Author | Yuhang

Edit | Ji Ran

Perhaps even NetEase Games itself is a little stunned, and the first new game Ziweixing in 2025 has fallen into its own home.

In January, the data agency Sensor Tower announced the monthly revenue ranking of China's AppStore mobile games, among the "old faces" such as "Glory of Kings", "Peace Elite" and "Genshin Impact", NetEase's "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" was on the list as the only new game of the month, although it was stuck in the position of the goalkeeper - 20th in the revenue list, but it was already a good result for new games.

Unlike many people predicted that the launch of the server was the peak, "Yanyun" was launched for 28 days, and the total number of double-ended players reached 15 million; And on the 67th day, the number of players exceeded the 30 million mark, making it one of NetEase's fastest-growing games in recent years. According to Sensor Tower estimates, as of the end of February, the mobile turnover of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" is about 474 million yuan, and if the PC side is estimated at a ratio of more than 60%, the double-end turnover of this game that has been in beta for less than 3 months should be about 1 billion.

The veteran game forum NGA has a so-called "Uncle Party (insider) revealed that in January, NetEase's main mobile game "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" was second only to the ace hand play "Fantasy Westward Journey", with a total revenue of 715 million at both ends, beating "The Fifth Personality", "Against the Water and Cold Mobile Game" and "Egg Boy Party".

More information can also be seen in the earnings report and conference call. On February 20, NetEase released its financial report for the fourth quarter and full year of 2024, and "Egg Boy Party", which had a decline in users last year, was not mentioned in the financial report, but the new game "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" has a place of its own - NetEase executives said on the call that the overseas version of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" has been launched, and they hope to meet overseas players in 2025.

Interestingly, before the open beta of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun", the outside world's comments on it were basically one-sided: violent death. In addition, last year, NetEase spent a lot of 1 billion yuan to promote the mobile game "Condor Shooting", which suffered a word-of-mouth waterloo, which made people sentence "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" to death in advance.

In the case of the gradual decline of the martial arts theme and the failure of the company's heavy work, how did "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" turn the tables against the wind and become the first MMO for young people? What does it do right in terms of marketing actions, product content, gameplay, etc.? Let's go back to last year.

Born in a big factory, his posture is lowered

When it comes to NetEase Games, many people's first reaction may not be its products, but its "crazy operation".

"Against the Cold" has been adhering to this marketing idea from the terminal game to the mobile game, tearing up friends from Xishanju to Tencent Games, and on its own official account, it is even more arrogant to pay tribute to games such as "Genshin Impact", "Elden Ring", "Detroit Becomes Human", and integrate their characteristic gameplay into their own games.

Going crazy is ugly but effective. As a classic IP in the 2018 public beta, the "Against the Cold" series successfully attracted the attention of many passers-by and entered the pit by relying on this "madness".

And "Outside the World" is a typical example of porcelain marketing. Originally, NetEase was not optimistic about the low-cost love game, but chose to open the beta on the same day as the 3D love masterpiece "Love and Deep Space".

The marketing method of touching porcelain + going crazy is not very decent, and this trick is used too much to stimulate the player's rebellious psychology. Coupled with the failure of "Shooting the Condor", "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" changed the tradition of NetEase Games' crazy marketing and became humble.

In fact, as early as 2022, "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" was unveiled at the Cologne Game Show, and the response was good. According to the main creator Beralt, an offline test was done at that time, and there was a lot of feedback from players, and the entire combat system was equivalent to a rework. In the years that followed, they conducted several more tests, and each time they found a lot of problems, and even the open beta date scheduled for the summer of 2024 was postponed.

From the perspective of categories, martial arts-themed mobile games have not appeared in so-called hits for a long time, and "Condor Shooting" has not taken on NetEase's internal expectations of creating "the next "Against the Cold". In addition, "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" is original, unlike "Against the Cold" and "Shooting the Condor", which still have IP blessings, and it is reasonable to lower oneself in attitude.

Although the attitude is lowered, the porcelain still has to be touched. LAST SUMMER, BLACK MYTH: WUKONG BECAME AN INSTANT HIT, BREAKING THE HISTORY OF MANY CHINESE SINGLE-PLAYER GAMES, AND STEAM SALES CONTINUED TO RISE.

"Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" took advantage of the heat to release a long article, congratulating the other party on being "the first college student in the village", allowing the outside world to see the strength of domestic 3A, comparing himself to "the yellow hair in the village" and "preparing to repeat (referring to the postponement of the public beta)", taking advantage of the east wind of the national discussion of 3A games at that time, it really made many players who didn't know that NetEase had hidden such a new game to pay attention to this game.

At the end of last year, "Yanyun Sixteen Voices" announced the public beta time, unlike most open world games that are launched at the same time, on December 27, 2024, the PC side will be the first to launch the public beta, and on January 9, 2025, the mobile terminal will be launched.

At that time, this decision also deepened the doubts of the outside world: if the PC side did not perform well, then the mobile side would not be downloaded. But it turns out that the decision to put the PC first and then the mobile terminal is a good move.

The vast majority of open-world games, whether it is the former "Genshin Impact" or the "Infinite Warmth" that was only launched in December last year, have this commonality: the PC and mobile terminals feel completely different, and even like two games. The light and shadow and details on the PC side are completely unrecognizable on the mobile side, and the combat feel is even more different.

The practice of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" being launched on PC first, although in the short term it will make the user's krypton gold decision longer - compared with the mobile face scanning, the PC side requires the mobile phone to scan the code before paying, but it makes the window period of word-of-mouth fermentation longer. The interval of half a month is just enough for those operation bosses to push the most exciting main line part to produce a batch of Amway stickers, and mobile players slide into the pit.

The second swim fell, and Yan Yun was full

From the number of user registrations and the discussion of various game content on social platforms, it is not difficult to find that "Yanyun Sixteen Voices" has indeed attracted a group of younger players, and it can even be regarded as the first MMO for young people, and many of these young players were previously second-game users.

The characteristics of the second game are that it emphasizes content over social networking, and even zero social interaction in the game. MMOs, on the other hand, are the opposite, where in-game socialization is an essential core element of this type of game. How did "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" achieve both fish and bear's paws? We believe there are several reasons for this:

First of all, from the perspective of the general environment, the second game is indeed going through a painful period, and the outbreak of "Genshin Impact" has affected the follow-up game development to some extent, and all the second games after "Genshin Impact" are more or less "original" flavor", and no matter how good the game is, it will make people aesthetically tired after playing for four or five years.

In addition, due to the influence of the miHoYo series of games, most of the second games emphasize concepts and big words when making plots, but they can't tell a complete story. The topic of "can the plot of the domestic second game speak to people" has been discussed among players for several rounds.

"Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" happens to be the game that players crave for "the plot speaks to people".

There are no pretended profound nouns, nor is there a pretentious concept, the background of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" is set in five dynasties and ten countries, and the turbulent current situation and the livelihood of everyone are easy to interweave a shocking story. In addition to the main story, the game also uses side quests, prop collection, etc. to make the story fuller, and the core demands of the "first two game players" who love the plot have been satisfied.

For example, Brother Yidaodao, who has skyrocketed in popularity because of the main plot of Qinghe, his modeling is not handsome or even a little general, and his attitude when he meets players for the first time is not friendly, and his foul words look fierce. But he is the leader who leads us to know the rivers and lakes, and chooses to carry the fatal blow himself at the moment of life and death, leaving us the hope of life.

"It's hard for someone to cross the Qinghe plot and not fall in love with Brother Dao", this is the charm of a good plot and good copywriting. This kind of memorable characters because of the plot abound in the game, and they are not limited to the main line, and the emotional connection with the player is invisibly established.

Secondly, it has both single-player and multiplayer systems to separate single-player players from multiplayer social enthusiasts. People who have no intention of socializing can completely immerse themselves in their own solo world to do the plot. And it's also using non-coercive methods such as in-game rewards to guide players to try to enter the multiplayer world to socialize.

"I used to play the second game with a stuffy solo, and it was easy to be lonely after a long time. The social interaction of "Yanyun" is not mandatory, I worshipped a teacher in order to get clothes, but I was pulled into the group, and I really made a lot of friends. Because there are friends here, it's unlikely that you will quit easily. ”

Again, it is said that Yanyun is the "ultimate stitching monster", which integrates the gameplay of many popular games on the market. But as one player put it, "Stitching 1-2 games together is plagiarism." If you can sew so many games and sew so well, that's a good game."

From the perspective of personal hands-on experience, "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" is one of the few open-world games that can also get a better experience from the mobile terminal (only referring to the story mode). And unlike other "pseudo-open-world games" that can't be explored in depth without pushing the main story, there are too many places and ways to play on the large map of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun".

