After a long wait, Perfect World Games' (hereinafter referred to as "Perfect") "Persona: Phantom of the Night (P5X)" finally launched today, and its results are also very impressive, winning the 10th position on the best-selling list on the first day of the open beta.
P5X has undergone several tests, and the score and popularity before the launch are still at a very high level (App Store 4.5, B station 9.0, TapTap8.1, pre-download 6 hours won the first place in the App Store overall list, and the first place on the popular list on multiple platforms is P5X), and the number of pre-orders on the whole network has also exceeded 15 million - you must know that the total sales of the 5 games in the P5 series are not enough for this number, of which the sales of the P5 body are 3.2 million.
P5X has been a frequent visitor to the hot search list since it was finalized, and the popularity has risen to a new level after the public beta.
The game not only won three large-screen recommendation positions in the App Store, but on social platforms, many well-known KOLs also played "leave stalks" - in the game circle, every time a heavyweight masterpiece is released, many practitioners who love games will take a leave of absence to play the game, and even all members of the game company have a holiday to play new works together.
Even the editor of Sina asked the boss for leave
Seeing the whole picture of this game today, to be honest, Grape Jun is still quite emotional. I remember when the first version of the game PV was released, I still had a strong worry in my mind, afraid that this excellent series would be ruined by a "domestic IP adaptation game", but now, this worry has disappeared early.
There's no other reason: the P5X is like a new product made by the original team themselves. Whether it is the highly stylized UI and color scheme, or the strong atmosphere and sense of substitution of the original console, or another understanding and discussion of the core values of the original work, this game seems to be rushing to add value to the IP.
In this way, the perfect is menacing with the "IP adaptation of mobile games" to get a hard handful, and it is also one step closer to miHoYo in the second game track, and P5X has also given strength to other new products this year, in short, this card is not a small "bomb" is played, it depends on whether everyone follows or not.
01 P5X's confidence
I think it's inevitable that P5X can achieve today's results. This game is excellent at the production level, which we analyzed in the previous three tests. Different from other traditional, domestic, IP-adapted mobile games, P5X has a strange persistence from the bones.
The first is the persistence of "originality", this game is based on the original worldview to focus on new protagonists, new stories, and new values, and the original monster thieves join the plot in a linkage way. Compared with the old routine of "taking you to relive the original plot" of traditional anime IP and console game IP to mobile games, P5X's approach is undoubtedly countless times better, and the difficulty is also much higher.
The re-creation of the entire story line means that the production team has to completely understand the core of the original work, and then completely redesign a set of story and character packaging, and then find a way to connect these new things in an orderly manner, and they must be presented to the player just right, otherwise P5 Zhuyu is in front, and if you are not careful, this operation will have to mess up the new work.
P5X's original Chinese character "Li Yaoling", the personality mask is Meng Po
Moreover, this mode of operation was impossible to establish between our domestic developers and external copyright owners in the past. After all, this means far beyond the conventional copyright negotiation, production review, and massive, water-milled research and development run-in.
But Perfection did it anyway, which I admire. The development of P5X has rarely won the full supervision and in-depth participation of the original team ATLUS, and this development model has greatly ensured that the core elements of the story, theme, and characters are tenable and can stand the test in the underlying creative logic - many failed IP adaptation mobile games are devalued here.
Behind the seemingly simple elements, for the designer, are carefully woven details
The choice of this "seemingly unworthy" production method also reflects the second obvious obsession of the P5X production team, "IP value-added". As far as I know, their development team has a very high proportion of P5 fans, and the strategy of IP adaptation is also to use qualified content to serve IP and increase the total value of IP, rather than the traditional idea of pure leek cutting.
To add value to the IP, the idea is actually very simple, first have a good content, then let some people like it, and then continue to add content/dig deeper into the content, so that the people who originally liked it will like it more, and let the people who know about it later also like it.
However, it is difficult to operate IP value-added in practice, especially the IP adaptation of the idea of cutting leeks, which basically only "consumes the likes of the first batch of people" and "does not bring the second batch of people who like it to the IP".
Based on the first two persistences, what is shown is the combat effectiveness of the P5X project team - from the first test to the third test, this game has changed almost every time, new content, new details are constantly increasing, and the linkage content with the original P5 has just been added to the open beta. This kind of internally driven project team is estimated not to worry too much about its production capacity, and can look forward to the update content of the subsequent version.
This is just a partial list of optimization projects
The creation + IP value-added strategy determines the basic quality of P5X, and its high quality has become the foundation for perfect market operation.
Just by understanding the point of "re-creation", the competitive differentiation, freshness and continued attractiveness of this kind of project in the market are one-sided. Like many gamers, my first reaction when I saw P5X was amazing, and then what came to my mind was "No way! absolutely impossible!" and finally I had to accept the fact that "the IP change to mobile game industry has also been overturned".
In fact, for an overseas host IP with ontology sales of 3.2 million and derivatives + fried cold rice to 10 million sales, although its influence can be regarded as "popular" for a while, it is still "recognized" in a relatively limited scope. However, after the quality has been raised to a higher level, P5X has climbed to the position within the Top 3 in the second game/pan-second game with a version number this year, which is equivalent to breaking through the original audience boundary.
So when Perfect manages this game, it is also both careful and bold. Carefulness lies in the fact that it needs to do its best to maintain the perception and value judgment of old fans of P5, and raise P5X to the same level, so as to ensure the strategy of "IP value-added", and bold is to seize the hard-won opportunity of "breaking the boundaries of the audience".
