01

Content traps

In the past two days, the second dimension has been turned out of the again, and it is very difficult to say.

How hard is ACG now? Almost from birth to death, every link is curled and thunderous...... Recently, it has become a problem to even set an audience and do ML business.

It's so hard that the head manufacturers can't stand it. Tencent NetEase recently cut a round of two-dimensional, and the pillar's miHoYo also hinted in the list of new projects that it would try a way other than two-dimensional.

Everyone's conclusion is here:

Now the big picture of the second yuan is that there are explosive models and heads, but the overall development is vicious - the market competition is large and the players are demanding. Don't be two-dimensional, run away.

However, I would like to say that there is a cognitive trap to this conclusion.

Yes, two-dimensional is difficult. It really doesn't necessarily depend on the market and users, both of which are the result of receiving products. If you trace the source up, you will find that the domestic games on the output side have not understood the second dimension for so many years, and they have been misjudged for many years.

Misjudged what? So far, China has not seriously treated ACG as a "game", or even as a "product" to be launched.

The biggest misjudgment direction is: doing two-dimensional = doing content.

The classic argument is that the second dimension is a partial student, and he doesn't care about the gameplay, but mainly looks at the content. Don't look at the past so many years, the cognition has basically not changed, most of the domestic people are still immersed in content, but the times have changed, and the name has been changed to "volume quality", and the essence is still to make content.

Recently, the competition has been too great, and there is a more awesome argument: ACG products now have to win in all directions. What is omnidirectional, you ask? It is necessary to have audio-visual, technical, and specification in all aspects, and all the content must be of high quality and have no flaws...... Anyway, I think it's outrageous.

Why does the domestic two-dimensional have to stumble content? Nothing else, it's just that "making content" is a concept that is easy to understand.

The old problem of domestic business analysis is that the analysis does not go beyond cognition, the conclusions must conform to habits, and it is convenient to copy the methodology.

1. The content is logical, it conforms to the nature of the second dimension, and can explain why the second game can make money and find new users;

Second, the content can become a new target, which is different from the previous values and gameplay, it is a new direction, and there are many cases of overtaking in corners;

Third, the content can be seen in the production ratio, which can directly reflect the art style and quality, can guide the product specifications, and can also intuitively see the player's reaction.

A few years ago, the news mentioned that tens of millions of annual salaries were hired as producers; Recently, the investment has been even larger, and the project has spent 3-500 million US dollars at every turn to build a two-dimensional 3D production pipeline.

But the question is, if the second lobby is worn out or a game, where does the immunity of "do a good job of content" come from?

As soon as you dismantle the experience, you know that it's unrealistic: after a version, put aside that one-off content, most of the rest of the time is dealing with gameplay. China is a long-term F2P, and looking at DAU, it is necessary to capture data. But most of the time players play not content at all.

That is, if you spend 90% of your time and energy on the content, people spend 10% of their time to finish it; You spend 10% of your resources on perfunctory gameplay and daily life, and you have to torture players for 90% of the game time.

The fact is that the second dimension is not a partial subject, it is a more difficult direction. When other categories enter the market exam, they will test a round of gameplay, numerical values, and social ...... What about the second dimension? If the compulsory door does not fall behind, it also has to take an additional elective "content".

——The content of the second dimension affects the new and long-term stickiness, and it is the gameplay that is being retained and paid.

The reality is that I didn't learn the two-dimensional compulsory courses in China, so I got up early and went to nibble on professional courses. In the end, when you were facing the big exam, you didn't even do a good job of basic products, so you went to tell people that you wrote a world view of millions of words, and invited hundreds of top Japan painters to create. Who cares about you?

This misjudgment has spanned almost the entire history of the development of the second dimension in China, and it has not ended now.

02

Two miscalculations

There are countless casualties in the misjudgment of the content of the domestic two-dimensional, and there are two rounds of the most representative.

The first round is a misjudgment of why ACG makes money.

How did the first batch of ACG in China make money? It's easy to say: no product.

The second dimension was a pure blue ocean at that time. Players don't have anything to play, and the industry doesn't understand it. And there are really few content-based products. In China, it used to focus on numerical gameplay, and the second game is the first time that China has eaten the sweetness of content - once you find the right channel, the game can capture a large number of core users by relying on content alone, and the payment and retention data can be 3-4 times higher than others.

But the market has gone awry - all the success is attributed to the victory of content.

The dividends of the blue ocean of the market? That's the high value of ACG users. There was a well-known analysis at the time: these people were "extremely critical and extremely tolerant, bordering on religious love, and then had another world in their hearts." Translated, it is: ACG users are special, sticky, willing to pay, or marketing tap water.

Is content products special? That's the advantage of the second dimension. The formula for success is simple and clear: understand the two-dimensional + mature gameplay = millions of leverages to leverage hundreds of millions of turnover. Without talking about the market situation, I will ask you if you understand the second dimension? Do you understand the EVA that Cai Haoyu watched? Do you understand the absolute realm? I find a group of people who know better to go beyond the head.

To put it bluntly, many projects don't even have the most basic products in mind, and they just talk about the content there.

A friend once told me that a two-dimensional IP project they docked back then did not compromise on the content: an animation of a character's amplification move could be broadcast for nearly a minute and a half, regardless of whether the experience was good or not. The other side said that this is the essence of the game, and it is what players love to watch.

A certain producer's two-dimensional project, at the beginning of doing nothing, writes the world view, first writes a grand history spanning tens of millions of years, and then goes to Japan to find the best art to create and anime. As a result, the projects have been exposed for the first time, and the gameplay has not yet been decided.

Everyone knows the ending: a bunch of teams charge into battle with PPT, and then die in batches, even if they survive to the line, they are waiting for death.

