Text/Repair

Although it may be too early to say, I think the biggest dark horse in 2024 may be "Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World" (hereinafter referred to as "Three Schemes").

DNF Mobile Game? The last Wang Bang of Tencent's four famous novels is the popular white horse in most people's hearts; "Black Myth: Wukong"? Expectations are high enough to cool down; "Love and Deep Space", "Sword and Crusade: Departure", "Naraka: Infinite" mobile game...... These products are all from the self-developed teams of large manufacturers, and they need IP and IP, and resources and resources.

And the three schemes? The R&D team is not well known. A small start-up team that has never done any SLG, the publisher is still mainly based on the two-dimensional track, and has accumulated less B stations on the SLG track.

Before this year, it can be said that such a project had few followers, and even did not notice such a product at all. Only in the small circle of SLG, can you occasionally hear the news of "Codename: NSLG".

As a result, it finally became, and it also became the fastest game in the history of station B to reach 1 billion turnover: the top three of the iOS best-selling list were dropped in the open beta on the same day, and it was stable in the Top10 for a month, and the subsequent new season service data was better and better every time, and the ranking of the S3 season was even higher than that of the open beta, and it came to the second place on the best-selling list.

So the question is, is it luck or vision that Station B can sign Sanmou? You must know that before Station B, many companies have seen this project. What is the core logic at the beginning of the establishment of the Sanmou project? How do you want to do SLG when you plan an MMO project? After such great success, what will be the next step for Bilibili? Can Sanmou's distribution model be replicated?

A while ago, Grape Jun had a conversation with Sanmou producer Leaf and Yu Yang, deputy general manager of game publishing at Station B. From project approval to investment, to achievements and future, we talked about it all over again.

In the face of this "splashing wealth", the Leaf that made a hit for the first time was quite cautious. He said that he played games to remind everyone not to wave the advantage of the game, and recently he also wound up the team at the monthly meeting to cool down, and don't start to swell because of the best-selling list. "I finally got a chance to get to the table, and I must not let myself continue to play."

The following is a transcript of the conversation:

01

Talking about project establishment:

Win first, fight later

Grape Jun: You were originally an MMO, how did you start a business and start an SLG?

LEAF: Because I've loved to play strategy games since the era of red and white machines, and I have also played all kinds of SLGs in the era of mobile games, and then I found that SLGs have many advanced features, such as long-term, seasonal system, server ecology, and social efficiency...... I tried to introduce some SLG elements into the MMO, and the results were very good, and the players were very positive.

For example, I observed that an MMO can only open one new area every month, because the purchase volume is not good, and there are not enough new entrants. In this case, players don't dare to charge money, and they don't plan to make long-term investments, so they just watch while playing, and one day the server ghost suit will run away. When everyone has this mentality, a district will basically be yellow in about a month.

However, after the introduction of the logic of the season system in MMO, the game has a mechanism that players with different progressions can start again at the same time, and players also have expectations, knowing that the server will remain lively in the future, and will not be ghostly. This can be regarded as a solution to the problem that the MMO new area cannot be opened to a certain extent.

Another big advantage of SLG is that it is not a strong content-consuming logic, but maintains replayability by setting rules and PVP rematching, so it does not have high requirements for team capacity and scale, and it is a track that startups can "afford".

Although SLG is good, I still have many needs, and the SLGs on the market do not meet them. So I just did it myself and made an SLG that I wanted to play.

Grape Jun: Although the threshold for SLG R&D is lower, the purchase volume is not something that a small team can bear.

LEAF: It's definitely hard to do if you rely entirely on buying volume. Because even if you buy a certain SLG player, if you can't leverage his social connections, it won't be long before he returns to his original SLG.

So our main target group is people who haven't experienced the fun of SLG yet, or who have experienced it but haven't stuck with it. Instead of digging the core users of competing products, it is difficult to dig.

And if the product can obviously better meet the needs of market users, then there will be word-of-mouth communication, and the original social relationship will become our help. In fact, the SLG category also has many disadvantages compared to MMOs, but these disadvantages are opportunities for me.

Grape Jun: You also have a lot of choices to do SLG, why do you want to come to the Three Kingdoms in China? At that time, going to sea should still be a popular direction.

