Text | Garlic jelly corner
On the one hand, "Infinite Warmth", which explores the open world, announced the start of testing, and on the other hand, "Food Language", which has been in operation for four years, announced the discontinuation of the service, and the female game market is changing.
After the launch of "Love and the Producer" caused a high degree of popularity, the needs of female players have finally been paid attention to by the industry, and women's games, especially otome games, have entered a period of rapid development, and a large number of handsome and different male characters have been created.
However, as more and more manufacturers "free ride", the problem of female-oriented games is becoming more and more obvious, it is difficult to have distinctive character settings, and simple but boring gameplay are making female-oriented games change from the original surprise brought by freshness to the mediocrity of normalization without surprises.
However, this year, some manufacturers have finally found a new direction to move forward, and the industry has been able to move from the "sideways" of volume art to a healthier development path.
The dress-up game is on top, and the old routine fails
Last year, the performance of women in the game market was not bright enough compared with the past, "Love and the Producer", "The Painted Traveler in Time and Space", "Love and Night Love", and "The Book of Undetermined Events" all entered a period of stable operation, and the new game "Shaking Light Record" on Station B did not have much impact, but the new game "In the Name of Shining" became a dark horse.
According to the turnover statistics of the conversion of the comprehensive ratio of iOS, Android, and PC by the UP main cyber egg tart 9527 of station B combined with Qimai data, in 2023, "In the Name of Shining" and "Love of Light and Night" in the flow of women's mobile games far exceed other similar games in the first and second places respectively, and the core gameplay of "In the Name of Shining" is to change clothes and build social, and "Shining Warmth", which ranks third in the flowing water, is also a dress-up game.
Although women's spending power to users in the game track is not all reflected in the krypton side of the game, but also includes the peripheral "grain" outside the game, the game flow can more intuitively present the player's attitude towards a game. In other words, falling in love with a paper man is not as attractive as it used to be.
In the past, it is not so surprising that Yi You, who has dominated the women-oriented track, has been put on the throne by the dress-up game.
First, Yiyou has entered a serious routine. No matter how the male character is developed, it is basically impossible to avoid the crossover combination of common settings such as cold, gentle, black-bellied, and poisonous tongue.
Although each game will have a different world view, the player's experience starts with ordinary people, and as the story game progresses, they meet different male characters, intersect as companions or opponents, and finally enter a long-term and sustainable relationship. Although players can enjoy the joy of "choosing a concubine" in the game, chatting with this one today and making an appointment with that tomorrow, even if they are tired of changing games and continuing to meet new characters from scratch, the repetition of the experience is inevitable.
Second, the singleness of the gameplay is further exacerbating the aesthetic fatigue of players towards B-game. In addition to the immersive love when watching the plot, there is only unchallenging repetitive labor when there is no plot, and no plot and no activity time is the norm of the game, and player fatigue can almost be said to be doomed.
The core selling point of women to the game is actually to provide emotional value, and love can indeed make most female players fall in love with it, but women are not only concerned about how to gain the favor of others, especially at the moment when women's ideology is significant, and paying more attention to their own underlying logic is also the reason why dress-up games can be successful.
In a dress-up game, most players will refer to the main character as a daughter or baby, and at the level of collecting and buying new clothes for the character, it is not only to dress up another girl, but also to project personal aesthetic expression and personal expectations. In the dress-up game, players don't need to raid others, but to satisfy themselves, driven by such emotional values, it is reasonable to constantly spend money on beautiful new clothes that they like can surpass krypton gold for male characters.
Adding actionability to the game for women may be just the first step
In the comment area where "Food Language" announced the closure of the server, it is basically the accusations of players, who believe that the game manufacturer took the initiative to reduce krypton gold points in order to concentrate resources on another game, and forced the game to close the server by letting the turnover slide naturally. Regardless of whether the manufacturer has such a plan for the time being, it seems to be a more "correct" choice to stop the routine B game, last year, including "Painting Jun Yan between Flowers", "Bright Star Journey", "Zhong Zhijing" and many other small factory traditional B games have announced the suspension of service, and the crowded track has begun to be eliminated at the end.
In our opinion, the emotional value that B game provides to female gamers is important enough, but the gameplay must evolve to keep up with the needs of the market. For some small factories, it is unrealistic to add new gameplay to the game from the code level, and stopping may be the only option, as for how to appease the emotions of old players, and provide additional services for their needs and demands, it reflects the attitude of a game company towards players, and it is obviously the best policy to treat players as ATMs.
From "Miracle Nuan Nuan" to "Shining Nuan Nuan" to "Infinite Nuan Nuan", each of them has technical or gameplay innovations, guiding players to gradually migrate from old games to new games, such a strategy is obviously more clever and effective.
In particular, this year's "Infinite Warmth" has changed the idea of a female-oriented game that is all the operation at your fingertips, and added open-world adventure elements, stronger plot and updated gameplay, which can make this dress-up game have enough differentiating advantages. Different costumes have different adventure functions, allowing players to collect costumes with multi-dimensional driving force, and exploring the world can also further enrich the world view of the "Nuan Nuan" IP, so that "Nuan Nuan" has the possibility of IP development.
Although judging from the current actual machine demonstration, the action of "Infinite Warmth" is not smooth enough, the model is slightly stiff, and it only integrates the gameplay that was more accepted by the market before, and there is no absolute innovation, but such a bold exploration is worthy of recognition.
Including the new female-oriented game "Love and Deep Space", which is also a paperfold, adds action elements on the basis of the continuation of the "Love and" IP, so that players can fight with the male characters in the game. In the face of female players with insufficient operation ability in the conventional impression, "Love and Deep Space" has specially added the setting of male characters to resist attacks for players, and added "heartbeat points" while reducing the player's operation.
Of course, adding operability isn't the only way for women to evolve into gaming, but making it more enjoyable for female gamers is definitely the future. It is true that the responsibility for this situation should not be shifted to the game manufacturers, but to explore and serve the diverse needs of women as players is something that game companies that want to continue to move forward on this track.
At a time when the market for women is changing, changes in the market landscape will be inevitable if we continue to ignore the player base like an ostrich.
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