It is said that it is difficult to succeed in IP manga games, but recently, someone broke the curse and made a lot of money as soon as it was launched.
According to Korean media Game Donga, on May 9, the day after the global open beta, South Korea's Netmarble's IP manga action RPG game "Solo Leveling: Arise" (hereinafter referred to as "I Alone") entered the top 10 best-selling iOS in 27 countries/regions.
In South Korea, the game has topped the best-selling charts for 9 consecutive days since its launch; In addition, it has topped the best-selling list in Hong Kong, China, and reached the top 3 best-selling in Japan.
May 16, the 9th day of launch
"I'm Alone" is in the top 20 best-selling in 59 countries
At the recent Netmarble 2024Q1 earnings call, CEO Kwon Young-sik said that "I Du" had more than 5 million DAUs on the first day and a revenue of about 14 billion won (equivalent to about 75 million yuan), which is the company's best debut product so far.
Many of my friends were shocked when they saw the results of "I Am Alone": first of all, this income seems to be really eye-catching; Secondly, a game with IP manga + two-dimensional painting style can run this kind of result, which is not common at the moment.
According to common sense, a new game can break the curse and break through and make a lot of money, and there is a high probability that it has a different design from other games. But after the recent hands-on experience, I felt a little confused: after reading the gameplay system, I found that "I Alone" actually has no special unconventional design.
So change the skin and copy "I'm Alone", can you make the next hit? It doesn't seem to work either. "I Alone" may not be new in terms of gameplay, but in terms of maximizing the use of IP, it has made the best use of everything and highlighted the advantages of its own skin. I'm afraid it's hard to copy.
01 A popular model that doesn't seem to be new
In terms of gameplay experience alone, "I'm Alone" is actually very good to summarize: this is an action combat + numerical card development game.
What players have to do is to fight monsters in the next dungeon to obtain cultivation resources, and draw cards to obtain hunter characters to form a lineup and make themselves stronger. This is quite consistent with the IP world view setting of "I Am Alone":
In the real world, there are portals, and hunters can enter the dungeon through the door to fight monsters and get rewards, and sometimes monsters will also enter the real world through the door, which needs to be dealt with by hunters. The hunter Cheng Xiaoyu (the protagonist of the original IP) played by the player, although he was a weak chicken at first, got the Shuangwen script after an unexpected experience, and later brushed the book and exercised, and became the dragon Aotian among the hunters step by step.
Level up next, and then challenge the more difficult Ben and rush player leaderboards...... Does it feel like this kind of gameplay loop is quite common?
Cheng Xiaoyu's complaint basically summarizes it
The main content of "I Am Alone".
It's normal to feel familiar, because first, in terms of combat mechanic design, "I Alone" is really not new. It adopts the more common pre-battle lineup strategy + in-battle dodge, basic attack, skills, and QTE operations.
Before the battle, players need to form according to the hunter's profession and attributes, and the profession corresponds to different skill effects, such as the meat shield character skills are mostly related to defense, and the attributes correspond to the strengths and weaknesses of the bosses in different levels; In addition, Cheng Xiaoyu's skills can play different debuffs, such as levitation, knockdown, etc., and matching Runi (similar to magic crystals) will also produce different damage increases, which players can adjust and switch before the battle.
This boss takes half the damage of the fire element, but the damage of the dark eater attribute is increased
Specific to entering the battle, "I Du" has a variety of combat forms: in the main line and some dungeons, players can only control Cheng Xiaoyu, and cannot switch roles, but they can click on the avatars of the other three hunters in the formation to cast their skills;
In other dungeons, Cheng Xiaoyu cannot participate in the battle, and the player can only operate three hunters, and the role can be switched during the battle. It is the most cost-effective to switch when the role QTE is triggered.
QTE switches roles
The orange-yellow prompt is the QTE button
Although the form of expression is different, the operation experience of these battles is actually not much different: do a good job of extreme dodge, and then light up where (QTE lights up, and the skill CD looks good and uses). Not only is the lower difficulty limit lowered, but "I Alone" also provides an auto-battle option not long after players first enter the game.
Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm a brainless game - for those who want to challenge difficult dungeons and grind the hunter leaderboard for more rewards, the lineup and skills need to be carefully matched, and fine hand manipulation can also deal more damage in a limited time.
