Text/Yiguang Flow

The fourth quarter of this year has not yet passed the halfway point, and the mobile game market has begun to enter the year-end melee stage.

After the National Day in October, a large number of domestic games started a big melee in the Japanese market, and the local area is also launching one or two new products every week in a step-by-step manner.

01

The performance of new products is mixed,

The highest earned 24 million in two days

On the whole, the new products launched in the Japanese market in October have formed a pattern of "one super and many strong".

"Pokémon TCGP" dominates the list, and "Witchcraft VD" and "Forest Country" occupy the second echelon of products that are stable in the 10~40 range of the best-selling list, and the third echelon includes "MLB PRO SPIRIT", "Ganglan", "Kapibala Go!" and other products that can hit the best-selling TOP10 but fluctuate greatly, or the momentum is not strong but the lower limit is high.

Among them, the performance of the first echelon of "Pokémon TCGP" has formed an advantage in the break-off level. Launched on the penultimate day of October, the product was first airborne to No. 5 on the iOS best-selling list in the Japanese market, and then topped the iOS free charts.

In addition, according to the estimation of Diandian Data (the following revenue data sources are the same), the global turnover of this product on the whole platform within 4 days of its launch is about 105 million yuan, and there is a growth momentum in the future, of which the Japanese market accounts for more than 56%, contributing the most. Looking more closely, in the last two days of October, the scale of its turnover in the Japanese market reached almost 24 million yuan, and the average daily income of 12 million yuan also crushed the performance of all new products in the Japanese market in October.

Source: Diandian Data

From the game level, "Pokémon TCGP" has a simple gameplay, fun collection, and the affinity and influence of the IP, so it has a phenomenal performance that is difficult to replicate. Of course, the success of this game also depends on the accumulation of Pokémon IP in the TCG field for decades, as well as the trial and error of multiple online products before and after.

In the second echelon, the most interesting new product in Japan is "Witchcraft VD". This game is full of bugs and makes money at the same time, and it is even more dramatic in the stock environment of 2024. And as we mentioned in our previous article, the success of Witchcraft VD is partly due to the fame of the Witchcraft series in Japan, and on the other hand, it is also due to the enduring charm of DRPG, as well as the developer's adventures and bets on "retro gameplay".

From the perspective of revenue data, thanks to the measures of global simultaneous distribution, since its launch on October 15, "Witchcraft VD" has accumulated a total turnover of 5.49 million US dollars (about 39.7 million yuan), with an average daily turnover of about 2.5 million yuan. However, after entering November, the best-selling ranking of this product has slipped to about 40, and the follow-up performance is worrying.

In addition, the domestic game "Forest Country" published by Lingxi Games has also performed very strongly in the Japanese market. "Forest Country" is a self-developed MMO product of Lingxi, which received 33.9 million turnover in the first month of its launch in September last year, and its performance in the following months is also remarkable.

In October this year, the game was renamed "The Tree of Savior: New World" using the IP of "The Tree of Saviors: New World", which was simultaneously launched in 11 countries and regions in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. The first test in 2015 "The Tree of the Savior" is also known as the sequel to the RO spirit, and there have always been many loyal players in the field of terminal games.

Japanese service slogan:

The Savior Tree series is an innovative work, and the Second Life MMO

After the launch of "The Savior Tree: New World", it quickly swept the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan markets, topped the local iOS best-selling list, and rushed to the third place in the iOS best-selling list in the Korean market and the 10th place in the Japanese iOS best-selling list at the end of the month. In terms of revenue data, the total turnover of this game in October was about 197 million yuan, and the Japanese market accounted for the third place.

Among the third echelon, Japan's local product "MLB PRO SPIRIT" is a baseball-themed product produced by KONAMI, and although it can rush to the height of the 10th place on the best-selling list, it has a large fluctuation range. Zilong Games' "Ganglan" rushed to the 25th best-selling list in the Japanese market, but it has been declining all the way in the future, and it depends on whether the new version has a rising trend. HABBY's global release of "Capibara Go!" has broken into the top 10 best-selling products in many regions, while in Japan, it has hovered in the range of 30~60 best-selling lists, which is a bit slow.

"Kapibala Go!" Japanese performance

On the whole, the performance of new products in the Japanese market in October spans a very large, there are oligarchs like "Pokémon TCGP" who have been dominating the list and have been cool, and there are also fluctuating new products that have momentum for a while and are weak for a while, but more of them are still cannon fodder that are not considered a wave of streams, and can only be on the best-selling list for a short time.

02

Gathering of major domestic manufacturers,

But cannon fodder products are the majority

Interestingly, after careful excavation, it can be found that the big domestic manufacturers with names and surnames have chosen to clear the products of mobile games to the Japanese market in late October, and a lot of "cannon fodder" has been produced for a while under the fierce competition.

The "Age of Empires" mobile game jointly developed by Tencent TiMi T2 and Microsoft has performed well in markets such as Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and South Korea, and some industry insiders have even called it a new overseas SLG with the best data recently. It's just that in the Japanese market, the challenge for this game is even greater: on the one hand, the game theme is a bit different from the painting style of the Japanese market, and it is not easy to find users, and on the other hand, the game RTS changes the gameplay of SLG, which further limits the portrait of Japanese target users.

