I didn't expect this year's domestic games to get off to a good start so quickly.
A few days ago, Wanda Cinema Games released the idle RPG game "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice" in the Japanese market, and to the surprise of Grape King, this game climbed to No. 3 on the App Store best-selling list and No. 5 on Google Play's best-selling list within a few days.
There are too many "anomalies" in the success of this game. First of all, this is not a new work, it has been released in the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Europe and the United States and other regions in the past few years. Secondly, this is the first time that Wanda Cinema has published a game in Japan, and the publishing team is also newly established. Finally, its paying subscriber retention rate is as high as 98% the next day, which is the first time I've seen such a product.
In short, this is a rare case of "a new team grabbed the distribution rights with local tyrants with old products, and finally broke into the third best-selling place". Such a case is even more inappropriate in today's environment of fierce competition and shrinking profits.
Interestingly, in a conversation with Zhang Yu, CEO of Wanda Cinema Games, I found out about their "not following the crowd" publishing strategy. And relying on this strategy, they have maintained a track record of almost one successful product per year, and they live a very nourishing life.
Just looking at the release trajectory of "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice" in the Japanese market, it is difficult for us to see any clues, and we may even feel that its launch is relatively hasty. After all, this game was officially announced on November 27 and launched in public beta on January 18, and the time before and after added up was only two and a half months.
But Zhang Yu revealed that in fact, the team has been preparing for this game for nearly two years: "We first got the distribution rights in Greater China at the beginning, and then went to Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, and the average negotiation took about a month to finalize the cooperation, but even with the success and cooperation accumulation in the previous markets, we also talked about the distribution rights in the Japanese market for nearly two years." ”
Unlike other markets, copyright owners require a level of detail and rigor in supervision when dealing with the distribution of products in the Japanese domestic market, which is not on the same order of magnitude as in other regions. At the same time, Wanda Cinema Game is the first time to be published in Japan, and everything has to be accumulated from scratch. Fortunately, with the accumulation of operations in several other markets, as well as the experience of dealing with copyright owners for a long time, they are also very clear about several key links.
First of all, it is to adjust the product with supervision. The difficulty of supervising the operation of IP products in front of the copyright owner is far beyond Zhang Yu's imagination, which not only requires meticulous control of the product content, but also strictly ensures the rigor of each link.
And the advanced age of Saint Seiya's IP also brings a lot of extra workload: "For example, the copyright owner requires that the original voice actor of the animation must be used, which is out of respect for the classic IP works, but some of the early voice actors have been unable to cooperate, and how to change a suitable voice actor must be re-evaluated." "Therefore, making local IP products in the Japanese market is a long-term and meticulous project, and there are not many shortcuts in this regard, it all depends on understanding and accumulation.
The second is to build a qualified local team. On the one hand, when recruiting and employing people, Wanda Cinema Games will pay special attention to whether employees really understand their own IP. On the other hand, in order to be rigorous and not make mistakes, Wanda Cinema Games has also hired a special team of lawyers and localization teams in Japan to conduct long-term legal compliance audits for the game.
After all, local regulations in Japan are strict about details that many domestic companies usually overlook. For example, the accuracy of the probability formula, for example, the discount ratio of a discounted gift package should correspond to the discount range of the value of the items in the package; There are also the setting of the probability and rules of the card draw, which must be strictly consistent with the result of the card draw. The accounting of these details requires strict control.
Then, it was a pioneering attempt to use the billing long test model. "Japanese companies generally don't do billing tests, on the one hand, player acceptance is low, on the other hand, billing tests are difficult to achieve perfect refunds in terms of laws and regulations, for example, cash must be refunded if cash direct purchase packages are to be compliant, but in fact it can't be done. Zhang Yu believes that the disadvantages of this strategy are very obvious: "Without billing testing, our estimation of product data will become inaccurate, which will greatly affect the online promotion strategy and even the later business strategy." ”
At the same time, in order to avoid player misunderstanding and ensure compliance, they specially arranged a large number of customer services and developed a special exchange coupon system to facilitate players to purchase gift packages during the beta period to ensure the smooth rebates of the open beta. This test not only brought hundreds of thousands of pre-orders to the game, but also built up enough confidence for the product to be launched.
