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On April 16, after interviewing more than a dozen practitioners, Entertainment Capital released an investigative article "From 1,000 yuan to 80 million, is the "finished" game a new way to get rich?", which describes the situation of a number of "finished" games on the market, the development path, the existing problems, and the methodology explored by the creators, the core points of which are as follows:
1. Interactive video games are an incremental market, mainly released on Steam, with a large review scale, and the market is an incremental space.
2. 2 million can make a C-end oriented work, film games are a cutting-edge new form of content, and the commercial prospects are considerable.
3. Users on Steam are concentrated, and the ability to obtain information is strong, and good video and game works are easier to get attention.
4. Players can get a different experience from other works of art in interactive film and television, with a deeper and stronger sense of immersion and experience.
5. The success of "Finished" made people outside the industry feel that they had found a new direction and gave people in the industry confidence. Many people suddenly have a reference template and "dare to do it". From October last year to February this year, financing was relatively easy, with more than 100 projects, including preparatory projects.
6. Before "Finished", the public would think that interactive film games were more inclined to film and television production, but the feedback from Steam players made creators see the importance of games.
7. In film and television dramas, many people who do ancient costume palace fights, house fights, delays, etc., want to revitalize old works in the form of film games.
8. The core of "Finished" is to give users positive emotional value.
Today, this article will continue to launch the second part of the survey, which will focus on the Steam mechanics of "finished" games, the future development, how to carry out distribution marketing, how to integrate with AI, brands and other industries, and other topics.
"Spend the most expensive cost to get all Asian otaku on the bus"
"I'm here to flip the table, and I'm ready to eat this bowl of rice. ”
In October last year, Zhou Ze, a film and television drama producer in Hangzhou, finished playing the game "I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women!" on Steam at the recommendation of a friend.
After that, Zhou Ze poured himself a cup of tea and sat in the office thinking for two hours, "The film market is shrinking, dramas are working for the platform, and the short drama policy is unclear, why don't I do interactive film games?"
With the purpose of understanding the market, Zhou Ze traveled to most of China in the next two months and participated in a number of interactive film and game activities. In November, at an event in Shanghai, he met Chaoyang, the game's producer.
Chaoyang used to work in a Japanese game company, participated in the development and promotion of many games, and his daily hobby is to play games in addition to watching movies, he said to Entertainment Capital, "I want to open a new career pit, interactive film and games are a new category in the domestic game industry, very interesting." ”
Out of a common interest in the interactive film and game track, Zhou Ze and Chaoyang came together and developed the live-action interactive video stand-alone game "Sisters are Peerless".
The protagonist of the project is in the casting, in addition to the beauties with ethnic minority characteristics in Yunnan, Xinjiang and other places in China, a lot of money was also spent to invite well-known sexy actresses from Japan, Thailand and other countries, similar to Wu Qingya in Thailand. During the filming, the project also traveled to Japan, Thailand, and the mainland, and was shot with film-level production standards.
When asked how to position the project of "Sisters", Zhou Ze simply said the opening words. And the reason why you dare to spend a lot of money. Behind this, it is not only the hardness of production, the confidence in the project, but also the certainty of revenue and the optimism of the interactive film and game track.
"Our actor selection takes into account the entire Asian otaku group, and even men around the world, they all have fans, and in terms of personality, they can meet the preferences of different men, motorcycle women, cute women, sexy treasures, we have everything you want. These people don't usually have a lot of voice on the Internet, but they have a strong ability to access information. Coupled with the sense of substitution and immersion of interactive video games, it is not difficult for them to spend more than 30 yuan to buy a game for more than ten hours. ”
Standing on the three-story building of Hangzhou's East Fourth Ring Road, Zhou Ze said calmly and confidently, "It is said that men's consumption is not as good as dogs, but you see that the automobile industry and the game industry have such a large output value, aren't all men supporting it? As long as you meet his preferences, let him spend money easily." ”
"Mutual, moving, shadowing, traveling, every point is important"
Before "Finished", the public would think that interactive video games were more inclined to "games", that is, game development "Invisible Guardian" and "Flying Over Room 13" were all film game products with heavy gameplay. The gameplay of "Finished" is very simple and the threshold is low, so many film and television teams see the opportunity, so they enter the development of a large number of finished products.
