By the end of 2020, the total number of domestic script killing offline stores exceeded 30,000, and this year, on average, a new store opened every 2 minutes.
Text | Que Zheng
According to the Harbin Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Heilongjiang Province, on September 21, 2021, the Second People's Hospital of Bayan County reported a new case of positive infection of the new crown virus, which was transferred by 120 ambulance to Harbin Infectious Disease Hospital for isolation and observation.
According to the results of the circulation, the newly infected people started from Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, and played "script killing" in Harbin for three consecutive days, and the main activity trajectory involved restaurants, hotels, bathrooms, plastic surgery hospitals, etc.
Many people may be hearing about "script killing" for the first time. What is "Script Kill"? How to play this kind of entertainment that has arisen among young people? "Xinmin Weekly" recently conducted interviews and reports on "script killing" players and industry practitioners.
Script Kill 2.0 Era: From "Paper Kill" to "Multimedia Kill"
Script killing, a highly condensed product of life, a second life game that crisscrosses the ancient and modern Chinese and foreign universes, a social experience that integrates the joy mechanism of the emotional hardcore reasoning brain-burning camp, a brain storm that does not penetrate the meaning of each clue...
The social language of the post-00s generation
"Script killing" stems from "Murder Mystery" - a kind of live-action social reasoning game that has slowly become popular in Europe and the United States where speculative fiction is prevalent.
In 1935, the American Parker Brothers released a game called "Jury Box" - the gamer analyzed and judged the six murder cases provided by the game as a Jury (jury), reasoned about the case, and voted on the murderer, and the truth of the case was announced after the vote - this is considered to be the first "murder mystery" game.
In 1948, the game "Mystery Quest" was released in North America – this time, the gamer assumed the role of a suspect, reasoning through each round of player interaction, eliminating clues and finding the inside story of the murder. And the murder situation of each game will continue to change with the opening card situation, a bit like the "multiple endings" of modern script killing.
The birth symbol of the modern script kill is likely to be "Dead Wear White", a foreign board game, formerly known as "Death Wears White", 8 players substitute characters to analyze the case in a detroit hospital.
After being introduced to China in 2013, it created the first generation of script killing. It was 8 years ago, domestic offline social games were spinning in circles in werewolf killing, board games, and room escape, and the emergence of script killing only looked like the launch of a new board game, and did not cause much waves.
What really brought the script out of the circle was the star reasoning reality show "Star Detective" launched by Hunan Satellite TV in 2016 - the copyright of this variety show comes from the reasoning reality show "Crime Scene" launched by South Korea's JTBC television station in 2014, which became popular as soon as it was introduced.
In fact, as early as 2013, the American ABC television station launched a reasoning variety show "Who is the Real Murderer" ("Whodunnit") with 13 ordinary people participating, and between the 13 people, they need to cooperate to investigate the case, form an alliance with each other, and also need to take the initiative to eliminate people who are threatening themselves. But perhaps it is the relationship between ordinary people, the influence is far less than the "Star Detective" in which various stars participate and "cheat me" in the ready-made script - the influence of the Ming Detective is so great that the script is really out of the circle, and the audience has begun to play a variety of "Ming Detective same model".
In 2019, this is the industry's recognized "first year of Chinese script killing", and the number of script killing stores nationwide exceeded 12,000. The script that has been dormant for many years begins its journey of "killing all sides". According to the data of the industry's well-known platform "Black Detective Youpin", just a year ago, there were only more than 3,000 stores in the country, which is equivalent to saying that almost 10,000 stores were opened in a year, with an average of one new store opening every 5 minutes.
Do you think that's the pinnacle? No, that's just the beginning. By the end of 2020, the total number of domestic script killing offline stores exceeded 30,000, and this year, on average, a new store opened every 2 minutes. Also in this year, the market size of script killing exceeded the 10 billion yuan mark - think about how many years it took Chinese films to go from unified purchase and sales to more than 10 billion yuan, you know how exaggerated this speed is.
According to industry estimates, by 2022, the market size of script killing is likely to exceed 20 billion yuan!