It's just that such a set of design stretches the upper and lower limits of the game's operation very openly: Buddhist players can raise values and turn on automatically, and players can take the initiative to choose to experience the difficulty of manual exercises.
Second, from the perspective of the cultivation mechanism, "I Alone" uses the mainstream playing methods in the industry. Characters, weapons, and artifacts (relics) have rarity differences, and they all need to be upgraded; Characters and weapons can be upgraded to evolve (using duplicate items as materials).
A system of artifacts similar to relics
Third, the content presentation form of "I Alone" is not special. When passing through the plot, you can see the classic design of the background board + 3D villain dialogue; There are also dynamic 2D comics that are not as vivid and realistic as 3D, but are faithful to the original flavor of the IP;
At important plot nodes, CG animations will be interspersed.
Fourth, "I Alone" has done a very outstanding job in commercial design, not because it is new, but because it is very complete. Basically, you can think of places where you can stuff paid points, and "I'm Alone" is stuffed with it.
Aside from large and small skins and gift packs, just the subscription-based product of "players can receive rewards when they go online every day", "I Alone" has made 3 kinds. In addition to providing cultivation and gacha resources, most of these subscription products are linked to automatic resource acquisition and sweeping functions:
Click on the image to enlarge it. Left: Hunter's Guild Premium Subscription Voucher hooked to auto-mining feature; Right: Daily Growth Support and Daily Magic Crystal Support (both valid for 28 days), which can be used to sweep the level and increase the resource acquisition multiplier.
One YouTuber calculated that it would cost players at least $43.96 per month to max out these subscription-based rewards (plus the Deluxe Hunter Pass Battle Pass) if they went online every day.
图源YouTube@Im ON Everyday
Seeing this, you should understand why I feel confused: Aside from the skin, "I Alone" is a high-quality, pay-point-intensive numerical card development game. This is obviously not a novelty in 2024.
For small-scale manufacturers, it is difficult to reproduce "I Alone", after all, the art quality and the threshold of action combat are there; But for medium and large factories that already have experience in action combat design and relatively sufficient funds, it may not be particularly difficult to make a "I Alone". Moreover, "I'm Alone" didn't make a big world and an open world, and the burden was smaller.
This is a little strange: how did "I Alone", which is not a novelty, exploded?
02 Make players feel that they are Cheng Xiaoyu who upgrades alone
"If you watched the anime of "I Alone" before playing the game, would you feel different?" After listening to my friend's prompt and watching some relevant interviews with the production team of "I Alone", I have some clues: their goal is not to make a little-seen innovative game, but to try their best to meet the expectations of the original IP fans on the premise of considering the acceptance of pan-users.
Netmarble chose to work around the core of IP, perhaps because of its impact:
"I Du" first refers to a Korean online article written by Chugong and serialized in 2016; In 2018, the comic "I Du", drawn by Dubu, began to be serialized, and has been read by 14.3 billion people worldwide so far; According to a report by Korean media Hankyung in 2020, the total sales of "I'm Du" online texts and comics on Kakao Page (a digital content platform that started in South Korea) at that time had reached 30 billion won (equivalent to about 160 million yuan).
The meme that reflects the status of the comic "I Alone", the source network
Originally, after so many years, the popularity of IP has declined. But in January of this year, the anime "I'm Du" directed by Japan's A-1 Pictures (the animation producer of "Sword Art Online" and "Kaguya-sama" wants me to confess) was broadcast around the world, which raised the topic again.
"I Alone" became the hottest animation in the winter of 2024 on MyAnimeList (a well-known animation rating website in Europe and the United States).
"I'm Alone" appeared on the hit list of station B dramas
So first of all, the time when the game "I Alone" was launched was very cleverly chosen. The anime just finished broadcasting in March, and the enthusiasm of IP fans has not subsided, and the game will be launched in early May immediately, and it has eaten enough traffic dividends.
Secondly, the production team has taken into account how to highlight the original IP flavor in the setting of the protagonist and the selection of game types.
"I Alone" does not have a character creation system, and allows players to upgrade directly as Cheng Xiaoyu alone, there are considerations behind it. Cheng Xiaoyu is the protagonist of the original IP work, and he is also the easiest object for IP fans to substitute when reading the original work. In an interview with foreign media, Seong-Keon Jin, executive project director, said that they believe that the best way to reflect the charm of the IP is to let players directly experience Cheng Xiaoyu's cool journey.