"Can you believe it, I'm at full level, and the first map exploration is also seventy-seven-eighty-eight, but the main story is almost not done at all", there are not a few players like this.

Finally, last year's vigorous "men don't play" forced manufacturers to choose sides, which also caused many female players to abandon the pit in anger, but not all female players like to play love mobile games, and those who have combat needs and pursue plump roles naturally poured into "Yanyun Sixteen Voices".

It can be said that "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" has given a beautiful response to the doubts of the outside world, and judging from the community and discussions, there will be no loss of players in the short term, and the good results will continue.

But that doesn't mean that the "young man's first MMO" can be safe, on the contrary, it's a double-edged sword, and the problem is already showing up right now.

As mentioned above, "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" has accepted a group of second-game players, who are the most vocal group on the Internet, and they are also the most difficult to please. Their ideas are radical and easy to be taken away, at least by swiping the screen to protect their rights, or by reporting directly, which is a great hidden danger for any manufacturer.

In February, a netizen claiming to be an "insider of the project team" posted on the NGA forum to solicit opinions on in-game fashion, and at that time, someone in the comment area left inappropriate remarks, and the administrator's practice of covering her mouth further angered female players, and "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" encountered its first public opinion crisis.

Because the results of this crisis cannot satisfy all players, in the past half month, some people have successively pointed out that the female characters in the game show their legs and shoulders and are suspected of being flattering men, why don't they send blessings on Women's Day, etc.

We have no intention of being an online judge, but if this situation continues, "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" is likely to become the battlefield and victim of the next gender war.

The second in the industry also has hidden concerns

Of course, the sword of Damocles is not only hanging over the head of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun", although NetEase Games continues to hold the second place in the industry, but the financial report still reveals a lot of problems.

The game business is the ballast stone of NetEase, and the net revenue of game and value-added business in 2024 will be 83.6 billion yuan, accounting for 79% of the total revenue, with a growth rate of 2.5%. According to the "2024 China Game Industry Report", the sales revenue of the national game market will increase by 7.53% year-on-year in 2024.

Judging from the specific performance of NetEase's game products throughout the year last year, the most eye-catching is still the beginning and the end - "Outside the World" at the beginning of the year and "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" at the end of the year, the interesting thing is that these two games were not among the promising ace products within the company before the outbreak of the open beta, especially "Outside the World" even began to recruit on a large scale after the opening of the server. The company's optimistic products, such as "Shooting the Condor", which has invested 1 billion yuan, will die violently when it is launched, and a new version will be launched in the near future.

This shows that there may be problems with NetEase's internal project decision-making, and senior producers may not know what the current players like the most, so there will be judgment errors, and there are often unintentional insertions.

Although Tencent and NetEase next door both have aging products and lack of new-generation game succession, NetEase is obviously a little more difficult than Tencent, which has a variety of big DAU games in hand.

"Fantasy Journey to the West" is indeed still making money, and this game has even formed its own unique economic system; "The Fifth Personality" can be called an unbeatable little strong, and it will return to the best-selling list every once in a while, and although the number of users of "Egg Boy Party" has declined, it is still the favorite of primary school students. However, compared with Tencent's National DAU games, NetEase's production is more aimed at specific groups in a certain circle.

In the future project reserve, NetEase's currently discussed products "Infinity", "Outside the Bounds" and "Overwatch", which has returned to the national service, are also products that anchor the circle of users.

Judging from NetEase's frequent closure of overseas studios, as well as the fact that Ding Lei and NetEase's financial reports no longer disclose the scale and proportion of their overseas game revenue in recent years, NetEase's overseas performance is not optimistic, and Boss Ding is likely to continue to increase investment in the domestic market in the future, and no longer pursue to roll out of the sea track. However, this inevitably leads to the problem of its products fighting left and right and diverting each other.

According to vertical media reports, Jin Tao, president of the Zen division, plans to officially resign from the NetEase Zen division in the near future, Jin Tao has led the team to make "Onmyoji" and "Harry Potter: Magic Awakening", and the main copywriter of "Onmyoji" has also left last week. The status quo of several products in the Zen division is not optimistic, and the next hit has not yet appeared. This also makes NetEase's product series more uncertain.

In short, the success of "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" is not only a confidence boost for NetEase, but also for the manufacturers in the industry who are struggling to stick to MMO. We will continue to monitor the long-term performance of this game, and we look forward to seeing some changes in NetEase Games itself and the market as a result of this unexpected success.

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