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In the field of interactive video games, Interactive Imaging Technology is one of the pioneers and leaders. Since the explosion of "It's Over! I'm Surrounded by Beautiful Women!", Huying has also ushered in new development opportunities. More and more partners are beginning to seek cooperation with Huying Technology to jointly develop new interactive projects.
Entertainment Capital interviewed Peng Yan, the founder of Shadow Technology. He introduced that last year's "Finished" and "Flying Over Room 13" both entered the top 10 of the domestic sales list on the Steam platform, and many people who do interactive content are more confident, and this popularity has also had a positive impact on Huying.
Talking about the company's current market challenges, it is exploring how to use AI technology to enhance user interaction experience and improve user retention, such as continuing and deepening the interaction between players and characters through AI virtual companionship. He also believes that mobile, IP serialization and technological innovation will be the key factors to promote the development of the industry, and interactive video games will usher in a new content explosion.
"We are exploring the new frontier of film and gaming with our products"
Entertainment Capital: After the explosion of "Finished" and "Flying Over Room 13", what impact did it have on you?
The founder of Huying Technology, Yan Peng (the same below):
This wave is good for us.
Since the first day of our establishment, we have been accumulating infrastructure capabilities while making products, including game design, technology development, and publishing and operation capabilities, hoping to empower our peers. Last year, "Finished" and "Flying Over Room 13" both entered the top 10 of the domestic sales list on the Steam platform, and many people who do interactive content are more confident, and they want to participate in this industry by cooperating with us.
When it was the hottest in November last year, many MCN companies and film and television companies approached us, and their usual casting teams went to the beauty pageant for projects like "Finished".
There are also some companies that have asked us to cooperate in spy war, ancient costume, suspense, thriller, female and other types of interactive video games, and we have cooperated with more than half of the top projects in the industry. Basically, they do the theme and shooting, and we are responsible for game design and technical development and distribution. Both parties can invest together, or we can invest in the main investment. Some projects that have been launched or are about to be launched have Huying Technology behind them.
At the beginning of this year, we jointly released the first two-player interactive video game "Spy in Pairs" with China Literature Group and Shanghai Film Group, which was launched in the first half of this year, and later we jointly released "Codename: New World" interactive film game with Shanghai Film Group and Holovis, which is expected to be launched by the end of this year. All in all, we have signed dozens of new products with our partners at the beginning of the year, and we expect that many projects will be launched this year.
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of the many types of "Finished" projects launched this year?
There are too many "finished" genres that focus on beautiful women falling in love, just like chili fried chili peppers, and it is very boring if you eat too much. That's one of my feelings that I've been feeling particularly strongly lately. Beauty is just an element, it can't support a project independently, there is no good plot, only appearance, this is not a sustainable content direction.
Entertainment Capital: How do you use AI to empower interactive video games?
In a game similar to "Finished", the follow-up retention of users is relatively average, and we will use AI technology in follow-up projects to increase the follow-up retention of users. It allows users to continue to interact with the character through AI virtual companionship, which will have common memories between you and the character, such as where you have been before. In this way, the emotions that users have for the characters in the game in the early stage can continue to be extended. This is called emotional precipitation from a product perspective, and value-added payment from a business perspective.
In a certain interactive movie game product we tested overseas, because of the addition of the AI interactive virtual companion function, 63% of the paying users chose to purchase the paid option with the ability of AI interactive virtual companionship, and the retention rate reached 31% the next day, and the top 100 users in the interactive ranking, the total number of text chat interactions reached 8421 per capita, which is very exaggerated.
The class "Finished" is like "chili fried chili"
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of the development of the "Finished" category?
The success of "Finished" is at the right time and place, and it is difficult to replicate. A single project in the interactive video and game category sells tens of millions, and there is a way to follow the long-term income in 3-5 years, but it is difficult to sell hundreds of millions if you want to. As long as the cost is well controlled, it is very cost-effective. Its long-tail effect is like a movie, and even after the release date, everyone will still find some old movies to watch on the weekend.