Finally, and the most important part, dig deep into IP content and transform products. "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice" is the only IP product in the product published by Wanda Cinema Games that the copyright owner allows it to create its own characters. On the one hand, the reason comes from the trust relationship established by long-term cooperation, and on the other hand, it comes from the deep understanding of IP.
The reason why we made the version of the Zodiac ** Saint Seiya Sacred Clothes is not because it looks handsome, gorgeous, and has high intensity to play," Zhang Yu treasured the design behind this: "When the five Xiaoqiang finally challenged the Hades, they relied on the twelve ** Saint Seiya to break through the wall of sighs with their lives, so they were able to pass, and naturally, the ** Saint Seiya could not participate in the final holy war." Although their souls teleported the **Holy Clothes to the Holy Realm, the **Holy Clothes that had not been blessed still could not withstand the blows of the Gods of Death and Sleep. Each ** Saint Seiya has a unique personality, which runs through the entire story line, and is also the user's favorite and most symbolic character, but they are absent from the final battle, and they are always old fans. ”
Therefore, the game created the ** Saint Seiya Divine Clothing that did not exist in the original work, and the Divine Clothing evolved from the blood of the goddess. The story of the original work, the shortcomings of the players, and the creative idea of pursuing the original work to complement the original work make these self-created content reasonable and have a meaning above the commodity.
After the precipitation of these links, with the support and strict supervision of the copyright owner, the strict control of the local team, and the unprecedented billing test, we can get real data and content, and ensure that we pay for love. It can be said that the launch of "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice" is only a matter of Dongfeng, as long as the product does not step on the pit during the launch period and successfully digs the target users, then it is a sure thing to get a good result.
After nearly 2 years of preparation and various overseas verifications, the most critical problem for Wanda Cinema Games when it released "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice" was actually how to activate this classic IP that started 38 years ago.
From the perspective of the natural environment, the influence of Saint Seiya IP in Japan is large enough, the accumulation is deep enough, and there is no shortage of users. However, referring to the performance of mobile games derived from the same IP in previous years, it is not difficult to find that it is also difficult to pry this group of old users, just like Zhang Yu's understanding in content digging: you must really understand what users want.
Zhang Yu has also repeatedly scrutinized in his past release experience: "You will find that our main visual is not five Xiaoqiang, but ** Saint Seiya." Because from the perspective of IP, Saint Seiya carries too many things, and it also entrusts players with uneasy feelings; From the perspective of other than IP, the gorgeousness and value of ** have a natural attraction for everyone. ”
After actual testing and comparison of different ideas, Zhang Yu also determined the feasibility of the image of Saint Seiya, so almost all the promotion actions revolve around Saint Seiya. For example, the design of the most typical offline subway advertisement. The game bought the advertising space of the Yamanote Line in Japan, and according to the design of **Zodiac, the stations on the circular subway line were configured with different **Saint Seiya-related advertising materials.
At the same time, the design of the original work of Saint Seiya is very particular about "collection", such as **Twelve Palaces, Five Xiaoqiang, Seven Generals of the Seagod, Four Heavenly Kings of Darkness, Three Giants of the Underworld, and 108 Underworld Fighters, all of which have the concept of "complete sets", and players will naturally have the idea of "collecting a set" after watching too much. Therefore, this subway advertisement also greatly stimulated the curiosity of old fans, and many fans spontaneously "clocked in around the Yamanote Line", and eventually developed into a kind of "holy land tour" behavior on social platforms.
In the same way, Japan's Shibuya Hachikokou 13-screen linkage offline advertisement, also combined with the elements of the original feature, the fire clock, and the creativity of the five Xiaoqiang to challenge the **zodiac, with the slowly rotating fire clock, while creating a sense of crisis to save the goddess, while heralding the countdown to the launch of the game, the atmosphere is very burning.
In this way, whether it is from the visual or the creativity of offline advertising, it can closely fit the atmosphere of the original game, and old fans will have a sense of substitution.
In addition to accurately activating old fans, Wanda Cinema Games also tries to break the circle to attract "game users who have a basic understanding of Saint Seiya".
