"Anyway, if you don't have skills, I'm going to give you a big punch right now. 」
The dice were dropped, the decision was successful, and our colleague, who was playing a "black princess", slapped another colleague in the face.
As a "minotaur", I followed the personal characteristics of "amorous", betrayed my teammates who were sneaking up, fooled an NPC to be my stepmother in the game, and had a good sister.
Recently, many grape gentlemen have liked this new game with "too many elements". It's like a TRPG like Baldur's Gate 3, with a running game where you roll the dice for everything, but at the same time, it's unlike anything you've ever played.
First of all, it's not exactly an online game, but it's hard for me to say it's offline: although everyone gets together and listens to the host tell us the plot, if you want to play this game, you have to register an account on the app first, make up a background for yourself, and add attribute points. If you find currency or items in the game, they will also be sent directly to your account backpack. Even after the game is played, you will not only level up, but also draw cards.
What's even more interesting is that as long as you log in to your account, whether you go to a game store in Shenzhen or Shanghai, your level, items, and skills can be used in the next game, and there are even various player guilds in different regions.
Such a stitch-sounding concept was created by a team called Mirror Soil. Today, they not only have more than 30 stores across the country, but they are also gaining popularity. As of the end of November, more than 20,000 commercial running groups have been opened, and the number continues to grow. According to the number of sessions, their turnover has now exceeded more than 10 million.
Recently, Grape King, who is obsessed with this new game, approached the founder of Jingtu, Shaoguang, and asked him to give me a list of their entrepreneurial experience, game design, and vision for the future.
01 The "Apple System" of a running group
Shaoguang told me that before that, he worked as a market consultant in Australia. But in his opinion, the job was not attractive enough.
As a running group host who has led more than 200 DND (Dungeons & Dragons), he also encountered difficulties when leading the group: the partners who come to play DND are always relatively fixed, and they try to pull some newcomers, but they all find it troublesome to learn Xi rules and establish characters.
So Shaoguang began to think, what is the running group playing? If the fun of running a group is really just a sand table deduction, then many video games can do it. He realized that in today's advanced technology, the unique fun of running a group may lie in changing the world and shaping characters.
In this case, the running group can be completely lighter, with many and more exciting adventure plots. He studied more than 30 kinds of running rules one after another, and finally made a basic model, and his friends had a great time.
At this time, he also learned that the domestic script killing game was in full swing. "Since there is a chance for the script to kill in China, can the running group give it a try?"
At that time, his friends who knew the most about running the group were worried about the consequences of his doing so. But at the beginning of 2018, he still pulled up a team in Shanghai and began to make a running group game.
He also realized that whether it is a single rule, a world view setting, a script or an APP, even if it is a single store, it is not easy to really expand the running group market in China. "Because it's hard to ask players who aren't familiar with running groups to spontaneously learn Xi the rules and organize the game for the sake of your content. 」
In addition, even if you make enough simple and interesting rules to run a group, it will be difficult to develop this thing sustainably without complete service. "Just like when werewolves and scripts were killed, you could find dozens of similar apps in the app store, and many times the people who did variety shows, stores, and distributions were different people, and there were many participants in the entire track, so it was very difficult to formulate rules uniformly. 」
Therefore, what they want to do is a complete group running service that is full-link and can be replicated and promoted. According to Shaguang, if the structure of the early Chinese running group culture is like an Android system, then what they want to do is a closed Apple system. "Our script editor is also completely self-developed, so that all the content of the Jingtu system can only be opened through the Jingtu APP, which also prevents the piracy problem that has been a headache for the industry."
So in a year and a half, they wrote not only the rules, but also the worldview and script, and also developed the APP. In June 2020, after accumulating more than a dozen scripts, they finally opened their first store.
The first store did a good job. According to Shaoguang's recollection, on the list of Dianping, they quickly achieved the second place in the board game store in Shanghai. The user base of the running group has also gradually stabilized, because the store is relatively close to Caohejing, so there are also many people engaged in the game industry who come here to play. Many of the customers who do planning work have also left them some professional advice.
Now, after surviving the most difficult period of the epidemic period, they have finally begun to emerge. At present, they have more than 30 chain stores in 11 provinces and cities across the country, gaining a stable user base and cash flow. Shake Light revealed that at present, their LTV can reach the level of 1,000 yuan. The new type of running group game they have developed is being accepted by more and more people.
02 Offline X, the most deadly?
Shake Light told me that they had two main world settings, sub-tables called "Occult Regulation" and "Bewin". Among them, "Supernatural Regulation" focuses on a modern, supernatural setting, while "Baiwen" is a medieval fantasy worldview.
Shaking Light said that the reason why they chose these two worldviews is because they are the settings with the most co-creation foundation.
"Medieval fantasy, you can mix in magic, steampunk or oriental martial arts, modern supernatural, you can also pile all kinds of occult and other realms into it, and that's it. 」
In addition, Jingtu has also made a lot of adjustments to the traditional running group game, for example, they have made light simplification, so that players can gradually Xi learn more complex content while the game is progressing and the flow is formed.
"China is different from Europe and the United States, running groups are a completely incremental market, and more than 90% of Jingtu players have not played or even heard of running groups before coming to Jingtu. Therefore, the experience of newcomers and the learning curve Xi very important to us. 」
However, what really made them go from "viable" to "attractive" was virtual assets and in-app purchases.
