Text/Great Entertainer

When Infinite Warmth landed on all major platforms with a higher IGN rating than Black Myth: Wukong, it seemed to indicate that this ambitious dress-up mobile game seemed to have successfully transformed into a true open-world masterpiece.

However, as the game launched and players began to experience it deeply, an awkward reality gradually emerged - there was a natural irreconcilable design contradiction between the game's inherent costume and photo gameplay and the freedom to explore the open world, and this problem was especially evident on mobile: when players needed to take the perfect photo in a delicate setting, poor image quality optimization greatly affected this core experience.

The game interface of "Infinite Warmth".

In the current competitive environment of the two-dimensional game market, the "open world" seems to have become a must to fight. From "Ming Tide", which has been online for nearly half a year, to the upcoming "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun", "Different Ring" and "Infinity", many manufacturers have used the open world as a signboard to try to integrate various genres into it.

However, as more and more games join the open-world race, a deeper question is emerging: is the open world really suitable for all types of games?

The performance of Papergames' Infinite Warmth is now telling us a little bit.

In this casual game, which focuses on dress-up and photography, the huge map and free exploration not only do not enhance the experience, but dilute the original core fun.

When the construction of open worlds takes up too much development resources, and when the technical adaptation of multiple platforms becomes a heavy burden, the most basic fun of the game is overshadowed by these grand ambitions. This case clearly shows that before blindly chasing industry hotspots, manufacturers should return to the essence of game design and ensure that the form chosen can truly serve the core gameplay of the game.

Open world encounter photo check-in,

Freedom of exploration becomes a burden

Less than a week after its launch, "Infinite Warmth" officially announced that the cumulative global downloads exceeded 10 million, and according to media speculation, the cumulative turnover of its global platform in the first week is expected to exceed 200 million yuan.

The core gameplay of "Infinite Warmth" is still a costume change formed over the years by the "Nuan Nuan IP" that Papergames is proud of, which originally required a well-designed scene layout and delicate art performance. When these elements are forcibly embedded in the open world framework, it creates a series of unexpected problems.

The first is the dilemma of scene density.

In order to create a sense of expansiveness of the open world, the game had to use repetitive landscape filling in a large number of areas, which directly impacted the player's experience of finding the perfect location for filming. What's even more fatal is that what should have been a well-arranged photo scene looks fragmented and lacks a sense of design in the open world.

The game interface of "Infinite Warmth".

The imbalance in the pace of the game is another serious problem.

The most attractive part of the core gameplay, the costume change, is that you are constantly trying new combinations and showing the results in a well-designed scene.

The problem is that in the open world, a lot of mobile exploration and push-to-main combat dilute that core fun. Players need to constantly run through the vast map to unlock new photo spots, and the already tight pace of the game is forcibly stretched, resulting in a fragmented experience. It is not difficult to see players complaining on Xiaohongshu: "I just want to take pictures, why do you want me to climb so many mountains?" ”

The lack of depth of content is also a cause for concern.

In order to populate the massive open-world map, the game had to incorporate a lot of repetitive collection missions and simple environmental puzzles. Not only is this content uncreative, but it has little to nothing to do with the game's dress-up theme. The existence of an open world becomes even more far-fetched when players find that most of the exploration doesn't deliver meaningful returns to the core gameplay.

The game interface of "Infinite Warmth".

Even more troubling is the lack of interactivity.

In traditional dress-up games, well-designed scenes often provide players with rich inspiration for taking photos and prop interactions. But in the open world of Infinite Warmth, a large number of scenes are reduced to mere backdrops, lacking interesting interactive mechanics. This not only makes the photo gameplay less interesting, but also makes the whole world seem empty and lifeless.

The deeper problem is that there is a fundamental conflict between the open-world design and the business model of the dress-up game.

In traditional dress-up games, the acquisition of fashion is often closely linked to the story progression and payment mechanism, and the linear unlock path can provide clear motivation and instant gratification for kryptonite behavior.

However, when this mechanic is put into the open world, the problem becomes complicated. Players get lost in the vast map and can't clearly perceive the progress and value of their vanity collection, which can directly affect the monetization efficiency of the game.

The game interface of "Infinite Warmth".

The contradictions in the narrative structure further expose the inadaptability of the open-world model. "Infinite Warmth" tries to connect the huge worldview through the main plot, but the freedom of open-ended exploration actually destroys the coherence and tension of the story.

Players may have discovered later story scenes through random exploration before they have established a basic understanding of the character. The fragmented narrative experience not only weakens the story's appeal, but also renders the elaborate collection lines meaningless: when the story doesn't effectively give sentimental value to the fashions, they are reduced to mere numerical items.

And now it has become a prominent mobile phone, console and PC multi-terminal support, which makes "Infinite Warmth" feel the development pressure of being at a loss.

the technical cost of multi-terminal development,

Optimize the dilemma and experience separation

The contradiction between the core gameplay and genre design has been further exacerbated under the pressure of multi-terminal distribution.

