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No. 1 on the iOS free list and No. 16 on the best-selling list, "Pokémon Gathering" handed over its first day of results in the national server.

This result is actually quite good, reminiscent of the first performance of the game when it was launched overseas 3 years ago: on the first day of the launch of the server on September 21, 2021, the game also quickly topped the free list in many countries, won Google's "Game of the Year" award, and announced that the number of downloads on all platforms exceeded 100 million at the end of 2022. Although the revenue of the game is not high, the MOBA product is the foundation in the early stage, and everyone is still looking forward to the future.

As a result, the game's momentum came and went quickly, and the subsequent ranking in the list of countries fell very quickly, and the income failed to do it, and the highest point still came from the first month of the service. Based on the local influence of Pokémon IP, Japan is the best performing region for games overseas, but its list curve is far from good-looking.

"Launching the server is the pinnacle" is obviously not good news for a MOBA game.

Is this because overseas mobile game players are far less receptive to MOBA than in China? Or is there too much difference between Pokémon IP users and MOBA attributes? Or is there something wrong with the core gameplay of the product itself? It doesn't matter how we attribute these hindsights, it's how the project team sees the results themselves.

The game got the national server version number in December 2022, but it took two years to launch today. During this period, the game has been tested several times, and the paid test has been opened twice, and quite a lot of changes have been made: the main social city has been added, random abilities have been added to the core battles, and dozens of entertainment modes have been added...... These actions are probably the team's answer to the performance of the international server.

After playing for a day, I can feel that the team is working hard to tap the potential that this product may have, social, mild, pan-user, and family carnival, while maintaining a core gameplay, try to expand the gameplay outward...... But it seems that it is turning into another kind of "Metadream Star".

01

I still want to socialize

If you want to say that the most conspicuous change in the national costume of "Pokémon Gathering" is this social main city from scratch - Yios Island.

Based on this island, the game has redone a set of beginner processes, and various functional entrances have also been stuffed into this island, such as gameplay modes, appearance clothing stores, mini-games, and the main stage of activities...... It basically replaces the main interface of previous MOBA games, trying to create a feeling similar to a party social game.

The development team has also said that their starting point is to create a town where Pokémon and trainers can live together, so as to carry more memories of this IP - just like a certain town that will always exist in Pokémon standalone works. Coupled with a variety of interactive devices and interactions between players and Pokémon, this is also an "amusement park". Judging from the architectural layout and the number of stores, this "amusement park" still has a lot of room for expansion.

On the other hand, for "Pokémon Gathering", which uses appearance as one of its main incomes, the construction of this social scene can also allow players and Pokémon costumes to get more space to display. Especially trainers who don't participate in in-game battles, their outfits do need a stronger reason to buy.

Profile Page, Leaderboard, Event Page, Battle Settlement ...... There are trainers in many parts of the game, and even the photo mode is to separate the trainer and Pokémon photos, and prepare multiple sets of photo templates for 1~5 people.

The Seasonal Charm Value, which is composed of fashion collections, further highlights the game's social show-off attributes, which are easily reminiscent of the fashion, fashion, and trend values in other party games......

Of course, just adding a new main city and commercializing the appearance doesn't prove anything, and many cards and action games will also make a multiplayer social square. What really makes "Pokémon Assemble" feel like "Dream Star 2" is the game's attitude towards the core gameplay.

02

MOBAs are no longer the only focus

It's normal for games to have main and secondary gameplay, and "Honor of Kings" is now also a bunch of gameplay entrances. But "Pokémon Gathering", a MOBA product that was just launched today, came up with 14 themed gameplay in one go. Then choose the size ratio of the interface UI according to the gameplay, and you can probably feel that the so-called "MOBA main gameplay" is no longer as important as before.

These entertainment modes basically cover PvP, PvE, PvPvE, asymmetrical confrontation and other large and small ways to play. For example, the knockout round is survival and running drugs, and the 2-person team survives to the end in the multi-person chaos; Double-bounce volleyball requires players to pay attention to catching the ball while fighting; Coin Grabs will give the player a grappling hook item to grab enemies from the opposite bank.