Leaf: Because my team and I are both SLG lovers of the Three Kingdoms, we firmly believe that products made with love have a soul~! I don't know much about other overseas themes, so I still keep in awe. And at that time, I thought that there was room for improvement in the Three Kingdoms SLG on the market, so I recklessly took this one. Now it seems that it is still quite thrilling, the SLG market of the Three Kingdoms is indeed extremely involuted, and the competition is fierce, and it may be better to attract investment if it is changed to another theme.

Early in the game, the codename "Three Kingdoms: NSLG" means: New SLG

Grape Jun: In the eyes of many people, SLG is a category that focuses on numerical payment, is this a resistance to the expansion of pan-users?

LEAF: I don't want to make games like MOBAs and shooting, where everyone is more technical, and these kinds of games do have a big user plate, but I really don't do them.

I wanted to make a sand table playing game that was more strategic and relied on multiplayer socialization. Less numerical values, combat power is not the only decisive factor, so that the player's strategic choice, social division of labor and other factors can play an important role.

Grape Jun: At the beginning of the project, did you think about lowering the liver and reducing the price?

LEAF: Well, it's a painful one. I used to spend nearly 2 million to play SLG, and each game is a medium and large R, but I often have negative feelings such as "I can't afford to play", "Krypton doesn't move", and "I don't maintain my value". I still remember when my monthly salary was 20,000, I couldn't even match a set of wasteland lineup when I charged 10,000 on the first day, and I couldn't even draw the core card for a season when I charged 30,000, which was really too expensive.

I think that players who can spend money on the game already like the game very much, and they are supporting it with real money, and they should be treated well. And those players who don't spend money, as long as they are willing to put in the time, should also have a game experience that does not lag behind and does not fall behind.

Lowering the liver is related to the problem of user fatigue. When I first started playing SLG, I was able to spend over 10 hours a day playing, but as the season progressed, the freshness became less and less exciting—more time and less reward. Begin to embark on a negative curve of diminishing marginal returns.

Since SLG is a social game, it should expand the user base, so it is an inevitable idea to reduce the liver and reduce the price. I hope that players can get a great value and cost-effective feeling of "small investment and big return" in Sanmou.

Grape: I feel like you figured it out from the beginning.

LEAF: Sun Tzu's Art of War says "win first and then fight", and if you don't think about how to win, you shouldn't fight this battle – of course, it's all an afterthought. I can now say that I was 100% sure at that time, but I may not even be 10% sure at the time. But in order to do the game you want to make, you always have to fight for it.

There must have been some things in this process that I didn't think about very clearly, for example, I was struggling with the scale of the project. Although we hope that the higher the quality, the better, but the start-up team has limited resources, there were only 10 people at that time, and the risk of choosing the 2D sandbox map solution is relatively low, but considering the real battlefield substitution that SLG needs and the fierce quality involution environment that may be faced when it goes online, after some trade-offs, we still chose to fight in the direction of the 3D next era.

02

Talking about investment:

Don't look at the future from the past

Grape Jun: When you came out to start a business, was it easier to get investment?

LEAF: I think so too, I only came out of the company in 2021. But who knew that within a few months of starting the business, we encountered a suspension in the approval of the game, and we hadn't even submitted the version number application at that time. Then the enthusiasm for investment in the entire gaming industry quickly cooled down.

However, we have no SLG project experience, and the product completion is not high, only a demonstration video, which cannot be played or measured. In the months that followed, our company's cash flow bottomed out, and I was anxious about whether I could continue to do it.

Grape Jun: In the end, it was Station B that saved you?

LEAF: In the second half of 2022, some investors expressed their willingness to invest in us, and Bilibili is also looking at other types of products.

Yu Yang: Station B decided to start the game publishing business at the end of 22, in addition to deeply cultivating the original two-dimensional category, it also hopes to do some category rejuvenation expansion, and the company's distribution strategy is to find products in all categories. Based on the user characteristics of Bilibili, we had three strategic requirements for new categories and new products at that time, the first is a game that can be played by young people, the second is a game that can be operated for a long time, and the third is a game that can be combined with the content ecology of Bilibili. Under the guidance of these three strategies, we found the product Sanmou, but we didn't expect the two sides to hit it off on the product concept, so we quickly made the decision to cooperate.