When talking about his quasi-"Finished" project, Su Ming, who was born in an online drama, said that his biggest regret was that he did not find a partner for a game, "I think about spending money to find someone from a game company to cooperate, it's the same, right." In fact, no, in this kind of relationship between Party A and Party B, I don't ask many questions, people don't talk about it, and I fill in the pit myself. ”
In March of this year, Su Ming's quasi-"finished" project "Don't Make Trouble with Your Ex" was in the advanced stage, and he found that many of the materials in it were not enough, the amount of interactive design content was not enough, the format was chaotic, and there were various problems when it was launched on Steam, which greatly delayed the progress of the project. He sighed, "You must find professional people to do professional things, and you must find people who understand games to cooperate with you when you do video games." ”
"These basic things, why don't they study them. "In the face of a variety of "finished" products that hit the street, Chaoyang complained that there are some film and game projects on the market that have made a lot of basic mistakes. For example, the game package is too big, the actors' makeup is too ugly, and in addition to the subjective perspective, there is also an objective perspective. ”
"A lot of people who play "Finished" are college students, the school network is not good, and the computer memory is not enough. If your app is too big, you're going to lose users. In addition, interactivity is very important to allow players to feel engaged enough to move from watching a story to experiencing it firsthand. And the movie makeup pursues realism, and the game is so good-looking. Movie games tend to favor the latter, and it is necessary to create a good atmosphere for players. ”
AI Mapping by Entertainment Capital
"Crossing the river by feeling the stones. Zhou Ze described the system design mechanism in "Sisters Peerless".
"When we first started doing it, we decided on the plot of the game mechanics first, and then we realized that the shadow was actually very important, and we started to think about the character setting again. ”
Regarding the design ideas, Zhou Ze concluded, "Normal dramas have a lot of reasonableness and logic. The game should have more surprises, such as how the protagonist died suddenly, suddenly had a car and a house, and there should be a reversal. Well, you have to give the player something unexpected and lead him into a new world. ”
Specific to the project, the creators bring positive value to players through character settings, so that players like the characters, and increase the difficulty for players through system settings, "The player's choice will affect the plot, and the difficult strategy is the game, and the setting is very cumbersome." ”
Now this batch of people who make "Finished" products are mostly people who do film and television. They regard the game setting as a branch script in film and television creation, that is, to give the protagonist AB two options somewhere, and the position is also called interactive screenwriter. Yang Sheng pointed out that "the choice is the hardest, because it involves the values of the protagonist, the feeling of the game, and whether he is willing to pay for the next section." ”
When Huiyi reviewed the process of project production, he also sighed that he should have cooperated with a professional game producer earlier, "At that time, with my enthusiasm, I felt that this game didn't seem to be complicated, because from the perspective of traditional film and television, it was nothing more than writing a few more branches in the script, shooting a few more times, and then it was easy to cut and cut in the later stage, and I found that there were many holes when I operated." ”
Keiichi admitted that he didn't understand Steam's rules, so he delayed a lot of time, "The steps have already been taken, and the rest is left to the market." I don't care about the gains and losses of the moment, everyone is a pioneer, and many people will definitely be buried. ”
"Many people don't know about this track, such as the user can refund within two hours, what are the review conditions of Steam, and what age group is your product suitable for." How to get the global recommendation position, when is the new product festival. I've also seen some good products but they didn't end up with good results, which is a pity. ”
In addition, Yan Peng specially reminded that "because Steam users account for more than 75% of men, since they are male users, the beauty element must be liked by male players." But beauty is only one of the elements, 100% beauty is not desirable, the product still needs to have a good topic and a solid script.
Now the core problem is: there are too many interactive video games for beautiful women, and too few real interactive video games.
Last year, Steam launched a total of more than 10,000 independent games, and under the category of domestic independent games with thousands of new products, "Finished" and "Flying" both ranked in the top 10 of the domestic sales list, indicating that compared with various types of stand-alone games, interactive video games still have category advantages and a lot of space.
But on the other hand, "Finished" has brought dozens of beautiful film games online, all of which are fighting on a very narrow track, and there are too few real interactive film games. There is still a lot of room for non-beautiful interactive video games. Yan Peng said.
The release is a "road not chosen"
Asked if he was worried about the cold of his work, Fu Hong admitted that the greater pressure came from publicity and distribution, "I have never been in contact with games for the promotion and distribution of film and television, and many of the people who make games have never done real people, so both sides are not reliable." It's embarrassing right now. ”
After the completion of "Finished" at the beginning of 2023, Yang Sheng once hit a circle of walls outside. Sometimes after 15 minutes of talking, they will be asked to leave, and no one will look favorably on them.
On the night of the naked hair's launch, Yang Sheng posted a circle of friends, to the effect that he had done a lot of work for the project, and hoped that everyone could support him more.
To his surprise, a few game bloggers tried it out that night. I heard that a certain anchor earned nearly one million from the live broadcast that night, and after word of mouth, players gathered, and "Finished" ushered in a splash of wealth.
How to publicize it specifically? Mutual Shadow is being explored.
"The distribution of interactive content is different from traditional films, television and games, and it is necessary to interact with users and do a good job in content marketing. ”
When "Flying Over" was launched, the villain in the game "Principal Yang" was backed by the prototype character, and a large number of well-known game anchors who loved to play games were afraid of "Principal Yang", and a large number of second-creation videos were generated on the Internet, and the video was played more than 15 million times on station B, ranking third in the game area of station B last year, and it was very popular. The production team took advantage of the situation to carry out various activities such as "Principal Yang's Room Rounds Game Anchor", so that the actors and game anchors at that time could connect to stimulate popularity.
