In April this year, the "2023 January-March Game Industry Report" released by Gamma Data disclosed a set of category flow distribution data, and it can be seen from the chart that at present, role-playing (MMO) and shooting (FPS) are still the top two tracks, but compared with last year's data, the trend of the two has shown a significant divergence:
Among the top 50 mobile games, the proportion of FPS game turnover increased by about 5% compared with the same period last year, while the proportion of MMO decreased by nearly 10% year-on-year.
On the one hand, in recent years, manufacturers in the FPS category have been exploring along the two subdivisions of tactical competition and SOC, and continue to expand the content margin of the categoryOn the other hand, after years of vigorous development of MMOs, the problem of content homogenization has not been properly solved.
Although the current situation and trends of the two tracks are different, in Gameres' view, they both face different opportunities and challenges.
And today, with the new product "Avatar: Return to Pandora" (hereinafter referred to as: Avatar Mobile Game), which is self-developed and self-launched by Zulong Entertainment and focuses on FPS+MMO integration and innovation experience, officially opened reservations, and the news that the first domestic test is expected to be launched in January next year**, we seem to see the possibility of both FPS and MMO tracks being innovated by it.
The new mobile terminal of the top movie IP, why is the Avatar mobile game worth looking forward to?
As the world's first full 3D special effects movie, "Avatar" released in 2009 is world-renowned, and still sits firmly on the throne of "global film history box office champion".
Focusing on a more specific product level, although the content of the work is not much at present, it is not difficult for us to get a glimpse of its competitiveness in combination with the concept PV and actual machine PV that were officially released before, as well as the player trial that flowed out during the small-scale overseas test.
First of all, for mobile games, the blessing of top film and television IP is a "double-edged sword" in a sense, on the one hand, the attention and influx of IP users will naturally make it have a larger user base;But on the other hand, it is also needed to provide a higher degree of IP restoration and a purer sense of IP immersion to meet the needs of this group of pan-entertainment users.
But what is surprising is that with the support of the research and development of the UE4 engine, we can not only see the excellent picture quality from the actual PV, but also see its sincere restoration of "Pandora Planet".
Whether it is the rich terrain and landforms from the movie such as "Hallelujah Mountain" and "Homestead Tree", or the vegetation ecology constructed by characteristic plants such as "Shadow Fungi" and "Spiral Leaves", or the restoration and presentation of alien creatures such as "Lightning Thunder Beast" and "Hammerhead Thunder Beast", we can see the importance of the work to the polishing of audio-visual quality, as well as the respect and restoration of Avatar IP.
In addition, in order to make players more immersed in IP, the game is also equipped with a complete face pinching system, players can not only customize face shape, hairstyle, facial features, oil paint, biofluorescence and other facial details, but also customize the appearance of the body with the help of various fashions and decorations, which means that players can incarnate the ideal avatar image, explore and fight on the planet Pandora, and even tame various exotic beasts as mounts, etc., to enjoy a more immersive experience.
At a time when the aesthetics of global players continue to upgrade, the Avatar mobile game, which has top IP + high-quality synergistic resonance, has at least the "hard power" to stand out on the dual tracks of FPS and MMO.
Of course, what is more important is a series of differentiated innovations in content gameplay by cleverly borrowing the idea of FPS + MMO category integration.
From a macro point of view, the potential opportunity of the current FPS category lies in the expansion of the user base driven by a few top hits in recent years, which means that once there is an innovative gameplay catalyst based on the FPS experience, it is easy to attract the attention of a large number of players.
On the other hand, the MMO track has the advantage that after years of precipitation, it has already formed a set of content frameworks with high public awareness and mature systems, but in recent years, it has been plagued by content homogenization, resulting in a shortage of category incremental users, and many existing users are also difficult to wake up, and then fall into a bottleneck period of sluggish growth.
Based on this logic, it is not difficult to find that after Avatar mobile games promote the integration of FPS + MMO, it can be said that in addition to opening up an attractive incremental new subdivision track for the FPS category, it has also cleverly promoted the MMO to complete the content renewal, which is expected to take advantage of the development potential generated by the "MMO mature system + FPS incremental dividend", and at the same time inject more vitality into the development of the dual track.
Judging from the current public information, the game provides players with four career choices on the development line, and each class has its own positioning and skills. At the same time, there are also a variety of ** and guns in the game, and players can even collect and customize ** that is more suitable for themselves.
It can be seen that the collection and cultivation of equipment based on the profession among players, as well as the strong social team battle, will still be the core experience of the game.