Go to the offline script killing shop to see, the weekend afternoon is crowded with young people who come to "carpool"; online "hundreds of changes in the big detective" "I am a mystery" and other script killing APP, there are still hundreds of cars in the early morning "fighting"; even if you don't play at all, open the video website, you will also see ai Youtenqi down: iQiyi's "Meng Detective Detective" and "Strange Script Shark" are being broadcast; Youku's script killing variety show "Shining Detective Family" and "Play ticket big" will soon keep up. At the same time, thousands of studios and tens of thousands of script creators across the country are "writing" day and night... As a C-end user, I am feeling the script killing the ubiquitous 4D all-round package.
Opening the "offline exhibition" area of "Black Detective Has Quality", the reporter was surprised by the dense script killing exhibition arrangement - in September, Suzhou Hangzhou Lanzhou Chengdu Shenyang Wuxi Chongqing; in October, Changsha Chongqing Hangzhou Xi'an Wuhan Dalian Fuzhou; in November, Chengdu Xi'an Beijing Guangzhou Wuhan Hangzhou Kunming Haikou Shaoxing Kaifeng Chengdu ... This is the rhythm to blossom all over the country.
Do you know which city in the country has the most script killing physical stores? The answer is Guiyang. It doesn't matter if you don't know, almost every city can have more than 500 physical stores in the near future, and there will be more second- and third-tier cities than in the north, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Some people say that script killing is the social language of the post-00s. This is true, but in fact, middle-aged people will also be addicted to script killing, and the main purpose of their play is to open a store.
Mr. Yan, who opened a script killing shop in Shanghai, just participated in an offline exhibition in Chongqing. According to his description, the script killing exhibition is more free than any other exhibition - almost no people in suits and shoes, the meeting place is not in the exhibition center, often choose a hotel, two or three o'clock in the afternoon before people continue to enter: script authors, shops, distributors, buyers, crowded, wandering in various rooms, some chatting books, some talking about business, some carpooling on the spot... Seemingly disorderly, in fact, everyone's purpose is very clear: script trading, looking for blockbuster scripts for their own stores, and finding an opportunity to become a blockbuster for their own hard work.
At this point, a script killing industry chain from script authors and script distributors to script distribution platforms, online APPS, offline stores, and video-end variety shows has been formed.
In script killing, everyone is the protagonist
Behind the rapid development, there is also a hidden barbaric growth. Most of the script killing stores in China are located in the corner of the old high-rise commercial building, and sometimes even a three-bedroom and two-hall house in the commercial and residential building can be transformed into several small compartments.
In a business building in Putuo District, there was a thrilling scene - a script killing shop in order to strengthen the immersion of the horror book, specially put the evidence search items in the public corridor, while playing horror background music, while also arranging a few NPCs to pretend to be ghosts to scare the players who came to search for evidence. Bad in the store did not and the night security guard to clarify the arrangement, the security guard patrolled this place at night, was frightened to the scene of heart disease sent medical emergency.
Shanghai police randomly checked the script to kill stores
Not long ago, the Shanghai municipal police conducted a spot check on the script killing stores, and 11 related places were closed for rectification, and the main problem involved this time was the fire safety hazard.
However, rather than saying that the suspension of business is to pour a basin of cold water on the hood of the script killing industry, it is better to say that the official next scene supervision indicates that the script killing is about to enter the 2.0 era, and under benign supervision, the process of realizing the transformation from barbaric growth to accelerating the track.
Not only the police force, since this year, many city film and television industry associations have also begun to discuss the supervision of script killing. In March, the "Immersive Script Entertainment Professional Committee of China Cultural Entertainment Industry Association" affiliated to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was officially established, and Script Killing finally had its own industry association.
At the same time as the official end, professional forces are also moving towards the script killing - there are thousands of studios specializing in script killing development and creation, the more well-known ones are old corn joint studio, sunflower distribution studio, ash studio, table cube studio, Xi'an clues, etc.; some suspense mystery writers, such as Ma Boyong, Cai Jun, Na duo, etc. are also engaged in the creation of script killing; just this past weekend, the Shanghai Vancouver Film Academy also specially opened a short training course on script killing creation. Invite well-known screenwriters to teach the creation of script killing; professional colleges such as Shangju are also planning training programs for script killing hosts.