And I chose to do action battles because the original work itself has a lot of descriptions of skills and professions. Seong-Keon Jin and the team believe that these elements are suitable and convenient to make action battles, and they are also in line with IP fans' vision of the battle scenario of "I Alone". It's worth noting that Seong-Keon Jin previously led the development of the King of Fighters ALLSTAR. So, it's also an easier option for him to use to his experience.
At the same time, in order to prevent pan-users from being dissuaded by ACT, the team deliberately did not make too complicated operation design, and also made automatic battles, hoping that players can experience the depth of strategy in pre-battle preparation.
Finally, "I Alone" is not only restoring the original IP, but also doing a lot of content expansion on this basis.
The "I Alone" team said that they had been questioned by many IP fans: some people think that if the game has a high degree of restoration of the original work, then why bother playing the game, just go to see the original work; But if the game deviates too far from the original, it will destroy the core of its IP comics.
As a result, the production team decided to expand and present content that can make IP fans feel refreshing while retaining the IP core.
They cooperated with Chugong, the original online author, to create a new story around the characters who did not appear well and were not prominent in the original work - players will still see the plot that is similar to the original in the main chapter and unfolds from the perspective of Cheng Xiaoyu; However, in the sub-chapters, you can experience the perspective of other hunters at the same time and offline.
Similarly, when designing the obtainable Hunter characters in the game, the I'm Alone team also tended to choose characters that didn't have much of the combat details in the original game. This makes it convenient for them to let go of their hands and feet and design some original skill actions and special effects, such as the water dragon ring attack of hunter Xu Zhiyu.
In addition, the numerical cultivation cycle of "repeatedly brushing to obtain resources-upgrading to become stronger-challenging more difficult dungeons" is, in the team's view, itself in line with the expectations of IP fans.
Seong-Keon Jin believes that in the process of playing Cheng Xiaoyu, players can enjoy the fun of brushing books, because it allows them to witness their own growth, just like in the original game, Xiao Yu exercised, fought monsters and became stronger.
It is not difficult to see that the core idea of the Netmarble team to develop "I Alone" is to restore and expand the IP, so that players feel that they are Cheng Xiaoyu who has upgraded alone.
This has also led to a polarization of player reviews for "I Alone".
Players who like IP feel that the game character modeling is good-looking, the fighting action is smooth, and the setting is in line with the original IP; Players who have no opinion on repeated brushing and Pay to Win think that as long as you are not in a hurry to develop and hit the list, then you can play "I Alone" as a relaxed and casual stand-alone game; Some players also said that they can clearly feel the improvement of combat power without too much krypton, and the game has been done quite conscientiously.
"This game really presents "I Alone" very well. Maybe some people don't like gacha, but for me, the game is by no means a disappointment. ”
Some players feel that "I Alone" is a liver-to-krypton, not too new Pay to Win numerical game; Some people also compare the second game of action RPG they have played, thinking that the sense of blow of "I Alone" is not in place.
"It's not a 'solo upgrade', it's called 'a lot of pay points'."
03 Conclusion
From the perspective of public opinion differentiation, the long-term performance of "I Alone" in the future is difficult to predict.
Those players who are insensitive to the IP itself and don't like liver or krypton may have lost it. For the rest, players who are keen on IP, and those who are willing to liver or krypton, it is difficult to say how long they will stay - when the enthusiasm for IP has subsided, or when the novelty of brushing has passed, will they continue to play?
However, at the moment the gameplay system is not fully opened, and at least 2 features are in the state of development. Perhaps, "I Alone" still has cards hidden in his hand.
The current gameplay system of "I Alone".
Putting aside the long-term future, in the first 9 days of its global launch alone, "I Alone" has already made a lot of money. Its debut, without doubt, was a success.
For those teams who also do IP manga games, the design concept of the "I Alone" team may also be a way to refer to: do not simply treat IP as the skin of absorption, and consider whether to restore the IP when making gameplay and content, whether to restore the sense of substitution when IP fans read the original work, and at the same time add new content on the premise of consulting the original author.
When asked by foreign media about the biggest challenge in the development of "I Alone", the production team also said that when cooperating with a world-renowned IP like "I Alone", they asked themselves all the time:
Does the game fully reflect the immersive story of the original series?
Does the game fully reflect the immersive story of the original?