On the gameplay line, the PV of the actual machine is shown in the PV of the PV and the multiplayer PVP gameplay, and it is reported that players can also form their own guilds for **G confrontation.
Gameres believes that unlike traditional MMOs, which only test the cooperation of players in terms of profession and skills, after the introduction of FPS as the main combat method, variables such as shooting accuracy and movement micro-manipulation are also added, which will make the whole combat process full of more randomness and the experience will be more exciting and exciting.
It can be seen that whether it is at the level of "hard power" such as picture quality, or the construction of Pandora based on IP, and the "soft power" level of gameplay characteristics spawned by the idea of FPS+MMO integration, it actually reflects Zulong's excellent R&D strength.
I believe that with continuous tuning, the game may allow the industry and players to see the development space of the innovative idea of FPS+MMO, and thus bring more growth points to the FPS and MMO dual tracks.
Avatar mobile game is expected to become a milestone in Zulong's global distribution
If you pay attention to Avatar mobile games in 2022, you should know that Tencent was responsible for global distribution at that time, but at the end of November, Zulong issued a "Voluntary Announcement on Business Update", saying that based on the characteristics of the product and a comprehensive consideration of the current market situation, the product will be launched globally in the form of Zulong's independent release.
The termination was a bit of a surprise, but it revealed an important message:
Zulong has enough confidence in the global distribution of blockbuster self-developed products, and the confidence of all this essentially stems from its achievements in the global distribution dimension in recent years.
In the past few years, Zulong has been exploring the path of global distribution, and so far, he has successively released many games overseas, such as "King of Kings", "Dragon Fantasy", "Noah's Heart", "In the Name of Shining", "Madtale: Idle RPG", etc., with remarkable results.
Among them, according to the financial report, as of the first half of 2023, the cumulative turnover of the MMO game "Dragon Fantasy" launched globally in 2020 has exceeded 4.3 billion yuan, and the cumulative number of registered users worldwide has exceeded 43 million
The women-oriented masterpiece "In the Name of Shining", which has been landing in overseas markets since 2022, has also been making great progress in Southeast Asia, Japan and other regions, and has set off a new round of craze after the PC version was launched on the Steam platform and Epic Games** not long ago.
It is worth noting that the excellent results of "In the Name of Shining" are not limited to overseas markets, and it is also a rare popular boutique for domestic women in the market in recent years.
Since its launch in March this year, in just 9 months, the game has been launched more than 10 versions, in addition to enriching the game experience of players with high-frequency and high-quality content in the long term, the official continues to be active on social media such as Xiaohongshu and Weibo, as well as through the launch of innovative attempts such as the "Shining Sisters' Daily" emoji, and also deepens the emotional bond with players on the distribution and operation side.
The Christmas version launched on December 21 also benefited from this, and its ranking on the iOS best-selling list also showed an intermittent pulsing trend, and almost every version can be among the top 10.
With a series of self-issued products in the global market more and more excellent performance as the anchor, it can be seen that Zulong's global self-release strategy has become more and more clear, and it has also completed the transition from a "boutique R&D provider" to a "global R&D and operation integration manufacturer" step by step.
After accumulating enough experience in global publishing, it can be expected that it will be more comfortable in the process of global distribution of Avatar mobile games, and the game is also expected to become a new milestone on its global publishing path with the support of players.
After the first domestic release of PV was revealed last year, a large number of players have been looking forward to the launch of the game in the **comment areaConclusion
In Gameres' view, the birth of the Avatar mobile game is a sign that Zulong will further explore the FPS field and seek breakthroughs in multiple categories after "In the Name of Shining" broke the circle of women to the track, reflecting its determination to further deepen the global R&D layout and strengthen the global boutique strategy by cooperating with global film IP and relying on cooperation with Disney at the technical level.
It is worth noting that even though the game has not yet been officially launched, it has gathered a lot of influence around the world, for example, IGN has previously followed up on its concept PV and actual PV.
On this basis, many overseas players have also expressed their affirmation of the work on YouTube, X and other platforms after watching the actual machine PV or the trial game released by other users.
Including after the pre-order opens today, we can also see more players expressing their expectations for the test of the game in January next year on a number of domestic social media platforms.
All indications show that Avatar mobile games, which enjoy the blessing of "head IP + top audio-visual quality + innovative content", are expected to become a "dark horse" in the global game market in 2024 with the help of Zulong's global distribution style, and also point out a new development direction for the MMO and FPS tracks. (Wen Nanshan).