Leaf: The reason why I chose Bilibili in the end is because I think everyone is more compatible in terms of community tonality, product operation ideas, product understanding, including the direction of the future development of the product. Maybe others don't understand, how can you send an SLG to station B. But I think this is the most suitable choice, and there are many opportunities for strategic synergies in the future. So it didn't take long to sign the contract.

Grape: Specifically, what did you agree on?

Yu Yang: First, the core positioning of Sanmou is not to grab the cake of the existing SLG, but to broaden the track, transform the people who did not play SLG into those who play, and pull back the users who had played SLG but lost to other categories; Second, we all believe that this is a general trend; Third, it is necessary to make an evergreen product that has been in operation for at least 10 years.

Based on these points, let's work backwards to see what R&D needs to do and what needs to be done for distribution. Before us, some manufacturers also looked at Sanmou's product, but in the end they didn't sign it. I heard that the reason why they didn't sign it is that they think that SLG with the theme of the Three Kingdoms, such as Sanmou, can't be bought in volume or the cost of buying volume is too high, so it can't be done.

But I think it's a typical way of looking at the future with the experience of the past. Because we do not have the burden of historical experience, we do not have such concerns. We believe that Sanmou is a subversive product - B station + new concept SLG+ rejuvenation, for phenomenal products that may subvert the track, past experience and data may not be applicable, of course, this kind of subversive product, the risks and benefits are also huge, either completely not recognized, or bring subversive results.

03

Talking about the history:

SLG issuance at station B

Grape Jun: Your project should be considered to be the kind of smooth process.

Yu Yang: I think this is because after everyone reached a consensus and had a firm direction to move forward, they were no longer influenced by the outside world, and there was no wavering and hesitation. In the process of development, I didn't constantly question whether my thinking was going to continue because the product was successful and the product died, so I didn't take a lot of detours.

During that time, there will indeed be many people who question that "reducing liver and reducing krypton" is a false proposition, and there will be many people who feel that there is no chance to do SLG with the theme of the Three Kingdoms at present. We don't have too many concerns in this regard, we haven't done SLG in R&D, we haven't released SLG in distribution, so we will stick to the direction we started to identify, and then adjust the product according to the feedback from players.

LEAF: I always remind people to think about why no one else does it. Some designs are not done, probably because there is a price behind it, the benefits are not as good as you think, but the disadvantages you don't think of; Some designs may be because he wants to do it but can't do it, because there are many risks in innovating in the mature track, and if he doesn't do it well, he will have to take the blame.

As long as you think clearly about the big direction and choices, there won't be too many problems. Each test of the product is relatively smooth, and it is not said which test feels that the problem is particularly big, and what needs to be changed is some detail tuning.

Grape Jun: Will it be more difficult to publish? After all, station B has never been able to send SLG, and this track has such a volume of customers.

Yu Yang: We signed Sanmou at the end of 22, and we have more than a year to prepare. At that time, I was thinking, we are not familiar with SLG, if we copy the experience and method of publishing two-dimensional games, we will not have the advantage of the track, and there is no reason to do better than others.

Therefore, after we signed Sanmou, we began to consider treating it as a SAR issuance. We not only recruited positions within the team around the characteristics of SLG's issuance, but also built an SLG buying team for this special zone. On the whole, we choose to respect the laws of the category industry, so we have full knowledge and experience of this track.

Grape: Why is there such a big investment?

Yu Yang: Every time the game is tested, we will discuss and optimize it with R&D, and the data is good, which also indirectly verifies some conjectures about our product ideas with R&D. The game has been tested about 3~4 times, the first time to test the gameplay, the second time to test the business model, the third time to test the season and social, basically the 7-day retention has exceeded 30%, and the user reputation is also very good.

We also found that at the time of testing, there was no particularly large gap in retention and payment between users in different categories such as MMO, cards, esports, and SLGs. Therefore, this verifies that we are right with the direction set before R&D, and Sanmou has the opportunity to expand the circle, attract more users who have not played SLG before, and produce subversive results for the industry.