Slide sideways left and right

And in addition to the exclusive activities and rewards of the qualifying match, most of the daily, weekly, and cultivation resources in the game can be obtained from the entertainment mode, that is, players can choose not to play MOBA gameplay, and only obtain Pokémon, costume appearances, etc. through the entertainment mode.

In fact, the game also has a themed points tournament specially prepared for the entertainment mode - there are rank points, exclusive rewards, each round selects levels from the random entertainment mode, and random badge effects. Judging from the level of care in the design of the rules and schedule, I even think that this is the main gameplay. And this idea of randomly selecting the gameplay is also the same as a party game.

The attitude of the game family carnival can also be felt from the publicity materials: the master is the master, the cute partner accompanies him, and he only blows water but does not catch fire...... It gives people the feeling that they can be happy even if they play casually.

Based on this idea, the core gameplay of the game's MOBA has also been adjusted accordingly. For example, the MVP of the losing side does not drop stars, and the MVP of the winning side adds stars, and the score is faster; Another example is that the game is no longer the winner who has the highest score in 10 minutes, but the winner who reaches 500 points first, which means that the game length has been further reduced, and it may only take a few minutes. That's faster than some CCG card games.

In addition, the overall framework of the game is a light MOBA, with no troops, no defense towers, no equipment, no personal economy, and only team points. This makes the game process more stress-free, it belongs to the ability to play how you want, the concept of winning and losing is further weakened, and you can't see who has died a few times when you click on the record bar.

"Pokémon Gathering" was previously positioned as a Pokémon MOBA game, but now it seems that it has completely moved in the direction of party games and casual competitive family fun, but it has replaced parkour with MOBA. This is probably the solution that the team has come up with in the face of overseas achievements in the past three years.

03

You have to try

At a previous exchange meeting, the production team said that they divided the users of "Pokémon Gathering" into three categories: competitive achievement-oriented, leisure and entertainment-oriented, and Pokémon IP audience. The national server has prepared three countermeasures for this: callback on the difficulty of the main gameplay, adding more variables to meet the needs of competitive players; Add more entertainment modes and do themed points competitions to meet the needs of leisure and entertainment players; Finally, the main city is used to strengthen the display of various derivative content related to Pokémon IP.

It's a good idea, and it really sets Pokémon Assemble apart from other MOBA games. Compared with other party games, this MOBA gameplay provides more replay and operation space.

But there are still many challenges for the game to face in the future. For example, if the game does not currently have a UGC model (perhaps due to IP restrictions), can the team alone cope with the long-term consumption of content in the future? If you don't plan to do UGC in the first place, how can you build your own user ecosystem from scratch?

For example, although the game weakens the competitive attributes, those cultivation systems associated with krypton or liver may also make players who plan to play MOBA uncomfortable. After all, the values given by these peripheral systems are not low, and there may be a certain gap between two players with different development progress at the beginning of the game. While the game doesn't want to emphasize winning or losing, winning or losing may still be important for many players.

Although Pokémon is the world's top IP, for the domestic market, its influence may be much smaller than imagined, especially the duration of its influence. IP may be able to explode in a short period of time, but it can't make these users attracted by IP stay for a long time. This can also be seen from the mobile game product of Harry Potter, another world's top IP.

The game is off to a good start at the moment, and considering the category restrictions and returnee status, this income is quite good. This may be partly due to the maturity of the commercialization of Pokémon Assemble, which is not at all like a new product, from operational activities to paid projects. It's hard to judge whether the game will follow the data curve of the international server in the future.

But it's always something to try. Because you can't pat your chest and say that if you move the previous "Pokémon Gathering" back to China intact, the performance will be better than the current one. Frankly speaking, when it comes to the gameplay itself, Pokémon Gathering can be called fun and interesting, otherwise I don't think this product has a reason to make Tianmei so "rescued".

Everyone wants to make a different product, and they all know that doing so may bring risks, but only when the risk really falls on their head will they know what "different" means.

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