Placement games have always been very popular in Japan. Whether it is "Traveling Frog" and "Cat's Backyard" that radiated to China earlier, or "Placing The Girl" and "Sword and Expedition" exported to Japan from China in recent years, they have achieved good results. Not long ago, the "Dawn Apocalypse" developed by Mu Hitomi also made a good start in Japan.
Visiting pet supplies and meeting cats unexpectedly, the placement game "Cat's Backyard" is all the rage.
"Place Girl", developed by Byte's Love Interactive Entertainment, has almost never fallen out of the top 50 of the best-seller list since it was launched in Japan in 2017, and it is still at 18th today.
Lilith's self-developed "Sword and Expedition" has entered the Top 10 of the AppStore best-seller list in South Korea, Japan and the Chinese market, attracting countless gold.
Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida said that the need to invest time and energy is an important reason why Japanese players are reluctant to play MMORPGs. In fact, it's not just MMORPGs that take up a lot of players' time. Mobile games in various categories are also looking for ways to improve user stickiness, carry out in-game activities, and extend players' online time. The games developed by Japanese manufacturers have become even more intense. COLOPL's "White Cat Project" has no physical limitations at all, and players can brush materials endlessly, but they are also forced to brush materials for a long time. And Cygames is featured in Princess Link! The guild battle system designed by Re:Dive allows players to play the game as a sit-in.
Simulated battles test the highest damage, waiting for the leader to row knives, and staying up late until one or two o'clock in guild battles is commonplace.
This "forced liver" spread throughout every track. Therefore, players have a strong need to reduce their burden. While there are also some players who turn to competitive tactical games that don't need to be cultivated and play as they please in fragmented time, most mild players are tired of fighting others, studying gameplay, and completing daily routines after experiencing various ranking gameplay. Lying down to become stronger and releasing the body and mind is their greatest desire. As a result, many players have their sights on placement games that can "lie and win".
Sir, I'm not fighting guild wars anymore!
In Japan, in addition to the SNS and video websites, a large number of mobile game commercials are broadcast on TV every day to promote the charm of their own games. Unlike China, there are still a large number of viewers watching TV shows overseas, and the biggest effort to put ONTVCM is Nintendo, which can also be seen from the domestic self-media's handling of advertisements such as "Fitness Ring Adventure" endorsed by Niigaki Yui.
At the end of April, tvCM "Place Girl" starring popular actresses Kana Hashimoto and Kyoko Fukada was officially broadcast. GameAge found that at the time node of CM broadcasting, Youai Interactive Entertainment successfully attracted a large number of users.
The GameAge Institute analyzed Placed Girls and Sword and Expedition, announcing trends in placement gamers and TVCM's publicity.
Significantly improves weekly activity
First, let's look at the player activity of Place Girl. In the two weeks of December 28, 2020 and January 4, 2021, there was a significant increase in active users of the game week, and since then there has been a slow downward trend. In the week of TVCM airing on April 26, WAU picked up again.
The average weekly active WAU of Place Girl is around 333,100.
On December 11, Kana Hashimoto's CM was launched, and the combination of the two effects, coupled with the New Year's holiday, enabled the growth of WAU in the two weeks from December 28 to January 4. Hashimoto Kana not only starred in the advertisement, but also directly linked to the game, players have the opportunity to use Hashimoto Kana's eponymous character in the game, which obviously attracted a large number of fans of the popular idol.
Similarly, the CM, which was performed by Kyoko Fukada and others on April 19, was launched, driving the week of WAU on April 26. Kyoko Fukada, Adachi Ewha, Silk Ohno, Hyuga Sano, and Senka Nitta interpret cm in a way that embodies their own beauty, interpreting the five forms of beauty: "loneliness," "self-confidence," "desire," "intellectuality," and "curiosity, respectively.
In addition, Byte also posted CM tidbits and interviews on YouTube. The following is the interview.
Q: How did it feel when the shooting was completed?
Kyoko Fukada: It's hard to imagine what the CM shooting scene really looks like, so I'm looking forward to it. Although I and the other four contestants belong to the same firm, they rarely get the chance to get together, so it is very fun to talk to you in between shooting.
Adachi Ewha: Other CM who have seen the game before, very impressed, very happy to be able to participate.