Well, the time has come to these two years, that is, the second round of misjudgment: what to do after "Genshin Impact".

"Genshin Impact" can be completed because this project is bold and dares to stuff big things that others dare not think of into the domestic market. If you look at the path of miHoYo before, you will know that Cai Haoyu is a genius, who did mobile and 3D actions in his early years, and now he has made the open world into multiple ends. To put it bluntly, people earn money that others dare not think.

But the market interpretation has its own ideas, attributing "Genshin Impact" to a victory for the quality of the volume's content.

Specifically, the current two-dimensional has to make the world bigger, to pile up materials, to do the quality of the main stand-alone, and it already has a natural production threshold there. If you don't throw in 2-300 million US dollars, what else are you going to do with the second dimension? How do you survive in the post-Genshin Impact era?

It's said to be the quality of the volume.,In fact, it's the volume content 2.0:To do 2D, you have to roll L2D and background details,To do 3D, you have to roll the magnificence of the character's action,The horizontal level has to be forcibly broken into a big world that can be explored,No matter how bad it is,You have to at least make the function page a street that you can visit......

A two-dimensional AFK project told me before that they had a clear goal: "Genshin Impact" was too troublesome to operate, and there was a threshold for getting started, so they would make a benchmark quality AFK mobile game, and players could enjoy the content quality of "Genshin Impact" with a very low operation threshold.

What now? It can only be said that everyone died worse than the last round of miscalculations. The previous project was able to survive until it was launched, but the current big production couldn't even survive the first exposure.

At a meeting at the beginning of the year, the senior management of a certain factory directly said that if you don't do any big projects of 1 billion yuan at every turn, they will be controlled to 300 million yuan or less. An investor told me that he is too lazy to look at those products that talk about stacking materials, no matter how you pile up materials, can you stack up MiHoYo with one or two thousand people in a project?

In the past, domestic games were criticized for having no feelings, no love, and only looking at the gains and losses of data;

Now the second tour in China is the other extreme, only talking about love, thinking that as long as you can spend money for love more than anyone else, you can win.

Having said that, whether it is the content of the volume or the quality of the volume, in fact, it is a little difficult to see what you mean.

The domestic two-dimensional team is like a brave man, unconvinced, to beat others point-to-point, and to compete on a long board. You can't do the content, I'll write a more awesome one; If you can't art, I'll invite the top; You can't play well, I'll do some innovation and add a sweep. As a result, come up with a quality, the art is a little better than others, the gameplay is optimized, and then the selling point is only the content and theme are different.

As long as the domestic second game is F2P, 90% of the time after the public beta will be for everyone to rub your gameplay...... Why would a player choose you instead of a game that has been played for a few years and filled with tens of thousands? Just give up everything for your little bit of content, and then run a Plus, Mini version and then brush the daily perimeter? Certainly illogical.

The key is that there are enough choices in the market, and people are not bad at playing, so instead of spending a lot of money to improve the nano-level experience with you, why not take this time to try other experiences?

Therefore, the second tour only bores the content of the volume, and fights whose treasury can be burned, or is it burned without limitation...... Who can do this in this environment?

03

It's hard to do, but it's not a dead end

If we have to do two-dimensional in China now, then what should we do?

In the short term, there is only one thing: you have to be special enough in the market and have a reason to let others play with you.

There are even ready-made methods -

Do the content. What is it that others are afraid to do? The one with the color is one. There is "Nikke" to explore the road in the past, and "Dust White Forbidden Zone" and "Shaoqian 2: Chasing and Release" curves to save the country, and taking 3D colors after the public beta is a clear and profitable route. No kidding, serious advice.

Some time ago, the second tour circle was extremely disdainful of color, saying that this was low-level fun, which caused this content to become a blank in China, and even the little-known "Staggered Front" was killed and drank a mouthful of soup. Everyone is content, what can there be low-level, it's just a packaging idea.

Do the gameplay. Big Brother miHoYo pointed the way very clearly: go to other platforms to find answers. miHoYo's recently announced new projects include Monster Hunting, Jetting, and Moving; The flagship of Eagle Horn pounced on the infrastructure; NetEase, Perfect Run and miHoYo to grab GTA......

The idea is very clear, that is, to find things that are not available in the domestic market, to open up new users to come out, and to eat food that others dare not eat. Of course, the road is definitely not so easy, after all, there is still an F2P process, and the value and payment are all problems. So what everyone is grabbing is time, and it depends on who can make it first.

But if you want to look at the long term, I think it's better to treat the two-dimensional game as a product.

Saying that two-dimensional is difficult to do is actually a very outrageous conclusion. The second element is a theme, not a specific product type. The theme of the Three Kingdoms, on the history of 60 years, a interpretation of a history book, from the last century Japan arcade to the domestic mobile game in the past two years, to now can still contribute a three schemes, three wars. Why did you run out of oil and dry the lamp? How is it possible to do it? It is nothing more than the market being led astray and short-term capital losing confidence.

Now the two-dimensional is difficult to do, and the overall speed reduction is due to the weak product foundation. How many games can there be now, like two-dimensional games, online every day is as uncomfortable as going to jail. There is no other reason: the emphasis on content and light gameplay is too serious, resulting in everyone not wanting to touch these games after reading the content and raising the characters, and the situation will become more and more serious with the long-term operation.

If you are optimistic about the opportunities, then correspondingly, ACG actually has a lot of room to grow, on the basis of good content, to learn how to become a good product, not to consider the micro-innovation of fools, but a serious F2P game experience.

Finally, to reiterate, it's not that the two-dimensional should not be the content.

I think that content is the icing on the cake of the second dimension. If you let the content become the only competitive point for your second game, or the only selling point of a certain product, you will fall into a never-ending trap.

Steam and standalone? That's another storyline.

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