During the National Day, the "Journey" movie under Giant Network was "ignited" again.
On October 10, CCTV6 Movie Channel of CCTV6 broadcast the movie adaptation of the game of the same name under Giant Network, "Journey". The film went live on July 24 last year. Directed by Chen Desen, supervised by Zheng Baorui, starring Liu Xianhua, He Rundong and Lin Chen, the total investment is close to 300 million yuan.
With good content and high-quality movie special effects, the "Journey" movie has been loved by the majority of game fans and audiences. It is reported that in the early days of the launch, iQiyi's hundreds of thousands of viewers scored a high score of 8.8. U.S. video streaming giant Netflix has even actively docked with the authorities and introduced the Journey movie to overseas markets.
After more than a year, CCTV6 movie channel chose to rerun the film during the National Day. In the view of the game gyro, the reason why it can gain the favor of CCTV: First, the CCTV6 movie channel of CCTV can often tap the potential of the movie, and the "Journey" movie is more sophisticated in content and production; second, during the National Day, the bloody national war shown in the "Journey" movie is in line with the current main theme.
With the replay of CCTV CCTV, the industry is quite concerned about the "Journey" movie and the Journey IP behind it. Of course, what more people care about is how the game IP with a total revenue of more than 30 billion yuan has been derived in the 16 years since it was launched. And how to build a huge game IP ecology? Where are its boundaries? What are the surprises ahead?
By deconstructing the logic of the journey IP, we may be able to answer the above questions more clearly.
Sixteen years of journey IP, forged from game products into cultural symbols
In recent years, domestic game manufacturers have attached great importance to self-developed game IP. The reason is that: on the one hand, self-developed game IP can alleviate the pressure of manufacturers on the traffic side, at this stage, the growth rate of domestic game manufacturers' expenses on the marketing side is much higher than the growth rate of revenue and R&D investment, and the self-developed game IP has a greater chance of breaking the traffic deadlock; on the other hand, the formation of the self-developed game IP ecosystem helps to create more diversified cultural connotations and reduce the various restrictions brought about by external IP authorization.
And how to determine that a game product has formed an IP? The "2021 China Self-developed Game IP Research Report" released by Gamma Data defines that game IP needs to have four major elements: (1) high recognition and certain popularity; (2) have its own world view and values; (3) have the characteristics of cultural symbols and can represent a certain type of cultural attribute; (4) have cultural inheritance attributes, and the cultural connotation will not change due to product form.
Indeed, a good IP needs to be verified for a long time, and when it lasts for a long time, it will become a cultural symbol of a generation or an era. "Journey" is a landmark product in the history of Chinese game development, it has created a new free business model, with 10,000 people national war, automatic wayfinding, automatic monster fighting and other innovative gameplay, once set a record of 2.1 million players online at the same time, has a profound impact on the domestic game industry.
The game IP has been established for 16 years, derived from "Journey 2", "Green Journey", "Journey Remake Edition", "Journey 08 Edition", "Journey 2 Classic Edition", "New Journey" and many other boutique terminal games and Journey series mobile games, carrying the warm and youthful memories of a generation, and also witnessing the development process of the game industry from online games to page games to mobile games to cloud games. In recent years, it has penetrated into the fields of "pan-entertainment" such as film and television, literature, FMCG, and tide play, and has become a cultural symbol of the times.
According to Giant Network, as of the beginning of this year, the total flow of the whole series of products of Zhengtu IP has exceeded 30 billion, the registered players have exceeded 500 million, and there is still about 2 billion yuan of revenue every year. As the owner of IP, Giant Network has been expanding its IP boundaries, giving IP new cultural connotations and vitality through diversified forms.
The cultivation logic of the journey IP: expand the track upwards and expand the ecology downwards
How to cultivate a high-quality IP and make it have lasting vitality? I believe that there are thousands of ways for millions of people, but it is undeniable that this is a very difficult thing, which requires long-term investment from manufacturers, including technology, talent and capital.