Considering the two goals of breaking the circle and promoting for game users, after researching dozens of artists, Wanda Cinema Games locked on the funny artist Hidetaka Kano, not only because the social influence of Japanese funny artists is extremely strong, which is very suitable for breaking the circle, but more importantly, Hidetaka Kano's fan base has a high degree of overlap with Saint Seiya IP users, in addition, he has become popular all over Japan because of his "poor game play", and also won the Game Streamer Award 2021 Topic Award, It is easier to combine with the game's idle gameplay and create topics.
Hidetaka Kano has played his own characteristics in several promotional videos, and in some scenes that fit the lives of Japanese players, he uses sudden reversals, homophonic memes, and exaggerated performance styles to seamlessly connect with the content of "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice". Judging from the results, Wanda Cinemas did not choose the wrong game. Not only are these ads very popular, but they also have a completion rate of more than 10% on Twitter, far exceeding the **2% level.
Overall, Wanda Cinema Games' two major strategies during the launch of "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice" - to distract the fan base internally and to interest game users externally - are very in place. The fact that the game has been at the top of the free list for many days in a row shows that the new additions are performing well, and the performance on the best-selling list and the 98% paid retention rate show that players are not only willing to pay, but also willing to stay and continue to experience the game.
Looking back, Wanda Cinema Games is not shrewd, when the general trend of the industry coerced everyone to engage in involution, industrialization, open world, and two-dimensional, they found another way to run the classic IP business.
In the past, Wanda Cinema Games has also made young-oriented IPs, but it was found that in addition to the quality of the game, these IPs also have Achilles' heel when adapting games: first, the precipitation of users is not enough, the ability to pay is weak and there are too many choices; Second, new IPs often have an incomplete world view, lack clear combat, economic, political, military, monetary, racial, biological and other systems, and often have empty gimmicks. These characteristics lead to the fact that this kind of IP may attract large traffic in the short term because of art and appearance, but it is difficult to dig deep and cannot be done for a long time.
Compared with the value of classic IP, the value is higher, Zhang Yu judged: "On the one hand, the user base of classic IP is wide, and they usually have strong ability to pay, but they have little time to play games, so there is a special lack of a product customized for them, which does not particularly take up time, but can understand their products." On the other hand, classic IP more or less has places that make old fans uneasy, as long as these points can be grasped, commercialization is basically not a problem. ”
What's more, Zhang Yu feels like him: "Many post-80s, post-90s, or users over 30 years old, there are many people who have strong preferences and revisiting demands for the games they have played, movies and animations they have watched, but most of these demands have not been solved now." Especially in the Chinese and Japanese markets, such user groups and corresponding IPs are widespread. ”
The market gaps created by these phenomena can create opportunities for medium-sized companies. Therefore, based on these judgments, Zhang Yu planned a core strategy for Wanda Cinema Games: to reshape classic IP in the global market.
What is "reinventing" classic IP? That is to say, as mentioned above, in the case that the vast majority of manufacturers ignore the classic IP and the old fans cannot be satisfied, they should grasp the essence of the classic IP as much as possible and serve the old fans. Based on this strategy, they have stockpiled a number of classic IPs, many of which are world-renowned works. It is expected that this year, they will launch 1 or 2 new products one after another.
As for how to open the global market for these IPs, in fact, in the past few years, Wanda Cinema Games has successively opened up markets in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Europe, America and Southeast Asia, and this year there is a breakthrough in the Japanese version of "Saint Seiya: Legend of Justice", and will continue to increase efforts to deepen the Japanese market. For them, the company's performance has been growing due to the successful products almost every year in the past few years, so it is the focus of the moment to steadily understand the laws of each market.
Zhang Yu is also full of confidence in the next development of Wanda Cinema Games, because in his opinion, there is a lot of room for improvement in the strategy he has set, waiting for them to explore, such as the European and American markets, they have been doing it for many years, and the profit in 2023 has doubled compared with the previous year, far from the upper limit. He believes: "As long as you have a good IP and a good game in your hands, you will never worry about not being able to sell." ”