Regarding the publicity platform, Yu Peng pointed out, "Station B is definitely the focus of Steam's publicity, Station B is very powerful in influencing the minds of users, and the stalks and barrages generated can become points for re-dissemination." Douyin is also very important, with high traffic and many users. Relevant data shows that if a user swipes a product 6-8 times in a row, the purchase intention is extremely high. ”
In general, the core of interactive video games is content, not games and gameplay. Players need to find resonance with memes and second-generation content outside of the product, "so if you're purely doing marketing, you can't make the project more interesting, you need a new way." Streaming, slicing, live broadcasting, and talent combinations all need to be used, and it needs to be a team, not an individual thing. We now announce similar projects almost every month and learn from them. ”
Yan Peng also pointed out that Huying has not yet treated interactive content as a game, and is more about cooperating with anchors, "You see that there are many beautiful anchors on Douyin, but there are not many good broadcasters." Game anchors broadcast more video and game content, and everyone is mutually beneficial and win-win. ”
"Publicity is always about how big the bowl is and how big the meal, we must first look at the online results, and then see if we want to increase the budget. Teiichi said.
And in this regard, the emperor now said that he stepped on the pit.
"Fame and Fortune Game" has made some publicity and distribution means in advance, put the prologue of the free version on the market, and also built a QQ group for private domain operation.
"Now there are a lot of users complaining that we don't advertise. In fact, the upfront budget is also limited. Our promotion is mainly applied and promoted on Steam, and if it sells well, it can have higher exposure and display. ”
After the later "Fame and Fortune Game" achieved good market results, the emperor began to put it on some UP masters, but the effect was not as expected, and it was still a little late, "After the DEMO version of "Fame and Fortune Game" was launched, the market was very hot, and I thought that it could be done by natural traffic. ”
In terms of release, "Sisters Elegance and Peerless" intends to buy out the publicity and distribution mode of stand-alone games, focusing on Steam fans. After that, the project will be released on PS5 and will also be released globally. In China, the project is considering launching mini programs and apps. Internationally, it will be released in different languages for Japan, South Korea, Thailand and other countries, "Men all over the world are our target users, especially in Asia. We are very good at quality. ”
The money of the present and the future, film and games can be "had"
In terms of publicity, "Sisters" will first focus on the core players on Steam, and then focus on the players who do console games. In terms of publicity steps, "first hit the popularity of the actors, they have fans, and arouse the conjecture of players." Then play the character design to meet the needs of different players and attract users. After the player buys the game, we will set up voting, card drawing, AI voice, offline meet-and-greet lottery in the game, and send goods. ”
Zhou Ze calculated an account for Entertainment Capital, "We will price 38 yuan a piece, there are 3 million Steam players in China, counting overseas, it is not a problem to sell more than 300,000, and it is easy to earn more than 10 million." ”
Hearing this, Xiaoyu suddenly felt that this was a business that would make money without losing money, but in fact, many games on Steam, let alone 300,000 copies, 30,000 are difficult. In this regard, Zhou Ze said that this is the result that these works deserve, "You can see that their cost is not high if you look at the poster, and many people are using the logic of film and television to challenge the game industry, and it is normal to do nondescript and hit the streets." ”
"Aren't you also from a film and television drama production background?"
In this regard, Chaoyang beside Zhou Ze said, "But I'm not, I'm making games." I had a lot of trouble with him in this project, and the gameplay was very important. It's essentially a matter of cooperation, and I have a stake in the project, so I'll raise a lot of questions, but if it's a part-time job, even if there's a problem with the game, I won't necessarily say it, and it's still my problem, so why bother to work for myself. ”
Wu Ming, the game producer, sighed to Xiaoyu, "After "Finished" became popular, many people realized that the "Finished" is like the outlet, from the selection of actors to the filming is very hasty, but they don't realize that interactive film games are a bigger outlet, and it is not a problem for good works to sell for three or five years. ”
A few years ago, Wu Ming was still in a hurry to find a team code plate to come out with a "finished" product, now that he thinks about it, Wu Ming feels that he was too anxious at that time, "Actually, we don't need to be in such a hurry to catch up with a certain node, I believe that if the quality is passed, it is not a problem to sell it on Steam and consoles for three or five years." ”
Compared with the various costs of official servers, on-demand, and servers, movie games have almost no operating costs, and they also have a long-tail effect.
