The launch of "Zhuxian World" at this point in time has multiple roles for the company, but in this game market environment where capturing young people is seizing the future, can an overly traditional MMO like "Zhuxian World" really help Perfect World transform perfectly?

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With the launch of "Zhuxian World", the game market once again felt the shock of domestic pure-blooded MMOs. The dragon mount of about 800,000 yuan and the costume appearance of about 100,000 yuan were all implemented on the first day, and the multiple special effects videos of the two top krypton appearances can reach 400,000+ on station B, and messages lamenting the uneven world abound in the comment area.

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As a game developed by Perfect World for many years, the launch of "Zhuxian World" at this point in time has multiple roles for the company, but in this game market environment where capturing young people is seizing the future, can an overly traditional MMO like "Zhuxian World" really help Perfect World transform perfectly?

1

The old capital eats the poor and the new project is powerless, and the 2024 is difficult

In 2024, Perfect World is not doing well, or it is not yet known when it will see results on the road to transformation.

According to the 2024 third quarter financial report released by Perfect World in October this year, the operating income in the first three quarters was 4.073 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.26%, the game business revenue was 3.87 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 27.28%, the film and television business revenue was 172 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 78.44%, and the net profit loss attributable to the parent company was 389 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 163.25%.

The reason for the loss, Perfect World explained that the company is in a critical adjustment period of focusing on layout and optimizing and combing, and the resulting expenses and losses, as well as some games and film and television drama projects whose profits are lower than expected, have had an impact on the performance. To put it more bluntly, it is that the old Ben is not in the transformation, and the transformation is a little late.

From 2008 to 2015, Perfect World gained a large number of users with IPs such as "Perfect World" and "Zhu Xian", and was at the forefront of the national style Xianxia track, occupying the top spot of A-share game companies.

A simple example, the IP of "Perfect World" alone has multiple game projects from terminal games to mobile games of the same name, and then to "Perfect World: Clash of the Gods" and "Perfect New World"; "Zhu Xian" is also from the end game to "New Zhu Xian Mobile Game", as well as "Zhu Xian 2" and "Dream New Zhu Xian Mobile Game". It is understandable to develop multiple types of game projects with the same IP, but the key problem is that Perfect World has not made much innovation in these projects, which has lost its attractiveness to players and its revenue capacity has gradually declined.

In 2021, Perfect World understood that it was time to capture a new group of young game users, so it developed the two-dimensional multi-terminal online game "Tower of Fantasy". "Tower of Fantasy", which combines the big world exploration + gacha and MMO mode of "Genshin Impact", seems to have a certain innovation, but it failed to capture young players as expected, and the sales value has become the reason why most players abandon the pit. In 2023, the two overseas IP projects that were given some hope, "One Punch Man: World" and "Persona: Phantom of the Night", also performed merediocrely.

The game R&D capabilities accumulated by Perfect World over the years have enabled it to make finished products that have reached the qualified line, but it has almost deviated from the current market environment in terms of operational ideas, which is the key to its failure to win players in both new and old game projects.

The main business will retreat if it does not advance, which also makes Perfect World have the pain caused by the transformation this year. In July this year, it was reported that Perfect World carried out a large-scale personnel optimization, involving a total of more than 1,000 layoffs, and the latest status of Perfect World also showed that it recently sold its games under development by Chengfeng Studio for 250 million yuan. In terms of film and television business, the financial report for the third quarter of this year also stated that it will focus on the strategy of "improving quality and reducing quantity", adapt to market changes, and strictly control the investment risks of film and television drama projects.

Source: Perfect World's 2024 Semi-Annual Report

It can be said that at present, Perfect World is probably to re-find the target users it wants to serve, and no longer blindly expand the market and business, and from the latest two projects, Perfect World has drawn up a basic direction - grasping both middle-aged and young people.

2

It's time to see whose money is better earned

In the official publicity, "pure-blooded MMO" and "pure Xianxia" are the two keywords of "Zhuxian World", pure-blooded MMO focuses on emphasizing that the game will not reduce performance for mobile terminals, sacrifice picture quality, and only serve end-of-game players, and pure Xianxia can also see that it intends to use the orthodox Xianxia IP of "Zhuxian" to attract the market, and the overlap of the two points is actually obvious that "Zhuxian World" wants to point to those Xianxia MMO loyal players in the past, especially the middle-aged big brothers who have money, leisure and feelings.

Therefore, "Zhuxian World" is essentially more like an old online game made with new technology, the payment model of point card + Battle Pass + mall/gacha appearance is a certain adjustment of the value of the traditional MMO business model, and the gameplay is a new big world exploration gameplay on the traditional PVP+PVE, MMO players have a certain degree of acceptance of such a game structure, and even as long as they do not sell the value, they can also "move bricks" (referring to the mode of earning game props and gold coins in exchange for RMB by playing the game) and start playing.

This is further confirmed by the game's pricing. The monthly card of 42 yuan/month is a low-grade in the current paid MMO, that is, the threshold for playing is low, and the in-game paid appearance pricing is obviously layered, the low price is 100 yuan (299, 399 yuan), and the high price is 10000 yuan and 100,000, 100,000 yuan.

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Dragon mounts worth nearly one million and 100,000 costumes have full-service animation special effects, and what Kryptonite enjoys after buying it is the emotional value provided by other ordinary players lamenting, although this old routine has been complained about, but judging from the results that many old MMOs have not yet "died", old players do eat this set, which is probably the main reason why Perfect World dares to buck the trend in 2024.

In the past few years, Perfect World has mostly been making end-to-end games, and the player market for mobile games does not match the MMO model it is best at, resulting in the fact that without sufficient innovative research and development capabilities, Perfect World's continuous IP mobile games have failed to hit users.

Of course, although "Zhuxian World" may not be suitable for the younger generation of gamers, Perfect World has also prepared another game, "Alien Ring".

Judging from the PV released several times, the actual video and the feedback of test users, the condition of "Alien Ring" in the two-dimensional open world is acceptable. First, the second game of the open world has reached the iteration period, and more gameplay is needed to increase the gameplay. Second, the production team of "Strange Ring" is the Tower of Fantasy Studio that understands young users best under Perfect World, although "Tower of Fantasy" has been abandoned by players due to the sales value, if "Different Ring" can learn from the experience of "Tower of Fantasy" and find the direction of long-term operation and a reasonable business model, "Tower of Fantasy" Studio will probably be able to give a finished product that satisfies the young market.

In this way, the transformation of Perfect World is actually to adjust its thinking and prepare for the layout of the all-player market, not only to stimulate the consumption of the older generation of players with feelings and emotional values, but also to serve the new generation of players with secondary games.

Of course, it is not that the game can be successful, and the revenue capacity of "Zhuxian World" still has to wait for the news of the financial report, and the competition of the next iterative second game cannot be underestimated. NetEase's "Infinity" small manufacturer Shiyue's "Looking at the Moon" has begun testing, the brutal "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballad" has also attracted market attention, and Tencent's "Glory of Kings World" is also continuing to advance.

Therefore, the launch of "Zhuxian World" at this time node is that Perfect World can't wait any longer, and needs to rely on the old generation of players to return to blood first, so that the company can survive to the next second game war in the new era, but at least this time the transformation has a more realistic direction, so that Perfect World can finally get out of the old way of eating the old book.

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