The Vancouver Film School holds a screenplay killing screenwriting training course
Wang Ce, a famous screenwriter in Shanghai and a visiting professor at Shanghai University, told Xinmin Weekly that the script killing host is also called DM, and due to the downturn in the film and television industry in recent years, DM is becoming a new direction for the employment of art school graduates.
Wang Ce, a famous screenwriter in Shanghai and a visiting professor at Shanghai University
In Wang Ce's view, the script killing and the film have a bit of a long-term relationship: "Because of the epidemic, the cinema has been closed for a long time, and the script killing hall has become lively." Movies and script killing are two completely different entertainment experiences, movies are cultural and entertainment enjoyment, script killing is heavy interaction, the mainstream consumer group is about 20-year-old college students, in addition to the game there is also the function of friendship and dating. I don't think that script killing will replace the movie theater, but I think that in the future, after the movie theater is regrouped, it will cool down the script kill. But according to industry forecasts, the film industry is going to fully recover, possibly by 2025. There are still three or four years to go, and these three or four years will be the dividend period of the script killing. Moreover, the film and television industry is dismal, making some screenwriters need to find another way out, accelerating the entry of professional screenwriters into the world of script killing. ”
Wang Ce's own studio is also carrying out script killing creation, he calculated an account for the reporter - the screenwriter of the script killing is very complicated to calculate, planing the distribution costs, printing costs, running exhibitions and other expenses, generally a more popular book, the screenwriter can get more than 100,000 yuan of income, but it is not a one-time delivery, with the sale with the checkout.
This is very different from film and television screenwriters. Film and television screenwriters can often get a 20% deposit before commissioning writing, and after writing through the examination and verification of the final payment, they do not need to bear the risk of market sales. However, the script kills the author with some risks, and the future profitability cannot be predicted first.
As far as he knows, the ceiling income of the script killing screenwriting industry has been 1 million +, but it is currently about 500,000 or so, and it is not known whether it will improve in the future - the book that can make the author's income reach 500,000 is generally very popular, if the film box office is compared, it is basically into the 1 billion box office club. More professional authors may earn tens of thousands of yuan in each book, and it is not realistic to make a fortune by killing scripts, but it is still possible to make up for the income of some film and television downturns.
"In fact, script writing is not easier than film and television dramas. Film and television dramas often have a fixed structure, and each rhythm point is clear where it is, but the script kills itself with its own rhythm. Wang Ce said, "What is more difficult is that the protagonists in film and television dramas have fewer supporting roles, and every player in the script is a protagonist - taking 6 people as an example, three men and three women have to let them have drama, but also have to have connections and interactions, which will increase the difficulty of the screenwriting work."
When the script is written, it will continue to test the car, and modify and adjust again and again in the player test - not only the modification of characters and lines, but also props and clues. ”
Wang Ce has developed China's first genre film evaluation "Super Mirror System" and has studied the film genre. Now he has put forward the five dimensions of the script killing evaluation: "First of all, the story idea, the world view is best a little novel, the greater the distance from real life, the more interesting it is; secondly, the game mechanism should be interesting, the stronger the mechanism, the more related the mechanism and the plot are more interesting; again don't burn too much brain, everyone comes to play the game, not to do math problems, it is better to stop; and the emotion will be relatively popular, often see players who are deep in the role, touch their own sad things from other people's stories, There are many tears; the last one is better to have a reversal at the end, which seems more powerful. I once played a book, when I read the script at the beginning, each character has its own explanatory text, the text is thick and thin, play to the final finale, and then take this text out, the bold words are connected separately to see, it is another completely different story. ”
It is not that you can write a traditional script to create a script to kill, "you must play more and see more, and accumulate more materials." The role of script supervisor is also very important, and to engage in script killing creation, you must have an understanding of the creative laws of the industry." It seems that even screenwriters with strong professional ability must also explore the script killing creation for the second time.
In Wang Ce's view, the script is necessary to read tens of thousands of words of the script at any time, and there is still a certain threshold for ordinary players, and it will be easy to get tired. In the future, it is likely that the text script will be filmed, and players can replace reading the script by watching videos. "In the future, the script killing store will be like the current cinema, divided into several halls, each hall has a theme IP, such as the ghost blowing lamp theme room, with holograms and VR and other technologies to bring greater immersion."