After obtaining these verifications, whether it is for the size of the publishing team or the planning of the issuance fee, we have decisively carried out more radical planning and went all out to seize this rare opportunity.

Grape: Based on this data, what is your distribution strategy?

Yu Yang: First, it's not just about income. For a game to be long-term, its user retention, activity, and word-of-mouth indicators are more important than short-term income to many extents; Second, it is not only about buying quantity. Although we have also spent a lot of money to buy volume, we don't just buy volume, we take the path of brand + traffic + content, use brands to occupy users' minds, and use content community ecology to retain users, which is also the experience we have summed up in publishing games for young users.

Third, pay attention to the user's reputation, make friends with players, and focus on persuasion; Fourth, maximize the combination of the content ecology of station B. Mobilize and encourage a large number of creators to make novice videos that help newcomers lower the threshold, and make high-quality content that current players like to watch game guides and player stories.

During the public beta, Sanmou's new addition and retention exceeded our expectations, and the cost of buying volume was also lower than the expectations of the industry and channels.

04

Talking about results:

It's not over life and death yet

Grape Jun: You have achieved such great success in your first business, and many people should envy you.

Leaf: Just because you won a good level 1 team battle doesn't mean you've won. I just recently wound up the team at the monthly meeting, don't look at the best-selling list and it swells. It is easy to fight the country, but it is difficult to defend the country. In this situation, everyone should be cautious, and finally have the opportunity to get on the table, and you must not give yourself any more time to play. I'm a relatively stable person, and I'm the one who plays games to remind everyone of the advantages of the game.

Grape-kun: It's really cautious.

LEAF: Because SLG is a long-term category, it's not like it became in the first two months, it became it. This track is more than whether everyone's service can continue to keep up, and whether there will be mistakes, leading to some irreparable situations. Our SLG R&D and operation experience still needs to be precipitated and accumulated, and many decisions still need to be more cautious.

Yu Yang: It is still impossible to conclude that "Three Schemes" must have been completed, this is by no means Versailles. At first, I was really happy to see the online data, but immediately there was a lot of player feedback. In the first month after the launch of the server, R&D and distribution were basically all overnight.

Why so cautious? Because we've seen too many games, the income was good at first, but after the first month, it was cut in half, and after half a year, the game was gone. And some products that were very successful at the beginning gradually declined, basically because they did not catch up with user changes and industry changes, and let the market out by themselves. He probably didn't do anything wrong, he just fell behind.

Will every future version update of Sanmou meet the expectations of users? If you don't meet the criteria once or twice, maybe it's the beginning of falling behind. So how do you keep this result? Not beat around the bush. We only have three months of SLG experience, and we don't have much right to speak, so we can only say that we will walk on thin ice in the future, take every version, every update, and every user feedback seriously, and try to listen to the advice of players as much as possible, and make fewer mistakes ourselves.

Grape: How would you rate this starting result?

LEAF: It's also the right time, the right place, and the right people. The SLG track as a whole is not as high as in previous years, and it is a bit of a slow shrinkage. The track is going downhill, there are fewer projects for large manufacturers, and there will be fewer competitors. At the same time, this means that there are no new products to meet the new needs of players as the times change. In addition, at that point in time, Station B happened to need some products to make strategic layout and strategic adjustments, and we just collided.

Yu Yang: "Three Schemes" proves that young users can indeed get what they want in a good SLG product. And we think that whether it is the track of SLG or the product of Sanmou, the upper limit is far from reaching, and it may take 1~2 years to slowly introduce this group of users.

Grape Jun: But some people will think that this result was smashed by station B with money.

Yu Yang: Sanmou is indeed the game with the largest distribution cost in the history of Station B, but the word "throwing money" always makes people feel like they are throwing money stupidly. In fact, our overall input-output situation is very healthy, the game has been profitable in the first month of open beta, and it has been profitable every month since then.