For game manufacturers, the most common way to activate the vitality of IP is: one is to be player-centric and love this IP; the second is to choose a suitable track to precipitate; the third is to achieve the co-creation of IP.
This point is also clearly visible in the cultivation process of the journey IP, from the "player-centric" concept proposed in 2018 to the "co-creation journey" concept in 2019, and then to the subsequent linkage of many IP brands. Giant Network tried many "firsts" and took many detours, and finally cultivated the journey from a game product to a high-quality IP.
In the process of IP forging, giant network, on the one hand, constantly innovates, through the continuous introduction of new products, enriches the worldview of IP in a new way, and integrates popular elements into various IP derivative games, strengthens universal elements, and builds a more huge ecology; on the other hand, it constantly expands its value boundaries and in-depth linkage with all walks of life, while maximizing the value of the whole life cycle of the game, forging it into a digital inheritance of a culture.
As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day, and the influential game IP has also experienced the change and development of multiple generations and multiple works.
In terms of the game ecology cultivation of The Journey IP, in addition to the above-mentioned Journey IP derivative game products, in 2021, the Journey series will also launch 4 new products, including the "Journey Web Edition", "The Original Journey" mobile game and the "Journey Online" and "ZGAME" that will be released overseas, and the launch of these products will become the value continuation of the Journey IP.
It is worth mentioning that the journey IP is still exploring more diversified tracks, such as e-sports. In 2018, Giant Network put forward the concept of "National War E-sports" and created high-quality events such as the "Journey 2" Golden State Battle League and the "Journey" National War Super League, which achieved good results.
In addition to the game ecology, the value boundaries of the Journey IP are also constantly expanding. Relying on film and television, literature, fast moving consumer goods and other fields, Zhengtu IP has gradually penetrated into all aspects of people's lives. Among them, the most obvious "breaking the circle" is the "Journey" movie. The film not only efficiently gathers many game fans, but also expands the influence of game IP to global movie audiences, laying a good mass foundation for the subsequent development of game IP.
In terms of brand linkage that is closely related to people's lives, the various game products derived from Zhengtu IP have also chosen to cooperate with leaders in various industries such as Meiying Studio, Wuliangye, and Dicos. Through the combination of online and offline methods, we will deepen the concept of cultural symbols and help the interaction between game culture and traditional culture. It is reported that in the future, Zhengtu IP will also cooperate with Laifen and various cultural museums.
In fact, whether it is extended inward or extended outward, the practice of Zhengtu IP in ecological construction is worthy of the attention and research of game companies.
In the game industry, a high-quality IP can have infinite boundaries. Therefore, we can also expect that in the broader 5G era, in cross-media, cross-platform, and cross-scenario, the value boundary of Zhengtu IP will continue to extend, and even adapt to new formats, including cloud games and metaversics.
summary:
As the saying goes, the sea is wide and the fish leaps, and the sky is high for birds to fly. In the review and deconstruction of the journey IP, we can clearly feel that Giant Network has built a quite perfect game IP ecology. In this ecology, the boundary of Zhengtu IP is difficult to estimate, and it can derive many products upwards and link diversified ecosystems downwards.
More importantly, the development of this IP has been deeply tied to the rise and fall of giant networks. In the later stage, Giant Network is bound to maintain the value and vitality of IP as the focus of enterprise layout. And this will also be an important part of the enduring vitality of the journey IP.
At present, the competition in the game industry is becoming increasingly "white-hot", and whether it has high-quality IP has become one of the important factors for people to judge the success of game products. At the same time, whether there are certain IP reserve assets has also become an important basis for investors to judge the strength and development potential of game manufacturers. The Journey IP is undoubtedly an important weapon for the future development of Giant Network, which will carry the vision of Giant Network to retain and expand more user groups and affect the innovation and development of the cultural industry.