On April 2, the idle idle RPG mobile game "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" published by China Literature Games was launched.
As an IP masterpiece, "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" has its own popularity, topping the free list on the first day and ranking 48th on the best-selling list. The next day, it maintained the top spot on the free list, reaching 37 on the best-selling list.
However, on the product side, the server was blown up when the server was opened, and netizens complained about the "picture quality" and "gameplay", and the TapTap score fell below 5.6 within an hour of opening the service, and the score has reached 3.7 points so far.
How does "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" perform? How does buying volume work with placement?
Today, DataEye Research Institute talks about the data of "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant".
For the sake of objectivity, this article will strictly distinguish between [Facts & Figures] and [DataEye Research Institute Views].
If you disagree with your views, you can only refer to the [Facts & Figures] section, and focus on your own opinions, see in the comment area.
1. Market performance
【Facts & Figures】
Diandian data shows that "Breaking the Sky: Three-Year Covenant" topped the iOS game free list on the day it was launched, and remained within the TOP20 as of April 6. In the iOS best-selling list, it ranked 37th highest.
(1) Download
In terms of downloads, Diandian data shows that from the launch of "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" to May 7, the number of downloads on iOS alone was 791,000.
(2) Income
In terms of revenue, from the launch of "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" to May 7, the estimated cumulative revenue of a single iOS channel exceeded 18 million yuan (deducting the platform's share).
[DataEye Research Institute]
Judging from the data performance, the results of "Breaking the Sky: Three-Year Covenant" in the first week of its launch were highlighted, and after that, the income and downloads tended to be stable. There are two reasons for this, DataEye Research Institute believes:
1. IP has strong appeal and emotional blessing.
As the first novel with more than 100 million hits at the starting point, "Breaking the Sky" has dominated the Baidu Billboard for 670 consecutive days, with a Baidu index of more than 3 million, a mobile reading base of 3.2 billion hits, and physical book sales of more than 10 million copies. The adaptation of the anime has been ranked among the top three for a long time, and its IP itself has a large number of fans in the market.
The strong IP appeal and the feelings for more than ten years of IP brought sufficient traffic blessings to the initial launch of "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant", thus prompting users to download.
2. Vertical screen design, more krypton points.
The vertical screen design and gameplay have been "reduced", which is relatively light, and even casual players can get started. However, there are also more krypton points set in the game, and many players say that "the screen is full of krypton gold items and small red dots", "there is no way to play without recharging", and even reminded players in red on the game failure settlement screen to "buy a value-added gift package and improve combat power" It is not an exaggeration to say that it is one of the most krypton new games from 2024 to the present.
Second, buy volume delivery
【Facts & Figures】
(1) Advertising trends
DataEye-ADX delivery data shows that "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" began to launch materials in March this year. However, the average daily delivery of materials is not outstanding, and the number of materials delivered before the launch remains in double digits. It wasn't until the day the game was launched that the amount of materials was increased, with more than 3,500 sets of (video + image) materials being placed in a single day.
It is worth noting that after a relatively high number of materials were placed on the day of the launch, the number of "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" showed a gradual decline. At present, the launch is stable at about 40 groups in a single day.
(2) Material creativity
DataEye Research Institute has sorted out the top 30 high-efficiency materials of the number of delivery plans of "Breaking the Sky: Three-Year Covenant", and among the creative forms of its delivery materials, high-quality promotional videos account for a relatively high proportion, accounting for about 30%, followed by character speeches/introductions, accounting for about 27%, then UGC-like content, accounting for 23%, and finally, game records accounting for 20%.
Specifically, the materials focus on showing the cool animation effects of the game characters' "big moves" and the classic plot in the novel, and at the same time, "genuine authorization" and "login to receive benefits" will be emphasized at the end of the text and materials.
[DataEye Research Institute]
Judging from DataEye data, "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" mainly presents the following characteristics in terms of buying volume:
1. A wave of streaming only lasts for one week. "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" was launched on the day of launch and within a week of launch, and there was no large-scale warm-up launch in the early stage. The main gain of the game is the influence of the IP. Combined with the previous release of "New Douluo Continent" by China Literature Games, it can be seen that the actions on the buying side in the past were extremely low-key, and it was not a marketing model that held high and bought heavy volume.
2. In terms of the selling point of specific materials, the material content of "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant" mainly highlights two points, one of which is that IP is the biggest attraction of the product. In the material, you can see popular characters such as the male protagonist "Xiao Yan", childhood sweetheart "Xiao Xuner", the noble queen "Medusa", and the doom poison body "Little Doctor Fairy". However, the variety of materials is not rich, there is no real story and talent plot content, the overall content attribute is not enough, and the cost investment in delivery is low.
Second, it focuses on the display of benefits, strategies, and special effects in the game, and does not introduce too much in terms of gameplay. Refreshing blows and exciting art effects are always the best tools to attract RPG users. However, this requires a high degree of consistency between the actual content of the game and the materials, so that players can get the same cool feeling in the game as the content displayed in the materials. At present, there is a mismatch between the "animation materials and game screens" of "Breaking the Sky: A Three-Year Covenant", and there have been a lot of complaints about "game screens" and "modeling" on Taptap.