People think that we are throwing money at us, probably because they see that we buy a lot of volume. But for SLG products, buying volume is indeed a very important means, but it is not the only thing to do. And the same is the buying volume, our underlying logic is not the same. We have done a survey of hundreds of thousands of players, and among the apps that Sanmou players use frequently on a daily basis, station B accounts for more than 40%. This means that although everyone thinks that SLG is not the best category of station B, station B does have a huge ability to plant grass for SLG users. In terms of the strategy of user growth, we still adhere to the strategy just mentioned, use brand marketing to occupy the minds of users, use the content ecology to further plant grass, and use the purchase volume to solve the problem of users entering the game.

05

Talking about the future:

Everyone fights for who lives long

Grape Jun: What is the significance of Sanmou to Station B?

Yu Yang: It verifies that the idea of using the content ecology of station B to bless other categories and young users is valid, and it also provides a methodology for the category expansion of station B.

We will continue to look at the SLG category, but I think other categories may have more opportunities, such as simulation management and MMO. Because the rejuvenation of the category itself is a huge opportunity for the game industry, those mature categories may not be the red ocean now.

Grape Jun: What will happen to the issuance strategy?

Yu Yang: The issuance strategy will change from the platform logic to the explosive logic. The platform logic is that I have so much traffic, so I can support 10 new products to be launched every year, so I must find 10 products to send; The logic of the explosion is from the perspective of the product, what kind of product is suitable for us, what kind of product can operate for a long time, even if only one or two are issued a year, but these two are selected by thousands of people, and we focus on resources to do a good job. Now the Matthew effect in the industry is intensifying, and the product is going to the extreme after it is launched, either surviving for a long time and leaning more and more towards the head of the category, or dying quickly in waves, in order to pursue a bunch of products in quantity, and then shut down after a year, which is harmful to players, to the R&D team, to the distribution platform, and to everyone.

In the next five years, Bilibili will insist on looking at the opportunities for category rejuvenation, adhere to the product idea of category expansion, and insist on introducing and developing games that young people like and can play.

Now we don't want more, every product we sign must invest enough resources and manpower. The organizational structure of the issuance is also biased towards the project system, focusing resources on evergreen projects. Like "FGO" and "Blue Route", they are now also done in a special way.

Grape Jun: Can the success of Sanmou be replicated?

Yu Yang: First of all, from the general direction, we judge success based on two criteria: first, whether it can achieve the head of the vertical category, whether it can stabilize some loyal core fans, and second, whether it can do long-term operations.

We believe that if a game can be in a leading position in its own vertical category, it will attract a considerable number of core users, and if it can stabilize this group of core users for five or ten years through long-term operation, the income will not be bad. Under the competition in the stock market, the long-term "magnitude" must be more important than the short-term "magnitude".

On this basis, I don't think that it will be possible to completely copy Sanmou's style of play to another category of new products, and the great significance of its success is to help us improve and evolve the underlying logic of distribution work, such as more cognition of young users, such as a deeper understanding of the content ecology. We use this upgraded underlying logic to match the unique distribution experience of other categories in the future, and form a new set of things for each new category release. This may be the core idea of future success.

Grape Jun: How many years do you think Sanmou can last?

LEAF: Our small goal is to continue to operate healthily and steadily for more than 10 years. Let's not talk about the big goal, for fear of being laughed at if it looks too pompous.

Grape Jun: Can it be done just by reducing the burden on the liver?

LEAF: A lot of what Sanmou does is for long-term operation, just to prevent players who come late from catching up. Of course, there are still areas where the game can be optimized, but I think that as long as the basic market of SLG is stable, you can operate slowly, make some new attempts, and finally make quantitative changes into qualitative changes. I still encourage the team to try more, hoping that through perseverance, Sanmou will be evergreen.

Grape Jun: What do you think of the current domestic game market?

LEAF: When I do a new project later, I probably won't be able to divide the product types by label. Maybe I can't even tell what genre this game is, because players don't really care if you're an SLG or an RPG. You have to start from the player's mood or experience, and create something that is more in line with the player's needs, a new experience.

Yu Yang: The so-called stock market does not refer to the scale of market revenue, but the scale of users. Each product and each company competes for users who can stay on their plate for a long time. Even if the short-term income of the product is not high, as long as it can ensure user activity and retention, and as long as the operation time is long enough, its economic benefits are considerable. Now everyone is fighting for who understands users better, who can serve users better, who can keep users better, and who will live longer.

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