The metaverse script is coming
Today's script killing, from the field experience, can be simply and rudely divided into two types: one is a "boxed book", and the other is a "real scene book". However, when the concept of the "metacosm" quietly emerges, all this will be reshuffled.
Recently, a "Meta-Universe Conference – Investment, Gaming, Virtual People, Social and Business Value" will be held in Beijing. Previously, Roblox (the world's largest multiplayer online creation game) as the first listing of the metaverse, ByteDance spent another 9 billion yuan to acquire Pico (VR wearable device company), the giants' move is announcing the advent of the "meta-universe" era.
What exactly is the metaverse? Wu Chengtao, founder of Hong Kong's "H Realm True VR Script Killing", told reporters that the metacosm is a virtual world that is interconnected with the real world and shared by many people, while also containing real design and real economy: "You will have an avatar, this avatar belongs to you, and it can also represent multiple different characters." In the metaverse, you can play and interact with friends, it is a three-dimensional digital environment, not the current flat Internet interface, in the metaverse, people and people get along as realistically as in the real world. ”
Those who have watched Spielberg's movie "Ready Player One" may be able to understand in a second - the metacosm is essentially an interaction between a virtual life and the real world, and modern technology has introduced new wearable devices and simulated augmented reality technology, all of which are sending us crazy to this universe.
The physical evidence design of "Trailing" is full of details
In Shanghai, the reporter experienced the first script killing based on the concept of "meta-universe" in China - "Trailing". "Trailing" has a brain-burning script shell: a crime that occurred 20 years ago, when the suspect was unjustly imprisoned, and now it is necessary to trace the truth again across 20 years - the brain-burning part is that the quantum state action in 20 years will in turn change the fait accompli of 20 years ago.
The biggest difference from the general script killing is that the evidence search link of "Trailing" needs to be carried out in the virtual world - wearing the Quest2 helmet and bracelet, the reporter is like being in a local police station in the Uk 20 years ago, a car repair station, an invisible chamber of a black hand behind the scenes... Three searches for evidence, three immersive experiences.
Unexpectedly, all the evidence searched in the virtual world, when the player returns to the real public chat area to sit down, the exact same physical evidence has appeared in front of them - a heavy safe, waiting to decipher the code; a blood-stained hammer, waiting to scan the fingerprints; a tiny negative, looking at the light to faintly distinguish the license plate number; a truck model, open the trunk and hide a crucial clue... What was even more unexpected was that the real murderer of the 6 players secretly achieved the bomb detonation task designed in the script in the virtual world, and the world of 20 years ago collapsed...
Tasks in the real world are to be performed in the virtual world; the evidence in the virtual world can travel through time and space to reality - when the "virtual world" and the "real world" are integrated and docked, the era of the "metacosm" is thus coming.
Wu Chengtao told reporters: "This script is jointly created by the Hong Kong and Shanghai teams, and Hong Kong's international script creation and art design are connected with Shanghai's cutting-edge virtual reality computer technology.
The imaginative attribute of the script killing just happens to be an excellent ignition point for the incubation metaverse. Now this set of "Trailing" script killing, is only the first generation of prototypes based on the concept of metaverse, and more complete and seamless products will continue to be launched on the market later. The future script kill will change from the traditional paper kill to the multimedia kill. ”
Capital down, script kill +
You may not think that the five-star hotel suites in many cities are becoming a new stronghold of script killing.
Rex, co-founder of H-Realm Script Killing DM Training Academy, told Xinmin Weekly that a company engaged in e-sports hotel operations has just received venture capital and is about to locate 50 hotels in the Yangtze River Delta and open script killing theme rooms - if each hotel is calculated with 20 suites, there may be 1,000 hotel script killing rooms by the end of this year.
Affected by the epidemic, the tourism industry has shrunk, and the daily rental rate of hotels is generally not high, while e-sports theme rooms and VR script killing theme rooms will bring new vitality to the hotel industry - not only to increase the daily rent rate, but also to drain the flow.