In the process of making "Mirror Soil", they found that the script killing industry, which seems to have been very lively, is actually becoming more and more difficult to make money. On the one hand, this contains too many players in the industry and too chaotic elements, but on the other hand, in the case of large costs, the depth of user consumption is insufficient. The mechanism that the running group itself can repeatedly interpret the same role allows them to find the possibility of designing the depth of consumption, which has not been seen in offline games before.
In addition to this, virtual assets also guarantee the long-term retention of their players. With props and levels, players will have the idea of wanting to continue to cultivate, which also avoids the possibility of other board game stores competing for customers by means such as price wars.
At present, although the game has built a framework for virtual assets, it is not yet open for in-app purchase. But they see examples in the background every week of users spontaneously exchanging gear and in-game currency, or of one player spending money on another player's gear. This shows that the virtual assets in the game already have a certain value. According to Shaoguang, they plan to add an in-app purchase function in 2024, and he also plans to design character skins, NPC bond systems, and even NPC cultivation for players.
Players will note their names in the group as items they want to trade
But Shaguang also said that they don't want to design PVP mechanics in order to promote consumption, but always focus on PVE gameplay. Because in his opinion, the unique advantage of offline games over online games is that when you achieve something in front of other players, you can get more refreshment. To put it simply, it is the offline X, which is the most deadly.
"Offline, people play face-to-face, and playing games is also a social process, and if someone can use some very rare props or do some cool operations, they will often get full applause. The sense of accomplishment is also huge, even more enjoyable than many online experiences. And a unified discourse system, rules, and worldview are the prerequisites for the realization of this process. 」
Shake Light believes that the design of these contents, values and functions is the core competitiveness of the Jingtu team. They have a R&D center of about 30 people, including multiple departments such as story creation, planning and development, some of whom have backgrounds in the game industry.
In addition to the playability of the game itself, they will also focus on the user experience of the game. "Offline games, even online games, are relatively few products that focus on the topic of "who the player is", and the focus of two-dimensional games is on the characters collected by the player, the focus of MOBA is on the heroes used in player versus player battles, and the focus of script killing is on the specific role that the player plays in a specific story. 」
Shake Light hopes that in the mirror soil, players can have a deep feeling of playing themselves. For example, when players reach a sufficient level, they can get a booklet, a standing image, and even a biographical video of their character's story with the support of officials and stores, which can be displayed in various places.
"To be honest, some of the groups may be really imprisoned, and I was doubting my life when I played. But when I look back, it's not all negative. Because there are some plots that are boring, but I feel as if they are happening to me. 」
In addition, the host who is responsible for leading the group is equally important. Shaoguang believes that if you want to afford a good enough R&D team, you must have enough stores, and this requires a good single-store profit model - and this task falls on each host. If in-app purchases are opened in the future, then the host's function will be very similar to that of the GM in online games.
Shaoguang said that he can accept that players leave Jingtu to play COC or DND because they are more and more fond of running groups, but he can't accept that a player leaves Jingtu because of a sense of grievance in the game.
Therefore, they also use data to analyze different users to help stores and hosts better serve their services. Every time a player joins a group, the store and the host can see the player's character experience, 30-day retention, and so on.
Overall, he is satisfied with the quality of their presenters at the moment. He told me that nowadays players call the host a "humanoid game engine". Because running a group is a role-playing with a high degree of freedom, one of the great pleasures is to see the host's on-the-spot response ability to the player's unnatural choice.
"Why don't you use an AI host? It's because it has to be a real person to interact with the player, and it becomes interesting. We're also doing investment and research on AI, but it's going to be a different form. 」
03 I want to be the game company that knows the most about chains, and the chain company that knows the most about games
Shaoguang said that there is no precedent for a particularly successful combination of online and offline gameplay, so they have to refer to various things, such as game planning, store operation, script creation, etc. But he still thinks there are a lot of opportunities in this matter. Compared with online, Jingtu may not be able to do such a high DAU, but in addition to selling props and skins like online games, they can also try to sell offline goods such as snacks and drinks, and establish their own unique offline traffic entrance to provide consumers with more comprehensive services.
"It's true that there are a lot of things borrowed from different fields, stitching and innovation, and we are looking forward to what the mirror soil will become in the end. 」
In addition to the APP, they are now also starting to make their own running group software. "It's similar to a creative workshop, and while we meet the needs of the commercialization of Jingtu, we will also consider making it available to all domestic runners, which is the most fun thing to co-create. 」
Shaking Light said that if someone wants to copy them in the future, he will not be disgusted. "Now that the cake is so big, it's good that a little more people can make the market bigger. Of course, to this day, we have stepped on too many pits. If we can work together and learn from each other's strengths, it is actually optimal for efficiency. The goal of the Jingtu team is called "achieving 10 million fantasy of another world", and Shaoguang believes that the total number of players in China's running group may reach 10 million ~ 20 million in the future. Currently, they also intend to double the number of stores to 60 by mid-2024.
And the Jingtu team doesn't seem to be satisfied with that. At present, in addition to a series of services around the running group, they are also preparing their own IP blind boxes, and even card games with IP. They hope that even if they don't go to offline stores, or even players who don't like to play running groups, they can play their IP products. "In the future, Jingtu should not only be limited to running groups, we hope to become the game company that knows the most about chains and the chain companies that know games best, and break the dimensional wall and bring more fun things together. 」