Facts have proved that in the matter of going to sea, domestic mobile game manufacturers are becoming more and more handy.
According to Sensor Tower data, last month, 39 Chinese manufacturers were shortlisted in the global mobile game publisher revenue list TOP100, with a total of nearly 2.52 billion US dollars, accounting for 41.5% of the global top 100 mobile game publisher revenue, all of which hit a record high. In particular, Japan, which has a large enough market size, has become the first choice for domestic manufacturers to get together.
Although there are Chinese mobile games such as Hara God, Wilderness Action, and Place Girl that have entered the first phalanx of Japan, objective evaluation is that it is not easy to shake the head market controlled by Japanese first-line manufacturers such as SE, Aniplex, Cygames, Bandai, etc. A more realistic choice is to focus on Japan's waist market, so what is the middle-class mobile game products of Today's Japanese companies?
On October 21, a new tour made it to the Best Seller List in Japan, and within a few days it was among the top 20 or so best-sellers. This is the new work of Grams, a japanese mobile game development company, "ラグナドール 妖しき帝と終焉の夜叉姫 (tentative translation: Ragnador Yokai Emperor and the Final Night Fork)", and also landed on iOS, Android, and PC platforms.
Compared with the decent launch data, it is surprising that game producer Naoshi Tani directly cried in the Youtube video comment area: the cost of research and development was as high as 2.1 billion yen (about 118 million yuan), and the promotion cost about 650 million yen (about 36.38 million yuan), and it was even difficult to return the money within a year, and the team fell into embarrassment.
From the theme, art to gameplay, pure Japanese two-dimensional
Game PV
In GameLook's view, Ragnador Yokai Emperor and the Final Night Fork Hime (hereinafter referred to as "Ragnador") is a japanese RPG mobile game from the perspective of theme, art, or gameplay.
First of all, just from the words in the game such as "night fork, Qingming, Tubi, Suzaku", this is obviously a yokai-themed mobile game. As you might imagine, the game revolves around a variety of charismatic youkai characters who can evolve into human form, and the stage of the story is also the place where the yokai named "Phantom Demon World" live.
It can be found that unlike the domestic mainstream two-dimensional game art that pursues a sense of realism, the materials and light and shadow are more delicate, and the character dress design is mostly complicated; the Japanese two-dimensional design of Japanese medium-sized game companies still retains the tradition of simple design and rich colors, but it is more gorgeous and visual impact. In contrast, Ragnador is clearly the latter, and the art style is more inclined to the Japanese two-dimensional route.
In a single battle, players will randomly receive digital cards of different sizes from 1 to 5, and if the digital cards are sorted by size, they can launch a big move. Among them, the same number cards can be merged to ascend the ranks, and the number card 0 is an inherent skill of the character. In addition, the digital card also comes with its own attributes, which can eliminate the boss corresponding attribute beads when played, and can be made into a hard straight state after elimination.
In addition to this, the game also offers PvP and 4-player co-op gameplay. It is worth mentioning that this design actually comes from the original intention of the official creation of the game, that is, it hopes to let players who have not yet felt the "fun of online games" enjoy it. According to the producer, there are many members of the research and development team who have experienced FF11 together.
Over 100 million R&D masterpieces of "sad retribution"? The producer himself sold it like that
Debuted to the top of the free list, a few days rushed to the TOP30 - to be honest, in terms of midstream products, "Ragnador" this time results, although not so amazing, but also quite remarkable. Despite this, it is still difficult to escape the fate of the producer himself crying.
The reason is simple, the cost of the game is really too high.
Youtuber "Nakaid's game information channel [dry]" On October 23, 2013, Yin Ying-ying-yu "[Sad news] A blockbuster game of about 4 billion yen, big explosion death reach will be applied". Unexproded santen, over 590,000 sown amounts. Yasada-ko is a self-written "misery" by the creator Naofumi Tani, Yuyi- Ying-ku.
While exposing the game's 2.1 billion yen research and development costs and 650 million yen promotion costs, Tani also mentioned that the original planned development cost was around 1.6-1.7 billion yen. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, remote working has made it difficult to collaborate on creative work such as game development, and the cost of research and development has soared all the way to this day.
However, this official sale does not seem to have been recognized by too many players, after all, the quality of the game is far from the investment of over 100 million, and "ordinary" is the common feeling of most players.
