Capital giants "invade" the video-game linkage industry: Games cannot be reduced to IP value "harvesters"

Original title: Why "Langya Bang" mobile game was only popular for a week

? Movie-game linkage has become a key word sweeping the game and film and television worlds.

This year's ChinaJoy has established the theme as "New Era of Games, Embracing Pan-Entertainment". Judging from the list of forum guests announced in advance, in addition to the "old acquaintances" in the game field who come every year, there are also many "big names" in the field of film and television production and theater management. Opposite it is the Shanghai International Film Festival, which has just concluded. During this period, China game industry giants such as Tencent, Giant, and Netease tacitly "invaded strongly" and used this professional film and television platform as a stage for setting up their own film and television companies and releasing game-adapted film and television drama projects. With big IP in hand, they stole the limelight of many established film and television companies.

Behind the cross-border is the mutual integration of film and television and game capital. At this point, it is difficult for the industry to draw a "38th line" and clearly say that "games belong to games, and movies belong to movies." This year's big movie "Warcraft", an extension of the classic game "World of Warcraft", easily grossed 1 billion yuan in box office in China in just two weeks. According to a survey report by the American Entertainment Software Association, games developed based on movie IP account for one-third of the North American game market value every year. Various overseas data seem to be showing that in China, movie-game interaction still needs to be explored and broken through.

He Yunpeng, CEO of Tianxiang Interactive, said that the company has recently rejected dozens of invitations to launch mobile games for film and television works. This seems unbelievable to the industry.

The number of online views of "Hua Qian Gu" aired last year exceeded 20 billion, while the mobile games of the same name launched in the same month as the TV series continued to occupy the top ten best-selling list for nearly three months, with monthly sales reaching 200 million yuan. The producer of this game is Tianxiang Interactive. Astronomical Interaction set the beginning of successful video-game linkage, but the "initiator" who stirred up a pool of spring water did not receive a video-game interactive product in the next six months.

"Not all movies and television dramas are suitable for adaptation into games. For some film and television works, the game of the same name is just a promotional accessory. The production cycle of a reliable mobile games cannot be less than 8 months, but in order to catch up with the schedule, the production cycle of many supporting mobile games has been compressed to less than half a year, or even 3 months."

He Yunpeng said that as a front-line practitioner in the industry, he has seen the rolling heat wave of movie and game interaction and felt the crisis under the heat wave.

In fact, due to the recent excessive blind obedience of the game industry to film and television IP, many short-lived games with substandard content have emerged on the market. The profit cycle of these games is synchronized with the broadcast cycle of film and television works, and even can only "survive" the promotion period. Many industry insiders complain that there is a game called "promotion period."

Capital integration makes the "progress" of film and television and games no longer out of touch

. The concept of video-game linkage was proposed by Youzu Network in 2014, but it is the credit of "Hua Qiangu" that makes this concept popular again. Tang Lijun, the IP miner and TV series producer of "Flower Thousand Bones", told reporters that three years ago, when she took the original IP and proposed the idea of simultaneous development of film and television games, she was rejected by eight game and film companies in a row, and two of them even It has reached the signing stage. "In the past, there were very few successful cases of video-game linkage. At that time, everyone generally had no confidence in video-game linkage." In the end, because iQiyi decided to join in, this plan came to fruition.

In June 2014, after finding the game producer, in order to keep up with the simultaneous launch, Tang Lijun gave the preliminary script to the game producer without signing the contract. This is a rare thing in the TV drama industry that focuses on early confidentiality. "At that time, everyone just wanted to do one thing well together, and they didn't care about the benefits." Tang Lijun attributed the successful starting point of "Flower Thousand Bones" to the "trust" between the movie and game parties in each other. In the almost simultaneous production process of film, television and games, this "intimate" connection runs through. The production of the game is also closely related to the content of the TV series. Fresh Guoguo, author of the original novel and screenwriter of the TV series, personally serves as the game plot architect, while the leading actor Zhao Liying has become the spokesperson of the game.