More and more development teams are now using Unreal Engine 5 for better visuals, which really results in great graphics on PC and consoles. However, on mobile, the high graphics requirements have led directly to serious optimization problems.

According to a lot of feedback from players, even high-end mobile phones have serious lag and heating problems, and some devices even have blurry textures and unrelegible text. When players can't clearly see the details of their carefully matched clothing on their mobile phones, the core experience of "Nuan Nuan IP" has been broken.

Xiaohongshu netizens gave feedback on the picture effect of "Infinite Warmth".

Most multi-terminal games,In fact, it is also by reducing the texture accuracy of the mobile phone、Material texture or scene reduction to achieve the optimization effect,For action games, as long as the combat feel and sense of blow are intact,Picture shrinkage seems to be a big problem from time to time。 But for a game where "Infinite Warmth" itself is a game with graphics as its core selling point, the "mosaic" on the mobile phone and the overly simple scenes are obviously difficult to satisfy the core audience.

Just like the comparison pictures sent by many players on Xiaohongshu, in the same scene, the PC and mobile terminals show more than just the difference in the fineness of the picture, such as the large number of flower scenes on the PC side have been removed on the mobile side, and the clothing materials are even more different, once this difference is found, it is hard to believe that there are still players who can feel that this is the same game.

Comparison between the PC and mobile terminals of "Infinite Warmth".

Source: Screenshot of Xiaohongshu netizens

These optimization issues have a direct impact on players' social sharing capabilities, which is a fatal blow to a dress-up game that focuses on visual experience and social sharing.

The fragmentation of the operating experience is also worth paying attention to. In order to adapt to the operating habits of console and PC platforms, these multi-terminal games often incorporate more complex mobile and combat systems.

However, these operations often require players to have extremely flexible hands if they want to achieve through "glass rubbing", and at the same time, the series players who are accustomed to the simple operation of traditional dress-up games are actually not interested in combat and movement, and now this kind of light combat is difficult to really attract those action gamers. Compromises made for multi-terminal adaptation ultimately affect the gaming experience across all platforms.

Judging from the market reaction, the multi-terminal strategy does not seem to have achieved the expected effect.

While the game had previously received 30 million pre-orders worldwide, the word-of-mouth in the first week was markedly polarized, with console players expressing frustration with the depth and interactivity of the open world, while mobile users complained about poor optimization and tedious exploration experiences. The overall revenue flow of the game did not show a bright performance corresponding to the huge number of reservations in the early stage.

As it stands, Infinite Warmth has not really met the expectations of console players for an open world, and to a certain extent, it has deviated from the needs of the original core audience.

The asymmetry between investment and revenue is especially evident after the game's launch: while the PC and console versions have received good reputation, users of these platforms are not necessarily happy with long-term money despite their good payment habits, and it is easy to leave once they realize that Infinite Warmth is not an open-world game with long-term playability.

And when the main revenue still needs to rely on mobile gamers, but cannot provide the best graphics and gameplay experience on mobile, is it really worth the expensive multi-terminal development investment?

Genshin Impact actually encountered similar problems at the beginning of its launch, even if it can run smoothly without dropping frames after a year or two, it is still a test indicator of the GPU performance of high-end mobile phones, and it is also after the long-term optimization of miHoYo to have the current effect.

Genshin Impact game interface

This is no longer the case.

Nowadays, both the market environment and players have little tolerance for the content and optimization of new games, and once they fall into a negative cycle of poor reputation, they may be quickly abandoned.

Perhaps the official of Papergames is also aware of the changes in this environment, and Yao Runhao, CEO of Papergames, responded in the form of an internal letter for the first time, for example, he mentioned that the first-day turnover of "Infinite Warmth" has greatly improved the company's first-day turnover record of games, of which the domestic PC revenue exceeds 50%, and the overseas PS+PC revenue accounts for as much as 80%. In addition, laptop users account for a large share of the PC device population, and the average time spent online on the first day of gaming is also more optimistic.

As a continuous operation game, whether it can achieve the performance of low start and high walk in the future may also depend more on continuous optimization performance and operation status.

In fact, the above problems are not exclusive to "Infinite Warmth", and the next "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun", "Different Ring", "Infinity" and a large number of upcoming works that are both multi-terminal synchronous and open-world will be difficult to avoid similar challenges, and how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past to the greatest extent depends on the skills of different teams.

"Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" game world

While an open world can bring more room for imagination, the blind pursuit of scale and technological breakthroughs can be counterproductive without thinking about the essence of gameplay. For Papergames, perhaps a wiser choice is to return to the original intention of exquisite scenes and convenient gameplay, and strive for excellence in the field you are best at.

At the end of 2024, it's clear that the open world won't be a panacea for game design, and being too obsessed with it may dilute the core fun of the game. How to balance gameplay innovation and gameplay, as well as the current more dispersed user group, has always been a constant proposition for game manufacturers.

This article is from Xinzhi self-media and does not represent the views and positions of Business Xinzhi.If there is any suspicion of infringement, please contact the administrator of the Business News Platform.Contact: system@shangyexinzhi.com