obvious.
Ultraman has a high level of recognition among teenagers and belongs to the company of childhood, so its sales are more fierce than those of Marvel and Naruto, which are middle-aged and young.
This high recognition and the sustainability of the potential user group in the future (Chinese children still love Ultraman) make its future potential promising.
The disadvantage is that Ultraman's IP is only authorized after all, and once it is withdrawn, the Ultraman card game market created in the early stage will disintegrate.
As far as cards are concerned, as a light blind box and card entertainment tool, it can derive more ways to play in the future.
For example, the board game experience that young people like tarot cards and Three Kingdoms Kill are keen on, and it can be compatible with more diverse cultural elements, so there is actually a lot of room for expansion.
In addition, cultural creativity is an incremental blue ocean, and its trial and error from various angles are promising.
At the same time, cards and cultural creativity are just the stepping stones for card game companies to successfully enter Dawen Entertainment, and open an incremental blue ocean.
However, after the completion of the original accumulation, it will inevitably have more trial and error directions in cultural creativity.
At present, in its cooperation with some domestic IP and cultural and museum venues, it has shown its intention to expand the line, and it can also avoid putting eggs in one basket.
As for the event, it has a different meaning.
Through events, card games can be allowed to jump out of the field of entertainment games and enter the field of competitive sports and intellectual sports.
This can not only make this pan-entertainment industry have the effect of publicity and breaking the circle, but also play a certain role in the guidance of the name.
At the same time, it is also necessary to pay attention to, namely:
As a type of board game, card games also have anti-addiction needs for minors.
Just because it is a board game and not a video game should not be assumed to have a value orientation to prevent minors from becoming addicted to electronic devices.
Author Zhang Shule, columnist of People's Daily Online and People's Post and Telegraph, expert of China Economic Media Think Tank, senior TMT industry commentator, newly published "Self-media Writing from Beginner to Mastery" (Tsinghua University Press) #卡游#