TV series and game makers have also had differences. Tang Lijun wanted to create a light "modern ink style" through TV series, but games needed relatively bright colors. "The rows are like mountains. We have been following up on the game content without interfering too much." In the end, the game and the TV series were launched in the same month. Since the TV series adopts a weekly broadcast mode, viewers may even be "spoilers" by playing mobile games. In the last few episodes, Zhao Liying's "Demon God Makeup" was a big suspense. Before, they had done enough publicity gimmicks to keep people's appetites, but the game company got the final look in advance. Two weeks before the TV series was broadcast, players could see this look in advance through mobile games. This also allows the two sides to achieve the role of mutual publicity and leverage.

Today,"Flower Thousand Bones" has become a model for movie-game linkage, and its story of being rejected by eight movie-game companies because of its advanced concept has long become history.

Due to the mutual penetration of film and television and game capital, it has become a trend to advance the cooperation between film and television and games around an IP to the preparation and planning stage. Many projects have even considered the feasibility of adapting games into the planning of film and television dramas in advance. At the beginning of the planning of the TV series "Shushan War", Langang Interactive, which successfully launched a number of mobile games adapted from film and television IP, and Wu Qilong, the star and producer of the show, jointly established "Feng and Long" Company, responsible for the production of the same mobile games in film and television dramas. During the script writing stage of the TV series, Wu Qilong began to consider the connection between games and film and television. In the play, the designs of many scenes, weapons, and magic weapons were very game-like.

Wang Shiying, vice president of Langang Interactive, revealed that in the face of film and television IP, game producers were relatively weak in the past. Many film and television companies were reluctant to disclose specific content in advance. The plot outline was often only a few hundred words, and they did not even talk about the characters 'shapes. This has led to game makers who want to catch up with popularity. The games that rush to produce have huge deviations in settings from the film and television dramas. However, games that understand the content before starting before starting, the film and television dramas have already been "cool" when they are launched.

Descending to the "harvester" of IP value, games will be short-lived.

Online media PingWest once conducted statistics that 80% of mobile games in the China market are not profitable, but the cost of acquiring users is increasing year by year. Faced with tens of thousands of new games every year, film and television dramas have become the "starting point" for games to break through in the homogeneous red sea. However, with film and television IP, the market return may not be ideal.

Behind the popularity of "Hua Qiangu" mobile games are the lonely backs of more people who have been defeated and fallen into the sand. After learning that the film and television copyright of the novel "Nirvana in Fire" was sold, the game company with a keen sense of smell immediately bought out the mobile game adaptation rights of "Nirvana in Fire", seizing the opportunity to link with the film and television series. However, unlike the popular reputation of film and television dramas, the mobile game of the same name fell out of the best-selling list in just one week after rapid absorption on the first day of launch. Industry insiders analyze that in addition to the "tough" quality flaws such as serious flashbacks and poor operation of the game itself, the "Nirvana" mobile game also suffers a bit in terms of topic selection and operation cycle-the search for "Flower Thousand Bones", the population under the age of 19 accounts for one-third, and this is the mainstream group of mobile games. This search group accounts for less than 10% of the "Nirvana"; In addition,"Flower Thousand Bones", which adopts the weekly broadcast mode, also has a longer promotion and fermentation period than the daily broadcast of "Nirvana in Fire", which is more in line with the operating rules of the game.

"In the era of mobile games, the development cycle and life cycle of games are shortening." He Yunpeng believes that in the era of end-game games, which often takes 3 to 5 years of production time, it is almost unimaginable to launch game products simultaneously with film and television. However, under the current industry background where themes are not selected,

content is not discussed in depth, and games are always promoted every film and television drama, a number of short-lived games have been created that are dressed in IP, but whose content is fried, and even whose quality is not up to standard. After the success of "Flower Thousand Bones", mobile games became the "standard" of film and television dramas. During this period, dozens of film and television drama projects came to their door, but their mentality was generally "getting more and more urgent." "The game production cycle of" Flower Thousand Bones "is only seven months. This is what I regret most. If I had more time, many details would have been better. But now some film and television dramas even require the launch of mobile games products within three months. Gamers all know that rushing a brand new mobile game product in three months may not even pass QA (quality control), which has led to many people replacing the characters of old games with the characters of the characters in the drama." He Yunpeng introduced that new games need to be written one stroke, and every detail is constantly refined, so it is impossible to catch up with some "schedules".

