【Tidal Business Review/Original】

"I'm going to have another birthday this year, and I'm wondering if I should be entrusted to accompany me." Anja, who is obsessed with B travel, said to a friend online.

In recent years, B games have gradually exploded, and it seems that it has begun to break the circle.

Some time ago, the war between "Harbin Circle" and "B Game" has just passed, and this Internet war refers to the fact that the two circles "Rap Circle" and "Game Circle", which will not intersect at all, "fought" for an otome game called "Love and Deep Space".

Due to some contradictions, the rapper of the Harbin circle came out with a song diss B game, and the B game group collectively fought back from the company to the players. This incident has made many people who don't know about Yiyou at all see a new group. Originally, I thought that only a small number of people would be interested in B game, but it seems that it has developed to a new stage.

Otome game, referred to as Otoyu, is a love simulation game with women as the main audience. In short, the player takes on the role of the main character in the game and falls in love with a playable male character.

It was first introduced to the domestic market by Japan, where the word otome comes from Japanese, which originally meant an unmarried young girl, and in B game, it refers to the heroine played by the player. "Love and the Producer", "Book of Undetermined Events", "Painted Traveler in Time and Space", "Love of Light and Night", and "Love and Deep Space" all belong to B Tour.

In fact, the group of people who play B games is growing today, and the development of B games in China is far beyond the conventional cognition of the public.

It's just that what is the "magical" charm of Yiyou?

01 Feed the big factory for love krypton

For a long time, Yiyou was regarded as a "representative of a subculture" and a "niche circle".

The world's first female-oriented love simulation game is "Angelique" released by Japan's Koei Co., Ltd. in 1994, this game can be said to be the originator of B game, and it has been 30 years since it was called.

Different from the development of Japanese B games, for a long time in China, high-quality women-oriented games have always been in a blank area, and it was not until the launch of "Love and Producer" in 2017 that the gap was filled, and the market was also detonated, which can be said to have opened the door to the national B market.

The popularity of "Love and the Producer" can be glimpsed from the number of downloads and installations, the data shows that the number of installs of the game exceeded 7 million within a month of its launch, and then foreign media reported that the game has a total of more than 2 million DAUs, with a monthly turnover of between 2-300 million yuan.

Why is B travel so popular?

Emotionally speaking, the fast-paced and stressful nature of life makes people very eager to find a gentle haven, and the affection and care of the characters in Game B give players a unique pampering and satisfy the emotional comfort they may lack in real life.

It is also under the temptation of Paperfold's ability to attract money that major game manufacturers also begin to want to get a piece of the pie and taste the sweetness of Yiyou.

After that, various companies began to stake their ground, miHoYo's "Book of Undetermined Events", NetEase's "Painted Traveler in Time and Space", "The Girl's Throne", and Tencent's "Love of Light and Night" were launched one after another, focusing on immersive love, from a single cultivation mode, to an authentic game form, during this period of time, Guoyi reached an unprecedented and lively realm.

How did Yiyou, which attracted many game companies to get out of the game, make money?

It is understood that the most important profit model of B game in the game is card drawing, players buy card drawing opportunities in the game, and obtain different character cards and corresponding love plots through card drawing, more than 50% of players will choose to draw cards for kryptonite.

In addition to gacha, there are also virtual items that can be purchased in the game, which can be used to dress up the character, unlock special plots, or improve the game experience, such as costumes, accessories, special props, etc.

There is also consumption outside of games, and game manufacturers will design a series of peripheral products according to the game characters and themes, such as dolls, stationery, clothing, etc. According to statistics, 42% of gamers will choose to buy fandom merchandise as a way to increase the emotional experience of the game.

Although Yiyou is a niche circle, the scale of users is growing year by year, and data shows that in 2023, the number of pan-ACG users in China will exceed 500 million.

It is also the growing number of users that has brought high turnover to game manufacturers.

For example, on the 30th day of its launch, Papergames, another game "Love and Deep Space", which will be launched in January 2024, ranked first in the online and public beta new games with an average daily income of 552211 US dollars.

According to the data, as of June 30, 2024, the turnover of "Love and Deep Space" has reached 1.59 billion yuan, which is the game with the most turnover in Game B, and at the same time, it far exceeds the second place "Love of Light and Night" by nearly 1 billion yuan.

Qimai data shows that during the Qixi event, the popularity list of the "Love and Deep Space" APP surpassed Douyin for the first time, with a duration of 9 hours, ranking third on the list, followed by "Glory of Kings" and "Dungeons and Warriors: Origin".

It is true that the current "Love and Deep Space" as the representative of the B game is unprecedentedly popular, but in the face of changing user needs and fierce competition environment, how should B game manufacturers maintain their long-term appeal to consumers?

02 Brand Connection, Aiming at the "Women's Consumption Power" Behind Yiyou

In fact, most people have a stereotype of Yiyou, thinking that Yiyou only has a love plot with pink bubbles and satisfies the empty emotional needs of some women.

However, with the rise of women's consciousness and the rise of women's emotional needs, they no longer want to be regarded as weak, and reflect their desire for reality into the game, and take the initiative to create their own world.

And women's consumption power is the vitality of the B game market. According to relevant data, as of December 2023, the number of female gamers in China has exceeded 300 million. According to the Aurora Big Data survey, the proportion of female players in "Love and the Producer" is as high as 94.2%, of which more than 90% are under the age of 30; And the proportion of first- and second-tier players accounted for 57%, with Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou ranking among the top three.

Because of this huge user base, Yiyou has also been regarded as the touchstone of many brands. Many brands have begun to set their eyes on the Yiyou market, and many fields such as "eating, drinking, playing, having fun, and traveling" have almost been covered.