In general, the game focuses on betting on buying volume and continuing to launch explosively, but it will soon not be able to be launched, although the material is highly restored to the original work. The advantage of this is that the conversion rate of materials can be guaranteed, and as long as it is delivered, it can attract a group of fans to download, but it is also easy to have player feedback of "wrong goods", resulting in negative player reputation.
3. Summary
Through observation, DataEye Research Institute found that China Literature did not spend too much resources on this social media marketing action. It mainly depends on the player to "generate electricity for love". The main reason is that the adapted game benefits from the form of "IP", which itself can gather a wider user group.
It is precisely based on this that with the support of the strong demand of this group of core user groups, "IP mobile games" can often attract the attention of a large number of IP fans before and after their launch, and their attention will form a further circle-breaking effect, helping the product to stimulate the desire of more people to try it first, so as to obtain more stable popularity and flow support.
Although the future growth logic of "IP mobile games" is smooth, in the past two years, a more obvious phenomenon is that more and more "conventionally designed" IP new games have encountered "Waterloo", and the initial results are good, and they can also attract the attention of non-core IP audiences, but after the popularity declines, they will face the loss of users. This also means that the time for "IP mobile games" to "make money lying down" through routine design has passed.
At the same time, there are more and more cases of IP licensing, and many fields such as literature, animation, film and television are involved. The short video platform has also boosted the development of IP content, and if players just want to relive their feelings, they can use fragmented time to achieve the goal on the short video platform, which is actually an impact and impact on traditional IP content.
DataEye Research Institute has calculated that the production of games adapted from big IPs is expensive: the IP side usually takes between 10% and 20% of the revenue, the mobile game platform (iOS, Android) takes 30%, and the marketing and purchase fees will account for 30%-40% of the turnover income.
In this way, even the most optimistic estimates show that the revenue left by an IP game to the game manufacturer is only 25%, considering that it also covers the pre-R&D expenses, taxes, and service-oriented games to support the R&D team, the profit margin is compressed a lot. In the worst-case scenario, the final revenue of the game company is only 10% of the game's turnover, and if the game R&D investment is large, once the game revenue performance is not as expected, the payback cycle will be extended, let alone expect to make a profit.
DataEye Research Institute summarized the best-selling list of domestic IP adapted games in recent years, several games have fallen out of the best-selling list, and they are still on the list in about 100, three of which are "Douluo Continent" IP, in the final analysis, this IP can indeed be played, and the krypton degree of similar products is medium to high.
Returning to the game itself, at present, the game also has some hidden dangers.
On the one hand, the product has a low rating on platforms such as TapTap and App Store, and player reviews mainly focus on the game's krypton, skin change, and game screen optimization.
On the other hand, IP does have a certain appeal, and it has a high reputation in the online literature and national comic circles, so when the game comes out, there will inevitably be a large number of IP players who will follow suit and download, but how long can such players play? After the novelty has passed, how much can it stay? It's worth thinking about.
As early as 2018, China Literature launched its self-developed mobile game "New Douluo Continent" and established an IP alliance to jointly develop and produce games of different categories of head IP.
In 2021, with the broadcast of live-action TV series and the continuous update of animation, the overall topic of "Douluo Continent" will continue to rise, and it has also become a node for game manufacturers to make efforts. After the live-action TV series "Douluo Continent" was broadcast, a large number of games adapted from this IP appeared on the market in a short period of time, including "Douluo Continent 2 Peerless Tangmen", "Douluo Continent: Awakening of the Martial Soul", "Douluo Continent - The Return of the God of Fighting" and the best-selling "Douluo Continent: Soul Master Showdown". These products have jointly helped the total turnover of the game adapted from "Douluo Continent" to exceed 10 billion yuan.
At the same time, DataEye Research Institute also noticed that "Breaking the Firmament: Peak Showdown", which was invested by CMGE, was about to be launched, and the number of pre-orders on the whole platform has exceeded 6 million.
In the financial report for the first half of 2023, China Literature said that it will increase its investment in AIGC, and the "AI+IP" ecosystem will be clearly identified as a new growth pole for China Literature.
According to the 2023 financial report, WebNovel, the overseas reading platform of Reading Group, provides about 3,800 Chinese translated works and about 620,000 local original works to overseas users. In January 2023, 23 of the top 100 works on WebNovel's best-selling list were translated by AI.
In the long run, although AIGC will help China Literature build a new integrated IP ecosystem, it is difficult to change the status quo of China Literature at this stage: on the one hand, there are multiple problems in the process of promoting the industrialization of large models, such as constraints on computing power, uneven data quality, and difficulty in highly integrating with the industry. On the other hand, large model products are also facing the situation of homogeneous content, and the homogenization of online content has been relatively serious.
With increasing internal and external challenges, it is time for China Literature to prove itself with innovation, whether it is upstream online literature incubation or downstream IP development, whether it is upstream online literature incubation or downstream IP development.