Becoming a promotional supporting product for film and television works, making a quick sum of money by the way, has become the meaning of the game during the "promotion period". This market logic of "withdrawing as soon as it becomes popular" runs counter to the concept that the game itself needs to be maintained and upgraded. One gamer bluntly said his deep anxiety about the current excitement of movie-game linkage: "Putting aside creativity and attributes, after so many years of development, the entire production and distribution of the film is more industrial, from production and distribution to theater lines, the time periods of the marketing link are clearly divided. After the release, we will see immediately whether it will work or not. However, games are service-oriented, and human-computer interaction and operating experience are the foundation. What is more needed is to continuously upgrade services. Often after going online, players and users form a community. How to continuously use system maintenance and gameplay upgrades to allow players to generate richer benefit distribution and interaction is the lifeblood that supports the development of the game."

Liu Guonan, senior marketing director of NetEase Games, believes that at this stage, both the game and film and television industries are looking for "money" and "stories", and are both exploring the residual value of each other's industries. The "promotion period" games are inevitable in the initial stage of video-game linkage. However, the simultaneous launch is only the first step in the linkage of movie and video games. How both parties can jointly raise IP with cross-platform value through the concept of serialization and high-quality will become the next issue that has to be faced directly.

Movie and game linkage case

"Star Wars" series game

inspiration: Movie and game linkage requires the support of super IP and "serialization" operations.

Many gamers complain that a major difficulty in linking film and television dramas and games is: "Film and television dramas have endings, but games have no". The success of the "Star Wars" series of games is precisely because both movies and games are constantly updated, creating greater space for each other's linkage. In 1977, since the first movie achieved a sold well at the box office of nearly US$770 million, the "Star Wars" series launched seven movies in a row, and the game series was also renovated together with the movie. Since the launch of the first "Star Wars" board game in 1979, no less than 10 "Star Wars" series games have been launched. At the end of 2015, the latest "Star Wars" game "Star Wars: Frontline" was released simultaneously with the movie "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". The game combines the characters, vehicles and weapons from the movie. Once released, the game set a sales figure of more than 14 million units, making it one of the highest-selling "Star Wars" games in history.

Enlightenment from the "Pokemon" series of games

: Continuously updating technology to connect games and film and television experiences.

In the late 1990s, the Japanese full-length animation "Pokemon" became popular around the world. In the world of cartoons, there are cute elves with different special effects. The protagonist collects elves during the journey, cultivates them, and lets them compete against other elves. Judging from the storyline, this cartoon has a "game" gene. Since the launch of the cartoon, Nintendo Games has launched a number of games. The main series of the game is role-playing games, which are constantly upgraded based on the animation content. The side series of games include puzzle games, electronic pets, etc. These games have always been a "regular" on the Japanese game popularity list. In "Pokemon Go", the most popular game launched this year, the game breaks the dimensional wall for the first time and combines virtual monster capture with the real world. Players can find animated elves in the real world around them through their mobile phones 'cameras and carry out capture and battle.

Enlightenment from the game of "Jurassic World"

: Excellent games can play a role in creating momentum before the release of movies

. Supporting games for film and television works are generally released at the same time as the film and television series or later than the film and television series. However, the game "Jurassic World" was launched earlier than the movie of the same name. Two months. In April last year, the game "Jurassic World" was launched on foreign game platforms. At first, the game was not very popular, but it played a role in promoting and creating momentum for the movie released in June of the same year. Two months later, with the release of the movie of the same name, the game began to emerge and immediately entered the game best-selling list. After that, the popularity of the movie gradually declined, but the game of the same name still dominated the rankings in the UK, the United States and other places.

Industry insiders concluded that the excellent production of the "Jurassic World" game is the key to its "long tail effect". In the game, the scene pictures, dinosaur design, combat effects and sound effects are all of the same quality as the movie. It is a good game that can stand alone.

Editor: Nancy