Under the gold fever, some people are buying worthless placer gold.
The game "Honkai: Star Dome Railway", a game owned by the Shanghai company miHoYo, has launched version 2.1, and the portrayal of the new character Dust Gold in the main story line is full and moving, making many players become fans of the character. Another unexpected result is that due to the game's plot "popularization" of gemological knowledge - aventurine looks like jadeite, but the price difference is huge, so players are interested in this unpopular gemstone. Many players were attracted by the game characters and took the initiative to buy aventurine - which is commonly known as aventurine jade, and created their own game peripherals, driving the sales of this cheap gemstone to skyrocket.
Recently, many FMCG and game co-branded peripheral products such as milk tea have created sales miracles. Ordinary aventurine has also become a sought-after commodity because it has been endowed with cultural added value, which makes people sigh at the consumption traction of the cultural industry.
In the eyes of some industry insiders, behind the popularity of "gold dust" is a spontaneous operation of cultural and creative laws, and the linkage between culture and commerce can form artistic, contemporary and high value-added products. Just as cultural and creative ice cream drives the consumer goods category of ice cream to fly high with cultural wings, how to capture the direction of cultural creativity from the consumption enthusiasm of young people and empower cultural creativity for a larger industry is a topic worth considering.
Popular game with fire unpopular gems
Since April, many jade and cultural entertainment merchants have found that orders for aventurine jade sand gold have suddenly skyrocketed. "Before, the order sales of Green Tanglin were ordinary, and they were not as much as obsidian. Yesterday there was a lot more suddenly.,It turned out to be your game update.,The new character is called Placer Gold.。 "Players buy too much, and the merchants finally find out the secret.
Gold dust from Honkai: Star Railway
"Honkai: Star Dome Railway" is a new work launched by miHoYo last year, which topped the list of free apps in Apple stores in 113 countries and regions around the world on the day of pre-download, and surpassed "Genshin Impact" to top the overseas revenue list in the second month of its launch. At the end of last year, "Honkai: Star Railway" won three world-class game awards in a row: TGA (The Game Awards) Best Mobile Game of the Year, Apple Store's 2023 Game of the Year, and Google Play's 2023 Game of the Year.
On March 27, the 2.1 version of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" was launched, and the suspenseful main plot was well received by players. Due to the plump character creation of the placer and the empathy of players, many people can't help but want to own the aventurine that is not an official merchandise.
In the game, jadeite is used to pretend to be placer gold to hide from the sky and the sea
In the game, jadeite is used to pretend to be placer gold to hide from the sky and the sea
The reporter found that on the Taobao platform, a goose-shaped aventurine used to pave the bottom of fish tanks and flower pots is sold for only a few yuan, but because of its similarity with the aventurine props that appear in the game, it has attracted a large number of consumers to buy. The reporter saw in a store that 54 people bought this pebble within 24 hours, and judging by the comments, many of them were gamers. Some people have expressed their intention to distribute the pebbles as "no-material" (free goods) at Comic-Con. On Xiaohongshu, there are also many players who create their own gold placer accessories to sell in groups. Some people wrap the stone with silver wire to make a necklace pendant, while others polish the aventurine into the same hexagonal dice as in the game, and the character's logo elements are printed on it, which looks quite beautiful.
After discovering that the aventurine exploded, some sensitive stores did their "homework" and marked the products with labels such as "Little Peacock" - this is the ridicule of the gold placers by other characters in the game, and wished netizens "no crooked" - that is, they can successfully draw the desired role. There are also merchants who attach the famous lines of gold dust in the game to the product introduction: "I let fate turn the roulette, make a desperate bet, traversing the dead and then reborn". Some merchants who make aventurine jewelry are too late to make due to the influx of a large number of instantaneous orders, and even call on buyers, "There is no inventory when you buy again, and I hope you can buy on demand and place orders rationally."
Aventurine sales skyrocketed
"In fact, aventurine is not too unpopular, and it was often used as an imitation of jadeite in the past. Jewelry designer Zhong Han told the Jiefang Daily Shangguan News reporter.
This year, Zhong Han was the instructor of the new jewelry appreciation and hand-made design class of the Shanghai Citizen Art Night School, which introduced 12 common jewelry materials in daily life, popularized the methods of authenticity to students, and created their own jewelry works. According to the lesson plan, the ninth lesson will mention aventurine when introducing jadeite, and how to tell the difference. This is exactly what many netizens are concerned about.
On Xiaohongshu, there has been a lot of discussion about how to choose and buy aventurine and what kind of price is reasonable to buy. Some people are afraid to buy dyed non-natural aventurine; some people feel that this cheap gemstone does not have to worry about encountering fakes, "good aventurine jade is used to make fake jadeite"; and some people complain that some unauthorized aventurine around the design premium is high, "run away when you encounter a pendant that sells for 300 yuan".