Some people bluntly say that spending so much money and only making such a thing should be ashamed of the authorities. Even some Japanese players recalled that there used to be games under the banner of "10 billion yen to develop", but because they were no different from the games on the market, they quickly became invisible.
And some relatively calm players have no lack of feelings, compared with the sales of "Zhilong Labyrinth", it seems that compared with the investment in music screens, the game content is the really important link.
This rare investment of over 100 million yuan also reminds Japanese players of the development cost of "Original God" with a cost of 100 million US dollars, and actively ridicules the need to use this to defeat "Original God".
Compared with players who are not too big to watch the hilarity, producer Naoshi Tani is undoubtedly more aware of the current situation of the game and the difficulties of future development. In his view, the return time of "Ragnador" is expected to be extended from half a year to a year, and it is not enough to rely on Japan alone.
After all, the initial cost is 2.75 billion yen, and with the continuous monthly marketing and operating costs thereafter, the first year of expenses is likely to continue to rise. In contrast, the highest performance of the game is only the top 20 of the best-selling list, and the long-term operation is likely to continue to decline, and such commercial performance is obviously difficult to complete the goal of returning the cost within one year.
As a result, the game released the plan to go to sea early, and at present, Ragnador also provides players with Chinese language packs. However, the quality of text translation is not high, and not all Chinese are realized, and there is still a certain threshold for understanding for Chinese players who want to achieve an immersive experience.
The second echelon has high investment and low quality, and the confidence of domestic manufacturers to go to sea has doubled
Traditionally, high effort often means high returns, and game development is more or less the same. In contrast, the reason why Gu Naoshi and his team are in this predicament is that the quality of "Ragnador" is not at all like a product with more than 100 million research and development investment.
Judging from the official description alone, Ragnador self-styled as a "next-generation RPG", but mainly 2D art resources. Although most of today's two-dimensional games are 2D+3D forms of expression, even if it is a high-investment masterpiece, there is no shortage of 2D vertical paintings, and even become the hardest hit area of the "inner volume" of two-dimensional art. But the art quality of the game is not at all like the over-100 million-level game in the impression.
To put it more bluntly, you said it cost a hundred million, and I always felt something wasn't quite right.
But if you look closely, there is actually still a little bit of rationality. After all, the game does have some good quality three-two CG animations, which should occupy a large part of the research and development cost. At the same time, the game invited the Japanese punk idol girl group BEISH to sing the theme song "BE READY", and inserted a lot of BiSH songs in the boss war, which was also a big expense.
As for the marketing expenses of more than 30 million yuan, it can also be "forcibly explained". In addition to deeply binding BiSH to create advertising, the official also invited Youtuber ヒカル (Hikaru) with 4.58 million fans to produce TV commercials. Compared with this large investment in research and development and marketing, the relatively lagging debut results also make domestic players can't help but ridicule "It's okay, the last 3 billion yen development was the cherry blossom war, how tragic can it be?" ”
Today, Japan has long become an important battlefield for going to sea. However, Cygames, KONAMI, Bandai and other local manufacturers have a bunch of powerful IP in hand and a huge investment, similar to the "Horse Racing Lady" host-level standard research and development, and the use of two seasons of animation in advance to precipitate users and so on. Faced with strong competitive barriers in the head market, it is time for Chinese manufacturers, especially small and medium-sized teams, to pay attention to the more realistic direction, that is, the current situation of midstream companies and their products. From this point of view, Grams and the new game "Ragnador" are undoubtedly the best objects at present.
Honestly, if it weren't for the development of open-world games using Unreal Engine, Ragnador's level of investment would have been a normal level of next-generation MMOs in China, rather than a relatively mild vertical screen mobile game. Especially in the two-dimensional track, the same investment will undoubtedly harvest higher product quality. After all, the cost of domestic two-dimensional games is generally in the order of tens of millions, such as the research and development cost of "Crash Three" on the Internet is about 60 million.
What's more, domestic companies have long been accustomed to increasing the marketing link, taking the big factory as an example, the promotion cost of the first stage of the new tour may be as high as hundreds of millions, and even several times the investment in research and development. From the perspective of "Ragnador", Japanese companies are just the opposite, and the publicity cost is still generally lower than the research and development cost.
After watching the encounter of the new tour of "Ragnador" in Japan, perhaps Chinese manufacturers have a more symbolic understanding of the strength of Japanese medium-sized companies, and how to play the advantages of Chinese manufacturers to attack the Japanese waist market may have the answer.