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. The life cycle of such a product can be three to five years. And it's different from games, games require various operating costs, but interactive video games don't, except for some server costs, and the follow-up continuous operating costs are controllable.
Entertainment Capital: Will there be an information gap?
Many people don't know about this track, such as users can get a refund within two hours, what are Steam's review conditions, what age group is your product suitable for, how to get the global recommendation position, and 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.
Entertainment Capital: So what do you think of the proportion of beautiful women in interactive content?
Because Steam users account for more than 75% of men, since they are male users, the beauty element is definitely liked by male players. Just like the successful "Invisible Guardian", the essence is spy war + beauty, users will remember the amorous Zhuang Xiaoman and the pitiful Muto Junko; But it is true that beauty is only one of the elements, 100% beauty is not advisable, and the product still needs to have a good topic and a solid script.
Many people feel that the threshold is not high.
Actually, no, the threshold is still quite high, it's not that simple. Otherwise, this wave of beauty projects should all run out.
Entertainment Capital: Do the projects that go online lose a lot?
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 the competition in beauty film games is very large.
In recent times, there have been more beautiful film and game projects launched than all interactive video games in history. To sum up, there are too many interactive video games for beautiful women, and too few real interactive video games. There is still a lot of room for non-beautiful interactive video games.
The Future of Interactive Video Gaming: Mobile, IP and Technology
Entertainment Capital: How to distribute interactive video games?
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" became popular all over the Internet because of his disgust with other people's access to the Internet, and a large number of well-known game anchors who love to play games were afraid of "Principal Yang", and a large number of second-creation videos were generated on the Internet, and the videos had a high popularity at station B. The production team took advantage of the situation to carry out various activities such as "Principal Yang's Room Rounds Game Anchor", so that Mr. Zhang, the actor of the villain role at that time, could connect with the game anchor.
Entertainment Capital: Is there a difference between publicity and distribution platforms?
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 of re-dissemination. Last year, the video of "Flying Over Room 13" produced by UP was viewed more than 15 million times, ranking third among all game areas of Station B last year. Douyin is also very important, with high traffic and many users. Relevant data shows that if a user swipes a product slice 6-8 times in a row, the purchase intention is extremely high.
It seems that the path of film game distribution has not yet been verified.
At present, it is more about cooperation, because of the natural interactivity of interactive video games, so that users like to interact with the content, so whether it is a second creation video, or the anchor's live broadcast can get better data performance, so we are currently cooperating with game anchors and UP masters to explore the mutual benefit and win-win situation of everyone.
In general, the core of interactive video games is content, not games and gameplay. Players need to find resonance with memes and secondary content outside the product. So if you're purely 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.
Entertainment Capital: What do you think are the main problems in the industry?
The video industry is essentially different from the game industry, the game industry is a small user pool with a very high payment depth (except for some national-level games), and the video industry is a large user pool, and it is relatively easy to exceed 100 million playbacks, but the ARPPU value is relatively low. Now the core of the video industry is not to reduce costs and increase efficiency, it does not lack production capacity, but how to make money. For example, after adding the form of interaction, can it provide a richer and more personalized experience, and can the value of the video be better recognized by users?
Entertainment Capital: Where are the opportunities for the future development of the film and game industry?
The first is mobile, the second is IP, 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 capital of word-of-mouth and sales, and the mobile side has greater monetization imagination. Film games can be series, through the accumulation of IP and methodology, to improve the profit margin of the overall project, just like the movies "Ex" and "Detective Chinatown", 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 audience plays Li Xiaoyao and travels through countless worlds to save the heroine. While AI produces content, it is also precipitating methodology, and I hope to empower this to my 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 process of this conversation, a large amount of personalized data can also be generated, which can further give users a more personalized content experience. Huying is cooperating with a number of large-scale model companies to explore "native AI content" by using the unique and strong interactivity of interactive content.
We have opened up these features to our partners and are constantly evolving.