It can be seen that in terms of operational attitude, the project team has been maintaining the evaluation of P5X in the mouth of players, including openly and honestly publicizing the optimization items after each test, or conceiving some interactive events and online gameplay that are in line with the identity of the original monster thief group, and continuing to launch interviews with the production team and dialogues between the Chinese and Japanese production teams, so that players can understand the design of the game as realistically as possible.
And in terms of promotion, Perfect is really the same old money this time. First of all, since the beginning of this year, it has been using advertisements, video content, online activities, offline comic exhibitions, pre-drawn cards and other actions to continuously maintain the popularity of P5X. Then during the public beta period, it was even more generous, and the large-scale linkage with the original P5 was determined early, as well as the cross-border linkage with many brands, and even the large screens in many cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, colleges and universities, and subway stations have appeared in P5X.
It is not difficult to see that the efforts to maintain word-of-mouth and user ecology, and the large-scale investment in publicity before and after the launch, all show that Perfect is running the long-term high-quality operation route.
In the days before the game was launched, P5X players can be said to be fully active, and players outside the circle have more or less paid attention to the launch of the first heavyweight second game this year. From IP to new works, from creation to content, from inside the circle to outside the circle, P5X has enough confidence and has successfully reaped the current results.
When you come back to your senses, do you think that when will the old manufacturers who are deeply involved in the traditional track be able to make such products?
02 Review the Perfect World game
Speaking of perfection, in my inherent impression, they are one of the few veteran manufacturers that have gone through a 20-year history, but compared with the vigorous Shanghai cutting-edge, I subconsciously feel that the old manufacturers are more good at "seeking stability" and less "hard". However, since the birth of products such as Tower of Fantasy and P5X, the previous stereotype no longer holds.
Now, in my opinion, the P5X can be seen as the representative product of the perfect transformation, and this transformation is reflected in many ways.
The first is content transformation, P5X compared with earlier products, obviously greatly increased the weight of content. This not only refers to how good the story of the game is, but in order to improve the story, the overall level of the game has been raised in all aspects such as the underlying setting, core values, character design, story presentation, music support, and even gameplay coordination. P5X has obviously been able to intervene in the first echelon of content-based products in the current domestic market.
From desirelessness, to self-serving, to being human, the core ideas discussed by P5X have gone beyond the scope of ordinary mobile games
The second is service transformation, in the current era of "is a second game that is easy to be sprayed", the concept of "service users" can no longer be the same, P5X from the test to the launch, the control of word-of-mouth and user ecological operation, in fact, is more and more skilled, and rarely make mistakes. This ability is not only important for IP-adapted products and content-based games, but also for responding to the future public opinion environment.
The third is the transformation of the track, in fact, since 7 or 8 years ago, Perfection has been moving closer to a younger and more diversified track. Two-dimensional, open-world, and even incubated creative single-player games, slowly developed to the present, they have gradually changed from specializing in traditional tracks to becoming familiar with emerging tracks.
From the perspective of the product matrix, the two-dimensional "Tower of Fantasy", "P5X", "One Punch Man: World", and "Perverse Million King Arthur: Ring" are all products that pursue higher specifications, emphasize youthfulness, and focus on content.
One Punch Man: The World
In addition, a series of products such as "Zhuxian World", "Zhuxian 2", "Codename New World", "Codename YH", "Codename Z", "Spirit Cage", "Light Ink Cloud Town" and other products of the traditional track also cover multiple categories.
In addition, in terms of technology and distribution decisions, Perfect is also adding to the direction of new engines, AI, multi-terminal, and global synchronization, and the strategy of promotion and publicity is also gradually migrating to ways and platforms that are more acceptable to young people through trial and error of new products.
Unconsciously, "Tower of Fantasy" took the lead in opening up the link of the two-dimensional open world category, and then there were new products such as P5X to "lift the table" for the track of IP to change mobile games. Now it seems that the label "old" is no longer suitable for perfection.
03 After that, it's time for you to perform
In my opinion, the idea of "content + service + multi-terminal globalization" will be easier to mix in the future market.
First of all, in the stock environment, users have been washed too much, and they will naturally pay more attention to what they want, rather than what the market rolls. During this period, some users who are out of reality are expected to be cooled down, and a user with stronger independent judgment will be value-added. In this case, products that don't focus on content and services will be phased out more quickly.
Secondly, word-of-mouth and intentions are too important for the long-term product line. Users have passed the era when manufacturers believe whatever they say, and without real word-of-mouth support, any gorgeous packaging is empty talk. The current public opinion can easily overturn all products that can't withstand the wind and waves, unless the player has no choice, otherwise it will overturn, and the changes in the second game market in 2023 are a bloody lesson.
Relatively speaking, content that meets user expectations + sincere enough service can avoid "being quickly eliminated" and "being coerced by public opinion" in most cases, and multi-terminal distribution can slowly migrate users to the PC side to a certain extent, and then cultivate its own ecology (closed loop of community, channel, and capital collection), and at the same time, the practice of global synchronous issuance can also further flatten the risk and provide application scenarios for long-term diversification.
On the whole, it is very important to choose the right strategy for themselves, not to mention that the transformation has been in place and thriving in the past few years, but through trial and error and accumulation step by step, they have now mastered the way to survive in the new market stage, which is enough to be called successful.
Compared with copying other people's strategies, it is always better to dig and accumulate a skill that suits you, and now the manufacturers who are at the forefront of the market, both at home and abroad, have a process of accumulation and trade-offs. Now, it has perfectly got rid of the label of "traditional", and has played the "bomb" "Persona: Phantom of the Night" after "Tower of Fantasy", and has gradually secured the front row of the second tour track, so it is the turn of the potential stocks in 2024 to show their talents.