For example, KFC and "Love and Deep Space" co-branded, and on the day of its launch, the topic of "KFC collapsed" rushed to the hot search on Weibo, causing heated discussions. There are more than 100,000 pieces of related content on major platforms, and the number of interactions is close to 700,000.

In August, Lawson and "Love and Deep Space" co-branded, and the 12-piece badge sold more than 1.7 million copies of the peripherals in a week; In July, Hollyland co-branded with "Love of Light and Night", which customized five different flavors of cakes and five different flavors of semi-cooked cheese for the five male protagonists in the game, which sold out when they were launched; In June, Gu Ming and "Love and Deep Space" co-branded, which sold out directly in 20 minutes; In March, Heytea and "Love of Light and Night" were co-branded, and the list of the milk tea shop directly changed into a curtain......

In addition to eating and drinking, in terms of fun, the joint name of B Tour has not been left behind. For example, in August, "Book of Undetermined Events" and Ganzi Cultural Tourism jointly launched the "Snow Mountain Changnian" ethnic style series limited cards, using exquisite vertical painting cards to amplify the attraction of the destination to players.

"Love and the Producer" also joined hands with Longines and "Marie Claire" magazine to release the "Endless Rotation" blockbuster, which can be described as a wave of win-win operations, matching different male protagonists to different styles of watches, creating a cross-dimensional blockbuster for the game, and also bringing attention to Longines.

"Book of Undetermined Events" has cooperated with Glico to launch a co-branded gift box, and this co-branding has directly brought more than 2.6 million yuan of income to miHoYo.

For consumer brands and B-game manufacturers, the main purpose of co-branding is to increase product sales and revenue. Most of the players are young women, and they are more open and tolerant of brands. Therefore, the scramble for co-branding of consumer goods can help them stand out in the fierce market competition, and can also bring broader development prospects to the brand.

However, although B game players have strong spending power, they will not pay for all co-branding.

For example, Aunt Shanghai and "Love of Light and Night" had planned a joint activity, but before the joint name began, there was negative news that some employees stole materials and sold them privately. On the same day, some employees even called the co-branded B game a "widow fraud game". Disrespectful remarks have sparked condemnation from players.

The co-branding of Shuyi Burning Fairy Grass and "Painted Traveler in Time and Space" also failed, and the design of related event materials was leaked before the event was announced, and the vulgar "nightclub style" of the co-branded materials also caused dissatisfaction and resistance among players.

Xuanmai also planned to co-brand with "Love of Light and Night", but when promoting it, the talent used customer service discount codes with suspected insults to women, such as "Money is for women to see, not for women to spend", "Good women should be cherished, bad women should not be wasted", etc., which were boycotted by players.

These rollover cases also prove that while co-branding is paying for emotional value, consumers are still rational. If brands want to get more out of the "cash cow" of Yiyou, they must first learn how to "communicate equally and effectively" with the core group of the game.

03 Yiyou's "Perfect Love"

With the continuous development of Otome and the continuous upgrading of the content of Otome games, "online dating" with characters in the game can no longer meet the needs of many female players. So in addition to the krypton gold in the game, peripherals outside the game, and co-branding, they began to want to try to pay to entrust same-sex cosers to play game roles and have a "real" dating and love offline.

Cosplay delegation is an extension of cosplay culture. Most of the parties are girls, and the person who initiates the commission will post information on platforms like Xiaohongshu, Xianyu or Weidian, explaining the role she wants to play and the details of the date, and the price of each order ranges from tens to thousands of yuan per day. The person who accepts the commission is the entrusted teacher, and will make corresponding preparations according to the requirements of the "single master".

Cosplay is a subculture service that allows participants to enjoy real-life experiences with cosplay characters, such as eating together, watching movies, or going shopping, for a fee, forming a paid version of "pairing social".

Anja, as an i-person, has only tried it once, and her request is actually relatively simple, just thinking that someone can resemble the anime character in appearance on a lonely weekend, and it is enough to accompany her shopping and take pictures.
"The overall feeling is quite satisfying, I communicated online in advance before the official meeting, and also took the initiative to understand my preferences, which is a memorable experience. Anja is happy to look back on.

In the past two years, more and more young people have fallen in love with dating commissions, and some conventional rules have slowly formed in the industry, such as communicating in advance about dress, salutation, and things to do in dating.

The role of cos commission is to leave a thoughtful, dreamy, and warm impression, and most of them describe their experiences on social platforms as "like a dream".

In the world of clear pricing, COS commissions bring the game to life, and the meaning of its existence itself is not as simple as a transaction, but an exchange of love and love.

Whether online or offline, in-game or out-of-game, the reason why Otome is willing to pay for krypton is actually very simple, which is to pay for her own happiness.

Maybe there is no perfect partner in reality, but Yiyou can. In the process of the game, the initiative is completely in the hands of the player, and the male protagonist passively accepts the player's emotions. In the third dimension, boys can discover their emotional problems at the first time and provide more effective emotional value.

In the eyes of many people, the "love" in Yiyou is fake, and it is stupid to be willing to spend a lot of money for a paper man. But in fact, they can distinguish between fantasy and reality, and what Yiyou brings is not only an illusory love experience, but also a steady stream of positive emotional value given by the hero.

In the future, they still need the existence of a real partner, but in the world of Yiyou, paying money to enjoy happiness and giving emotions without reservation is a kind of freedom to choose.

"I also want to decide to make an appointment with a cos commission to accompany me for my birthday.,After all, the company with pure love is not easy to get.,I recently asked a teacher just at the right time.,It's almost set.。 Anja said happily.

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