Whenever a new love interactive video game product is launched, "Fortune Game" will have higher sales. Emperor Jin revealed, "This is also the benefit of the movie and game category, it has a strong long-tail effect, as long as your product is good, there will continue to be new users to pay attention to and buy." ”
Yan Peng also added, "It's been more than a year since "Flying Over Room 13" has been online. This year's Spring Festival stalls rushed to the first place on the list, with an income of millions, which is very impressive. Mainly because students are on vacation, there are always new students who are interested. ”
What's the next stop for the interactive video game?
Recently, Emperor Jin has been observing how other mini-program versions of movie and game products on the market are doing, and thinking about whether to develop a mini-program version of "Fame and Fortune Game": "If their feedback is good, we are happy to do it." Now the market is still too small, and many products have been launched this year, but there is no fame and fortune like "Finished". It takes a new phenomenal product to emerge to give us confidence. ”
Recently, there have been several female-dominated "Finished" games on the market, in this regard, Wu Ming pointed out, ""Love and the Producer" shows the strong consumption power of women, but the live-oriented "Love and the Producer" has been tepid. Women play games because they are dissatisfied with real men, and their receptivity to real people is low. ”
He also added, "But a man's requirements for the opposite sex are 60 points, as long as the plot is exciting enough, the feeling is enough, and the user is not left time to think, he will naturally pay after he goes up." Let's do a good job of the men's track first. ”
With a stable supply of content, a mature production team, and a relatively fixed audience, such a market can be called mature and healthy. Now, one of the dilemmas of interactive film parade is that only a few products have exploded over the years, and practitioners are even facing the dilemma of eating the last meal but not the next meal, not to mention the willingness to have new entrants to continue to produce content.
In addition to following products such as "Invisible Guardian" and "Finished", more interactive film and game practitioners are looking for a new direction and a new future.
He pointed out that there are three new directions for interactive video games in the future, one is mobile, the second is IP serial development, and the third is technology, such as the new content forms and business models brought by AI.
"The PC side is the basic disk, which protects the cost of word-of-mouth and sales, and the mobile side has more room for monetization. Film games can be series, through the accumulation of IP and methodology, to improve the profit margin of the overall project, just like the movie "Ex" and "Detective Chinatown" series, it doesn't matter if individual projects lose money, after accumulating fans and word of mouth, they can earn back through other projects. During the filming process, we will continue to update the content through fan feedback to improve production capacity. ”
InterShadow Technology is exploring the use of AI to empower video games.
In terms of text content production, AI is not good at writing novels, but AI is good at expanding and associating, and can assist in creation, and this kind of content is naturally suitable for interaction. Visually, AI is good at producing different picture styles and imaginations. Now, Huying is working on the AI interactive film game "Codename: Sword and Fairy: Across the Universe", which is a story in which the protagonist travels through countless worlds to find himself. While AI produces content, it is also precipitating methodology, and Juanpeng hopes to empower this to its peers.
In addition, now film and television dramas, novels and other content are one-way, but the interaction is two-way. AI can bring real interactive content like "Westworld", characters can give real personalized content based on player feedback, and players can bring a sense of control and play based on personalized choices.
In the process of interacting with the character, the player will also have feelings with the character, and when the player wants to continue to interact with the character, the AI can continue to talk to the player as the character. In the course of this conversation, a lot of useful data can also be generated. Huying is cooperating with AI companies to iteratively produce more and better content by means of data annotation.
Yang Sheng is now talking about cooperation with some AI companies, "AI companies hope to be able to directly target C-end users with the help of content." In the future, the boundaries of the content market will dissolve, and when users are exposed to content, they don't know whether this experience is a movie or a game. ”
In terms of content, Yang Sheng pointed out, "AI can bring real interactive content, its fun and danger are here, you don't know if it will change itself, and what kind of content it will produce." Players will not be able to distinguish between NPCs, real players, or AI in the game, and they will become more intelligent and have more options for their conversations with the characters in the game. In the past, we watched movies to find resonance in the director's story, and later we created the story ourselves. ”
In addition, many brands are also watching the market for interactive video games. Du Qing, the public relations officer of a jacket manufacturer, is recently looking for a partner to produce interactive film and game works, "Its audience can not only cover male users, which is in line with our product audience, but also is expected to break the circle and radiate more audiences." In the past, we spent money to make a brand and couldn't hear it, and if it's gone, it's gone, but now we can still leave works for money, which is worth trying. ”
"For most people, it's hard to make a big leap forward after exploring the end of the real world in their twenties and thirties. But people can continue to explore in the virtual world. ”
Regarding the further future, Huiyi believes that it is a world where VR, AR and interactive video games are combined, "In fact, our current image products, whether they are in the direction of more immersive and substitution, are evolving in the direction of more immersion and substitution. Interactive video games are made for technology. If ChatGPT is combined with Saro, can it directly allow players and NPCs to have personalized and customized conversations? ”
"The future is fascinating, right?" Teiichi said, "but it can also be confusing and confusing, and it's a long way to go, and we're exploring it up and down." ”