Hinata Sano: My line is "Beauty is intellectual", I like to investigate the things I care about in my personality, and I also think that knowledgeable people are attractive, and I will continue to improve my intellectual beauty in the future.
Saka Nitta: I was participating in TVCM for the first time and meeting Kyoko Fukada for the first time. Crossing the screen directly to face the seniors I wanted, while taking on the exciting challenge, really made me nervous.
Q: Please tell me the secret of beauty.
Kyoko Fukada: Cherish the time. I think that personally tasting the weather, eating, etc., is inextricably linked to beauty.
Q: Which of the participants made you feel that you can gain something from the understanding of beauty?
Ohno: I heard that Miss Fukada exercised by surfing, and I also wanted to have fun managing her body, so I looked forward to her very much.
By disclosing the tidbits of CM shooting, Byte further creates topics and stories, and makes CM's popularity go to a higher level. Through the different interpretations of beauty by 5 actors, the various values of women are expressed, which confirms the subtitle of "Placed Girl" "A Hundred Flowers and Chaos", and also shows a sense of luxury.
Of course, shooting high-quality CM is only the first step, and advertising is the main battlefield. In addition to running ads on TV and YouTube, Byte's publicity on Tik Tok is not small at all.
At a glance, you can see the TVCM on the right, and of course, there is a lot of UGC content on Tik Tok.
Next up is the case with Sword and Expedition. Around the New Year, the game opened up activities to get rare items, and WAU grew significantly during the two weeks, followed by a slight decline, and then did not rebound. This is because TVCM has not been released to increase exposure like "Place girl".
The average weekly active WAU of Sword and Expedition is around 121,700.
Pull the newcomer into the pit
Here's how the new players of Place Girls have changed, and their trends are in line with the WAU situation. The launch of TVCM also helped the game capture a large number of new players.
"Sword and Expedition" also used the activities during the New Year to pull a wave of newcomers.
In addition to the considerable New Year's day, the number of new players entering the pit is smaller at other times.
Differences in game design lead to audience distribution, but the same amount of play time
Although the tracks are placed together, the audience segments of the two are not the same. "Place girl" takes the daily card track to cater to the male aesthetic.
And "Sword and Expedition" takes the Meika track, changing the wind of a large number of two-dimensional games and seeking a breakthrough in overseas markets. In contrast, Lilith also needs to give up some of the two-dimensional players, so in Japan, a two-dimensional country, it has not maintained a long-term strong.
Flat, geometric, mecca style.
However, both games use a vertical screen operation. In Japan, there are many mobile games with vertical screen operation. Such as "Zhilong Maze", "Monster Marbles", "Horse Racing Lady", "White Hair Project" and so on. On the one hand, the horizontal and vertical screens are limited by the game category, on the other hand, the horizontal screen games pursue more of a reduction of the operation of the handheld or handle, while the vertical screen is designed for one-handed operation for the characteristics of the mobile phone itself. This difference in philosophy has led to two different ways of making.
Among the players of "Place Girl", the 40th generation of men is the most, accounting for 22.7%, followed by 30 generation men with 22.1%, and again with 20 generation men with 16.2%.
From the perspective of visual aesthetics and game themes, such a player composition is very reasonable. The TVCM of Hashimoto Kana and Kyoko Fukada can be said to be perfectly targeted at the above three target groups.
Left: Place Girls player composition. Right: Sword and Expedition player composition.
Lilith's players are the most males in the 30th generation, accounting for 22.4%, followed by the 20th generation males with 19.2%. Unlike Place Girl, Sword and Expedition has a large number of female players, and women in the 20th generation account for 14.1% of the total number of players.
According to GameAge's analysis, this is because actress Haruna Kawaguchi, who is popular with 20 generations of Japanese women, endorsed the game's TVCM.
Finally, there is a comparison of the game duration of the two works.
Average player play time per day.
The same placement game, although each has its own differences, but the core gameplay determines the tone of the player's light casualness. The average game time for players in Place Girl is 48.5 minutes/day, while Sword and Expedition is 43.3 minutes/day. There is not much gap.
In summary, in Japan, by launching TVCM for the target population, it can well stimulate the number of active players to rise and pull new players into the pit. On the second-dimensional track, the 30th and 40th generations of men seem to be the main force that manufacturers should not give up easily.