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With the continuous innovation and development of the digital entertainment industry, interactive video games, as a new form of entertainment that integrates elements of film and television, are gradually entering people's field of vision. As a realistic interactive film and game work, "Fame and Fortune Game" has attracted widespread attention and discussion.
Recently, Entertainment Capital interviewed Emperor Jin, the director of "Invisible Guardian" and "Game of Fame and Fortune", who shared his creative experience and insights on the development of the interactive film and game industry, and also pointed out the challenges and dilemmas faced by the industry. He looks forward to the emergence of new explosive models in the industry to drive the development of the entire market.
The Game of Fame and Fortune is a work of realism
Entertainment Capital: When did you start in the interactive video game industry?
"Fame and Fortune Game" director Emperor Jin (the same below):
In 2015, I saw 428: Lockdown Shibuya, a live-action photo interactive game taken from Japan, and became interested in interactive works. After that, he successively filmed a number of live-action interactive short dramas to accumulate experience, and in 2019, he made the hit "Invisible Guardian". At the beginning of last year, "Hurricane" exploded, and I wanted to tell a story like Gao Qiqiang who kept making choices and growing up all the way, and launched the work "Fame and Fortune Game".
Entertainment Capital: Did the explosion of "Finished" have any impact on you?
The reputation of "Invisible Guardian" is so good, and the production is also at the top level, I don't dare to touch the same theme easily, thinking about whether this is the only way to be recognized? At that time, the market was in a downturn for a long time, and we also experienced a lot of doubts. But "Finished" opened my eyes to new possibilities. The mentality of many practitioners around me is that they have finally stood up, and everyone is visibly more confident.
Entertainment Capital: Can you tell us about "The Game of Fame and Fortune"?
"The Game of Fame and Fortune" mainly tells the story of the protagonist who relies on his own efforts to grow into a big man.
In this story, the protagonist has a lot of upbringing and choices, which is suitable for interaction. There will also be a lot of handsome men and beautiful women in the relationship between the characters, which can attract users. And it has realistic attributes, which can be thought-provoking, and the product has a long-tail effect.
After "It's Over", our script has been finalized, and we didn't deliberately emphasize the sense of love in the work, but generally told the story and the protagonist's own growth.
The product began to be prepared for filming in November last year and was launched in February, and the whole process was quite smooth and fast. Mainly because I have made similar products in the early stage, I also hope to catch up with the popularity of "Finished", launch it quickly, and also look at the market feedback and effect, and prepare for the next one.
Entertainment Capital: What are the characteristics of the production of this work?
"Fame and Fortune Game" narrates from the first perspective and game thinking, the story unfolds from the perspective of the male protagonist, and the user and the protagonist know the information synchronously, which will make many traditional film and television narrative techniques such as hiding clues, shaking baggage, and montage fail. Some of the episodes involve foreshadowing, and we can only reveal the information in the form of dialogue.
The advantage of this is that the user has a strong sense of substitution, and the protagonist and the audience in front of the screen have the same information. As interactions increase, users are increasingly able to empathize with the game's protagonists. Another thing we focus on is how to increase player feedback. Players will be rewarded if they choose correctly, and there will be a penalty for choosing wrong, and the system will prompt you how to modify your learning. In addition, the side quests can also make the characters fuller, allowing the player to align with the flow of the protagonist in each choice.
Entertainment Capital: What's the main storyline?
The protagonist grows along the way, but also keeps losing, the main line is more realistic and cruel, and the side lines will be more fantasy and fairy tales.
"We will read the comments of fans and accept them sincerely"
Entertainment Capital: What are your main audiences?
Users who like real human interaction, plot, and beauty games extend out layer by layer, and then there are mass users.
Entertainment Capital: Do you think the audience of Bilibili will overlap more with the users of your game?
Some of the UP masters of station B have made videos of "Fame and Fortune Game", which can reach users on Steam more than the UP masters of Douyin, it may be that there are more console game users on station B to better reach users, but the traffic is not good enough. Douyin traffic is better, but it is more difficult to reach Steam, maybe this problem will be solved after Douyin launches the mini program version of the movie game.
Entertainment Capital: How do you publicize it?
We have put the prologue of the free version on the market, and also built a QQ group for private domain operation.
Now there are many users complaining that we are not promoting. In fact, the upfront budget is also limited. We still advertise mainly on Steam, and if it sells well, it can have higher exposure and display.
