On the night of Saturday, October 16, in a shop on Beijing Road in Guangzhou, under the dim light, three or five people gathered around a long table to read, and from time to time there was a sob or scream... This is a favorite place for many young people in recent times - the script killing store. Walking in the hall, you can see young people in Han costumes or suits walking around, you can be a swordsman with high martial arts, or you can be a sentimental Jiangnan woman.
Here, you can forget your real identity in real life, make choices in the game, experience different lives, and "be another me" without scruples.
The scale of the script killing industry is expanding day by day: the average growth rate of script killing related enterprises in the past two years has reached 85.6%
2019 is an important year for script killing. In this year, the number of script killing related stores in the country has rapidly climbed from 2400 in 2018 to 12000, and it is from this year that script killing has gradually entered the public eye. More young people are gradually shifting from traditional entertainment models such as "KTV" to new consumer entertainment such as "script killing, escape room, and e-sports".
A 2020 statistic by Zhiyan Consulting shows that among the offline trend consumption models preferred by Chinese consumers, the proportion of script killing is second only to movies and sports and fitness. "Script killing" companies and stores around the world are also growing rapidly. According to the data of Tianyancha, there are currently more than 10,000 enterprises in China whose names or business scope include "script killing and board games". From the perspective of geographical distribution, Jiangsu has the largest number of script-related enterprises, more than 1,100, and Liaoning and Shaanxi have more than 800 related enterprises, ranking second and third respectively. As of September 22, China has added more than 5,000 related enterprises this year.
According to enterprise investigation data, there are currently more than 10,000 "script killing" related enterprises in China. In 2020, more than 3,200 related enterprises were registered, an increase of 61% year-on-year. In the third quarter of 2021, the number of registered enterprises related to script killing was 1,454, an increase of 24.9% year-on-year, and the average growth rate in the past two years reached 85.6%. The reporter's investigation found that the main consumer group of "script killing" is the young people aged 26-40, accounting for 76.2%. As one of the daily gatherings and entertainment methods of urban young people, 63.5% of users will consume scripts more than once in two weeks, and more than 40% of users spend more than once a week.
Enterprise investigation 2021 third quarter enterprise development report
What makes script killings attract more and more consumers? Internet industry analyst Zhang Shule told reporters: "Script killing as a new favorite in the field of board games, indeed more diversified in experience, compared to werewolf killing and other board games in fact and board games with the same attributes of the 'accident under the rules', script killing can be because of the great richness of the script, and the formation of rules of certain changes and rich types of scene experience, there is a new, different experience of the game. For the generation of online students (z generations) who lack deep offline social tools, they touch on their pain points, and can bring strong social attraction and participation. ”
The emerging offline game format is still facing many challenges such as profit pressure and industrial chain construction
However, while the script killing ushered in a spurt of development, some players quietly faded out of the market. According to the Idle Fish Index, in April this year, the number of scripts, props, store tables and chairs, etc. on the grounds of "bankruptcy" increased by 110% compared with the previous month.
"The script killing shop closed, all the scripts were sold at a loss" "3 more stores have opened nearby, and there are no customers." Tables and chairs and props are available, save the child", "disagree with the partner, the store is not open, the cabbage price is taken away"... The resale reasons for killing the shopkeepers on idle fish all tell a cruel truth: on the outlet, some people earn millions of dollars a year, and some people have no return. At the same time of rapid development, the elimination rate behind it is also more cruel.
Source: Idle Fish
Ah Shuai is a practitioner who has been running scripts for three years. From the opening of the store in 19 years to the present, the script killing store operated by Ah Shuai has ranked among the top of the list of script killing in Guangzhou. He confessed to the Aoyi news reporter: "Now the industry has encountered a bottleneck period, many things are too uniform or similar, making people feel that it is nothing more than these things, or hope to continue to break through and make continuous progress." When asked about the current operating status of the store, Shuai told reporters: "Especially this year, there are too many new stores and the industry is crowded." You need to find a new way to play, maybe you can keep sticking with it. ”
When this industry continues to emerge, some merchants have also found business opportunities, quickly opened stores, reproduced other operating stores, and the track is becoming more and more crowded, but they forget the quality and content control. However, operating a script killing store not only relies on the release and creation of the early script, the script distribution platform, how to meet the consumer's hobbies, the cultivation of the host, the improvement of the rules, etc., each link is the trend to become a more perfect industrial ecology.
Under the current format of script killing, the downstream script killing market continues to expand, and upstream content creators are constantly trying new ways to play.