After the game was launched, it reached the highest position of 73rd on the best-selling iOS list in Japan, and then stabilized at around 100. Its subsequent performance depends on how the game slowly expands the user plate and relies on SLG's long-term recovery ability to climb the rankings.

In addition, in October, NetEase quietly launched a new product "Open Space: Over Field" in Japan. Looking at the results of the list alone, this product has been going downhill since it briefly reached the 83rd best-selling position on iOS, and now it is almost out of the top 200 best-selling list. At the level of publicity, NetEase does not seem to have given too many resources to this product.

But from a product perspective, "Open Space" still has merit. The first is that it is indeed quite different from other second games, and the second is that, as its name suggests, it is regarded as a product framework, and it seems that there is a lot of room for filling and operation in the future. Judging from the concept of the developer's Inu-chan Group's previous work "Echoes of Manasis", their focus is also on exploring the experience innovation of the second tour, and this insistence is worthy of recognition.

Regardless, "Open Space" has had a big start in the Japanese market, and it is expected that if it is to improve in the future, it will be very difficult to operate.

In addition to Tencent NetEase, Thunder has also released two new products in the Japanese market through its subsidiaries, namely "Elona 2" published by Hong Kong Kunpan and "Demon King of Another World" published by Singapore's Boltray Games. The former is almost a flash in the pan on the list, and the latter is currently in the 80th or so position on the iOS best-selling list.

Among them, "Elona 2" is not small in the Japanese market. Before the game was launched, the original author of Elona said on social platforms that he had not granted the second-generation development rights of Elona, the game owner, and the announcement of Hong Kong Kunpan said that he had obtained IP authorization and respected intellectual property rights, as well as deep gratitude to the original creator and content of Elona.

The reason is that the domestic game corresponding to "Elona 2" is called "Black Star Brave List", which is a second-generation game developed by Chengdu Digital Dog based on Elona's mobile game, and after being distributed by Kunpan in Hong Kong, the name of "Elona 2" was changed. In the agreement authorizing Chengdu Game Dog, it is clear that Game Dog can use Elona's relevant resources to develop mobile games, but it does not explicitly stipulate whether it can be used for the development of second-generation and subsequent mobile products. So strictly speaking, "Elona 2" should be called "Elona Mobile 2".

Counting Tencent, NetEase, Thunder, and the aforementioned Lingxi, HABBY, and Zilong, it can be said that the domestic games launched in Japan in October are all backed by some of the best overseas bosses.

Of course, another domestic game "Resonas" also has a lot of stories on it. Its R&D game principality (GAMEDUCHY) can be said to be a domestic team that has been deeply involved in the second game for many years, and their masterpiece "Mobile Troopers" is also an early work that many old players of the second game talk about.

Compared with other second games, "Resonas" focuses more on gameplay innovation and the stalk of the old house, and lacks some of the elements of the popular second game, but this also makes it more niche and has a higher threshold. And the results of the list also confirm this sense of niche: iOS has been the best-selling 80 or so, and now it is slowly falling to nearly 200.

Overall, although domestic games gathered in the Japanese market in October, most of the products did not have the ability to attack the Japanese market like "Legend of the Mushroom Brave" at the beginning of the year. And except for a few products, the rest seem to be weak, and more often use the Japanese market as a test area, or take a pass during the global release.

03

Avoid the National Day schedule,

Start year-end clearance

From another point of view, a bunch of domestic games that suddenly appeared in the Japanese market in the second half of October are also a bit to avoid the National Day schedule and start the year-end clearance action.

With the export of leading domestic games, some nodes unique to the domestic market are also gradually exported overseas. Compared with the domestic new product launch trend in October this year, it can also be found that everyone consciously avoids the National Day schedule, and the only popular product launched in the first week of October in China is Migu Interactive's "Dream Weaving Adventure Group", which is a new game, and the second week is only the fourth week, and 3, 4, and 5 hot new products have been launched respectively.

Also in the Japanese market, many domestic masterpieces are also making efforts during the National Day schedule, just looking at miHoYo, there are "Crashing Iron", which rushed to the third place on the iOS best-selling list on October 3, and "Genshin Impact", which topped the list on October 9. As for the domestic games in the second and third echelons, there are even more of them. To a certain extent, this squeezed the living space of new products, so everyone also avoided the first half of October, which was the most competitive by default.

In addition, including local products, not only did the number of products launched in Japan increase in the fourth quarter, but the proportion of strange new products also increased.

For example, Gungho's follow-up work "Disney Pixel RPG", the blockchain game "ERGOSUM" co-developed by gumi, "Witchcraft VD" invested by the government and chased ducks to the shelves, and the big baby "Pokémon TCGP" co-developed by DeNA. There is also the innovative second game "Open Space", which is launched in a low-key manner, "Age of Empires", which is inconsistent with the art style, "Elona 2", which is mired in controversy, and "Resonas", which is innovative and niche......

《ERGOSUM》

In the past, such a lineup could not be put together, maybe everyone really rushed to clear the backlog of products before the end of the year.

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