"In your spare time, is it possible to have another life?" The metaverse will provide solutions – in the past, actors liked to say that they were engaged in this industry to experience different lives, and now ordinary people can also. Putting on a VR headset opens the door to a new world. Rex is recently planning to go to Chengdu Qingcheng Mountain, in the local tourist area, is about to launch a "script kill +": tourists while playing the attractions, but also incarnated as a script role, it is likely to be a chivalrous warrior of Qingcheng Mountain, groping for clues in the green mountain forest, to a laughing pride.
"I used to watch celebrities on TV participate in live-action variety shows, but now I can also spy on detectives." Based on the concept of metaversity, the role of the full-truth script killing is not to replace other script killing forms, but to assist the existing offline formats. It is like a magnet that absorbs different forms to build a new product height. ”
VR search, others look at me like a fool, only I know that I have entered the world of the metaverse
In November last year, the online script killing APP "Hundred Changes Detective" received a 30 million yuan investment from Wuhan Weipai Network, gradually expanding from online to offline. This year, the script killing and distribution platform "Little Black Detective" has received strategic investment from Yuwen Group and GSA Jiangchuang, and its "Little Black Detective Pro" has expanded customers from B-end stores to C-end players, and if you want to play which popular script, you can immediately find stores in your city.
The capital end, the industrial chain of script killing has been extended again - extended to more physical stores, extended to "script killing + ancient town", "script killing + scenic spot", and opened the last pulse door for the combination of script killing and big cultural tourism.
Unconsciously, many ancient town scenic spots across the country have begun the business of "script killing +" - such as the "Jiezi Ancient Town" in Chongzhou, Sichuan, there are inns in the town, there are mountain villas and dart bureaus and yamen, just staged a script to kill "Kyushu Jianghu • The World First" and "Kyushu Jianghu • Qingtianjian", the main martial arts style, players in the two days and one night of the theme script killing, to change into Hanfu, interact with dozens of NPCs, use silver two to exchange weapons and cheats, complete their own plot tasks. It is reported that at present, more than 100 script killings like this have been held, and the per capita consumption is about 1,000 yuan, including food and accommodation.
Nanxun Ancient Town in Zhejiang also customized an immersive script for Jiangnan scenery to kill "New Seven Fox Mountain Pond", allowing players to incarnate as Jiangnan talents and everyone's boudoir. And iQIYI's drama "Wind Up Luoyang" will also reach a deep IP licensing cooperation with Luoyang's local scenic spot Luoyi Ancient City, and prepare to create a "Wind Up Luoyang" theme hotel, "Wind Up Luoyang" VR full-sense movie, of course, there will be no less "Wind Up Luoyang" theme script kill.
At least for the next three or five years, both script kill and script kill+ will be a good business. But as a person who has come over, Wang Ce also reminds: Be careful that the script killing industry is damaged by the concept of capitalization - because the film and television industry has been hurt by capital.
"As soon as capital entered, it announced that it would be a derivative cultural tourism and real estate, and all kinds of tricks for telling stories, cashing out, and creating unreal bubbles were exactly the same as in the film and television circles of that year." I have met people who play capital to come to the door, hoping that I can help Zhang Luo some students mass-produce scripts, find explosive scripts to copy from east to west, you say that the script produced by this model may be good? Script killing directly facing users, is an industry with a high market concept, poor consumer experience is not good, practitioners should produce high-quality blockbusters as the starting point, rather than making everything into a commercial module - in the eyes of capital, the script and Yiwu small commodities are no different, the business model can be copied everywhere - but people who are really engaged in the cultural and creative industry will know that this idea is not right. Now people who enter the script killing industry, some are even more eager than those who entered the film and television industry in those years, and even a large number of people who do not personally try to play and just want to catch a wave of running away are there. People who really want to engage in this business should first understand that the derivatives and theme parks of "Star Wars" have been so successful because there is a high-quality content support that has been precipitated for many years. The last thing we should do now is to put the cart before the horse and trivialize the content of the script. ”
Capital is coming, the script is killing+. Is it to accelerate development or to accelerate extinction? It depends on whether the current practitioners really cultivate it as a new industry, or just see it as another track to make quick money.
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