IP cooperation "breaking the circle" exploration, script killing may have more room for imagination
During the visit and investigation, the reporter found that some script killing stores and well-known game IP have carried out in-depth cooperation, and have created a diversified script killing scene around the game IP. In an interview with one of the consumers, Ms. Xu told reporters: "If the IP I am familiar with has been transformed into a script kill, it is equivalent to a concept of the game 'FanWai', I participated in it, there is a feeling of hanging, corresponding to what I have understood before, this feeling is very subtle." ”
Working with game IP is no longer the original gameplay of script killing. In April this year, the well-known IP adaptation of the script killing work "Qing Yu Nian" was first released at the Zhengzhou Script Killing Exhibition, and nearly 600 cities were identified for limited sale - in the script killing market, this is a very bright achievement. At the same time, the "Qing Yu Nian" IP copyright holder Yuwen Group has also reached a series of cooperation with Xi Multicultural Media and its holding company, Beijing Supernatural Force Cultural Communication Co., Ltd., and well-known IPs such as "Full-time Master", "Ghost Blowing Lantern 2", "Douluo Continent 2", "Mortal Xiu Xian Biography", "Yu Sin" and so on, are on the way to adapting them into script killing works.
The script of "Qing Yu Nian" was killed
In June this year, Tencent launched a script killing game called "Never Sleepy Chang'an Organ Trick", and this "Nightless Chang'an Organ Trick" script killing is the first script work of the "Glory of the King" IP co-creation plan Chang'an Sai Nian, and it is also the IP content creation of "Glory of the King" across the border.
Although for the current script killing industry, most of the store's script is still mainly non-IP- oriented, IP products want to change, but also need greater financial support. So will IP cooperation really become the "circle-breaking code" for script killing? In this regard, Aoyi News reporter interviewed Internet analyst Zhang Shule, who said: "IP will not become a broken circle password for script killing, but a complete film and television drama and game, more perfect in the script, the quality is also continued 'online', can achieve the current script killing under the uneven format, can form a rapid entry and drain the corresponding IP fans into the physical scene experience effect." However, most of these IPs have a formed world view and story structure, one is easy to spoil, and the other is that it is difficult to create secondary creations on the basis of the original to achieve the accidental acquisition of experience, and after the realization of offline landing, its ceiling will appear. ”
From the IP side, the producer, and then to the platform, the industry is still in the exploratory stage. Compared with popular IP such as online games, script killing has not yet matured independent IP works. The gap in awareness, experience, and cases makes it impossible for the industry to objectively measure its value, and can only retain an expectation value. The basis of good expectations is a high degree of respect for content and IP.
Social "upstart" script killing, under the boom also need "cold thinking"
How to make this industry more mature and perfect, the focus is still on both content and technology. Zhang Shule told reporters: "For the game experience with the 'script' as the core, the creation of the script should be raised to a certain level, and on the basis of respecting copyright, appropriate and in-depth cooperation in the field of online literature that has been greatly closed, and the original quality products have been continuously launched, while the three vulgar content is fully resisted." At the same time, in terms of technology, we must find more immersive experience forms, in addition to the decoration of the script killing scene, ar, VR and other technologies must also enter this field, in order to better realize the improvement, acceleration and technical barriers of the development of the script killing industry, and avoid the chaos brought about by the chaotic entry of some capital. ”
In addition, the cultivation of the script killing host should also be standardized and formed as soon as possible, otherwise as a "control field", the experience of script killing will be difficult to be released to the greatest extent. In how to train a qualified script to kill the host, Ah Shuai said: "As a qualified host, you must have multiple conditions, first of all, you must have a strong psychological quality, to deal with some unexpected situations, a DM (host) has to deal with a variety of people every day, social fear or stage fright, just pass it; then it is willing to work hard and work hard. I personally think that script killing is actually an ingenious industry, and only by constantly working hard, constantly polishing themselves, becoming more sophisticated, and more mature, can they become an excellent DM. ”
Ah Shuai also revealed to reporters that most of the dm is one or two points to wake up, three or four o'clock to sleep, day and night upside down schedule, and even eat because of work reasons, eat one or two mouthfuls of hot, and then come out to eat cold situation, so many dm is actually very hard.
The reporter also learned that from the early stage to continuously understand the script, expand their inventory and knowledge, follow-up fully familiar with the process and words, training a qualified DM takes three months to half a year.
In the early days of the epidemic, online scripts were a hit. Internet analyst Ding Daoshi suggested to reporters that in the past two years, script killing and epidemic have appeared almost at the same time, and the first thing to pay attention to is the safe and controllable operation. How to do a good job in the development of this industry while taking into account the basic needs of epidemic prevention and control. Secondly, the current online script killing game time is too long, often one or two hours, or even longer, if you can shorten the game like "Glory of the King", ten or twenty minutes to complete a round, then this fast-paced online script killing, may usher in a new outlet, and even the scale is far beyond the scale of offline script killing.
With the acceleration of economic development, the public's demand for leisure and entertainment is also increasing. In recent years, all kinds of "script killing" experience halls have sprung up in people's sights, and for a while young people have played "script killing" as a new social fashion, and this "social + immersive" game experience has also become a popular project for young people to start a business. But behind the barbaric growth is the lack of supervision and the chaos of the industry. Under the boom, it is also necessary to carry out "cold thinking" to avoid blind follow-up.
Aoyi news reporter Jiang Dan