Aventurine sales skyrocketed
"The density of the two gemstones is different, and with the same shape and size, the jadeite will be heavier. If it is identified by the naked eye, the color of aventurine is usually pale green, which looks foggy and has the oily feeling of white jade, while jadeite has a strong vitreous luster. In Zhong Han's opinion, it is not difficult to distinguish between the two gemstones, but it is better to look at the real thing. "The pictures on the Internet often have a large color difference, and jade often has a price for one color. She reminds players to pay attention to the difference in quality when choosing aventurine, although the price of this gemstone is relatively low, there are also merchants who artificially beautify it by dyeing or injecting it to increase the price.
"The same is aventurine jewelry, dozens of yuan, hundreds of yuan, a little better can be bought within a thousand yuan", Zhong Han said, it is difficult to give a unified standard for the reasonableness of the price of gemstone jewelry, "the same affordable stone, meet a powerful designer can also obtain high cultural added value, which is the 'premium' of design creativity." ”
Good content drives consumption growth
"The sudden increase in sales of aventurine is essentially the player's recognition of character building. This fully proves that the story is well told and the characters are well shaped, which can indeed drive consumption, and miHoYo has embarked on a path that does not drive consumption with values. "Player Lin Fei plans to go to the Shanghai Museum of Natural History to buy aventurine with a budget of about 1,000 yuan, on the one hand, he hopes to get better jade quality, and on the other hand, he has emotional needs," When "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" and Lao Fengxiang linked, the character of "Danheng Drinking Moon" co-branded gold ticket was priced at 899 yuan. The price of buying placer gold cannot be lower than his. ”
The creation of the gold dust character has aroused the empathy of many players
The low price but the beautiful luster comparable to jadeite is the characteristic of aventurine. In the game, the plot and character building make full use of this feature. With the help of multi-line storytelling, in the game, players substitute from a first-person perspective to experience and feel the story of gold dusting. Dusting gold was born as a slave, relying on 100% "luck" to gamble with fate again and again, and eventually became a senior executive of Interstellar Peace. When they saw the dust gold who used himself as a bargaining chip to "gamble" to complete the task and said goodbye to his childhood self with a high five, many players couldn't help but "tear up".
"Placer gold is lucky, but this kind of luck is a kind of luck that is put to death and reborn", some players have verified that the prototype of the placer gold is a gypsy, and many players are more aware of the deep meaning of game planning when buying placer stone. Someone ran to several cultural stores and found that there were no aventurine jewelry sales, the store introduced, "Tanglin jade is too soft, easy to scratch, generally no one uses it to make jewelry, are made into larger ornaments." "It looks like an emerald gem, but it's actually beautiful and fragile", which is the same feeling as the characters in the game. Some people also think of the setting of 100% luck in the gold dust, hoping that the gold aventurine jewelry they bought can bring good luck to themselves.
The player's "invalid memories and long songs" said, "The gold dust is the product created by miHoYo with that set of must-explode character formulas. Placer gold, which was born under the real historical prototypes, professional dubbing and art performances, as well as the most popular modern topics of existence and nihilistic philosophy, has a real life in my eyes. ”
"I wouldn't have even considered buying aventurine before, I didn't even know there was such a thing. Lin Fei said, "Isn't the value of gemstones given by people?"
"Jadeite is a large category of jade that has been popular since ancient times. You can see a lot of jadeite cultural relics in the museum, which has rich cultural connotations. Placer gold and agate belong to the same quartzite jade family, on the one hand, the audience is small, on the other hand, it has not yet formed such a profound cultural attribute as jadeite. In Zhong Han's view, it is a good thing for the game character to bring hot and cold aventur. Prior to this, with the popularity of new Chinese clothing and jewelry, the popularity and price of aventurine have increased. "Aventurine is more affordable and is often used as a button design or ornament for new Chinese clothing. It is hoped that through the popularity of the game, more designers will pay attention to aventurine, bring more and better aventurine jewelry designs, and meet the aesthetic and consumer needs of young people. ”
"Because of the role of placer gold, aventurine jade has 'culture' since then. One player said.
During this year's "May Day", "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" will hold the "Star Railway LIVE" concert and the "Star Railway LAND" carnival at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center and the National Convention and Exhibition Center. Games, not only in the virtual world, bring greater cultural imagination and consumer attraction. The story of "turning stones into gold" is exactly a scoop.
Title picture source: the game's official public account
Source: Author: Zhong Han Shi Chenlu