After the DEMO version of "Fame and Fortune Game" was launched, the market was very hot, and we thought that we could rely on natural traffic to do it.
In the later stage, I also tried to put it on the UP master, but the time was a little late, and the publicity budget was limited, so the effect was not as expected.
Entertainment Capital: Are there any new distribution plans now?
We need to move from Steam to the mass market, such as connecting to larger platforms like Douyin. When considering whether to launch a version of the Mini Program, this is also quite troublesome. We're also looking to see how other games are doing on Douyin, and if they give good feedback, we're happy to do it.
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of fan reviews?
The players of the movie game are very cute and simple, and if they like it, they will praise you vigorously, and if they don't like it, they will scold you for two days and two nights.
The surprise is that many users have done a lot of second creations for us, and the actors have also gained a lot of fans. The surprise is that everyone is resolutely resistant to the plot of the Minotaurs.
There will be some negative reviews among them.
At the beginning of the game, the male protagonist needs to sell his girlfriend to get a new chance to rise, and some players resolutely resist the plot of this kind of minotaur, and start to spray wildly, I think it's quite wronged. In fact, there are also sweet love stories, all of which are placed in the prologue, and the reason why the name of the prologue is called the ticket gate is actually to hope that players will be prepared, if they are not determined to pay the tickets, they will not enter Vanity Fair, and the prologue is free.
When I first designed it, I also considered designing the male protagonist as a plot abandoned by his girlfriend, but I was worried that it would become the cool text mode of the Dragon King's counterattack, so the male protagonist had a lot less tangled choices, in order to make players feel the torture of humanity and morality through the product more profoundly.
Entertainment Capital: If there is a plan, will there be a change in the creation?
If we could do it again, we would stick to the previous character design and story. However, a more comprehensive approach will be given, such as giving players more choices in the side quests, and more extensions to the parts related to the protagonist's soul torture, so that the player's acceptance can be higher.
"Whenever a new interactive video game product is launched, a good product will also benefit"
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of the current development of the film and game market?
A good market requires a stable supply of content, a mature production team, and a relatively fixed audience, which was not available in the film and game market in the past. One of the dilemmas of film games is that only a few products have exploded over the years, and practitioners are even faced with the dilemma of having eaten the last meal but not the next meal, not to mention the willingness to have new entrants to continue to produce content.
Now, these conditions are gradually forming in the movie and game market.
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of the explosion of the interactive video game market?
After "Invisible Guardian" became popular in 2019, many film and game producers who entered the game were not ready, and there were various problems with the epidemic and version number in the middle, and the whole market was very cold, the reason was that on the one hand, there was no mature creative methodology and high-quality product model, and on the other hand, the epidemic. Now, these issues are being resolved.
Entertainment Capital: What impact did "Finished" have on the market?
There are some people around me who do interactive video games, and there is a mentality that they are finally standing up. Everyone can see that the market is rejuvenating, and the probability of explosive models is also increasing.
After "It's Over" came out, many film and television, game, and short drama companies were entering the game. In the future, there will be many new and different forms of interactive film and television content, including spy warfare, love, and conspiracy.
Movie games have a good business model, ToC users, as long as they make products seriously, consumers can vote with money to pay for the products they like. Good products will spread by word of mouth, word-of-mouth fermentation, and fame and fortune will be gained. Bad products will also be eliminated after being verified by the market. This is a business format and business model that is necessary for a good industry.
In addition, the video industry has a very wide audience, and compared with traditional games, the characteristics of live-action shooting of film games can attract non-gamers to enter the pit, and the audience base is large.
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of the development of other competitors now?
In this market environment, there is no absolute competition between products, and each game experience lasts only five or six hours. Good products will borrow from each other, and whenever a good product brings new users to the industry, the previous good works will also be re-noticed.
Now the market is not mature enough, and users have not yet differentiated different categories before buying like watching movies. The class "Finished" will grow into an independent and mature category in the future, just like romance films, there will be a market if there are users.
Entertainment Capital: Are there any difficulties in the development of the industry now?
One is that there are not many people who are really willing to put their career future into this category now. If you want to do this, you need to learn a lot of knowledge about non-traditional industries, and you can't quite recruit the right people.
Second, the market is still gradually developing, and practitioners need to work together to create more business success stories, so that this market can gradually move towards the public eye.