"it turned out to be BABA's game."

Looking through the recent discussions about the popular mobile game "Code Kite", users were surprised that the game was an Ali product and occupied the comments area.

Since April, this mobile game, which has not been online in China, has maintained a high degree of discussion on major social platforms, especially among female users.

At present, the game has reached the top of the IOS free list of Hong Kong Service and Macao Service, and has entered the top 10 of the best-selling list in Hong Kong.

Although there is no definite news about the launch of the national service, it has more than 600000 reservations on the game platform TapTap. On the day of the update of the main content of the game, a number of entries were uploaded to Weibo Corp's hot search, which shows the degree of enthusiasm of mainland players.

Excellent screen, novel play, frequent plot content, this "big factory production level" behind the game is BABA's game business ambition to expand the track.

01 male and female players of IP in the three Kingdoms

BABA games originally belonged to BABA's big cultural and entertainment group. at that time, games, compared with film and television and music, could be regarded as the marginal business in BABA's entertainment matrix.

In 2020, the Interactive Entertainment Division (Interactive Entertainment), which belongs to the game business, was upgraded to an independent business group, which is parallel to BABA's entertainment.

In addition to acting the well-known IP "Travel Frog" has some popularity, there are few explosions in the self-developed game project, until the birth of the "Strategic Edition of the three Kingdoms", BABA saw the potential of the game to generate income.

In the year of its release, the Strategic Edition of the Chronicles of the three Kingdoms, relying on a stable monthly flow of more than 100 million, promoted the doubling of the domestic SLG mobile game market income.

In August 2020, the monthly flow of the Strategic Edition of the Chronicles of the three Kingdoms was about 600 million yuan, making it the third highest monthly flow game in China at that time. In 2021, the "three wars" entered the competition in the overseas market, achieved good results in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and even entered the South Korean best-selling list TOP10.

The Strategic Edition of the three Kingdoms ranks seventh with $710 million, according to the top 20 mobile games with the highest revenue in 2022 released by Appmagic, a mobile application market research company.

Since then, telepathy mutual entertainment has successively launched the "three Kingdoms Fantasy mainland" and the "three Kingdoms Chess Edition", and have achieved good results.

Today, the "three Kingdoms theme" has almost become synonymous with Ali games. Telepathy Mutual Entertainment is also among the forefront of Chinese mobile game publishers because of the success of the series of games.

The theme of the three Kingdoms itself is a rich mine, historical popularity, inherent advantage of adaptation flexibility, and the development of new products in familiar areas is a common idea for game companies to expand their advantages.

It's just that this time the telepathic entertainment has chosen the female orientation, which is a very different vertical track from its previous product positioning.

From the strategic version of the Chronicles of the three Kingdoms to the chess version, most of the games launched by telepathy mutual entertainment are aimed at male users, and the volume of purchase is the bulk of its promotion and operation.

According to the official data of the game, 95% of the players in the Strategic Edition of the three Kingdoms are male players, of which adult male players over the age of 24 account for more than 80%.

War strategy games are mostly favored by men. Compared with other SLG, "three Wars" has designed acceleration function, replenishment rules and morale system to solve the problem of game rhythm and feedback frequency. The simplified operation and certain tactical requirements of the game make the game capture the entertainment consumption needs of adult men.

Clear positioning, quality in place, so that the "three wars" in the purchase of positive performance in the market, investment and material volume is always in the forefront.

The target male players of the "three wars" have a clear demand, and the decision-making process is simple. As long as the product attracts the eye point clearly, the effect of buying volume is immediate.

But the same strategy is difficult to replicate directly to the operation of women to the game.

On the whole, female users' demand for games is more aesthetic and social, so women rely heavily on social operation to games.

Operators need to provide timely emotional content, respond to the real demands of players in a timely manner, maintain ceremonial interaction with players, and pay attention to the training of core players and opinions.

We can see that popular women always play an important role in promoting the game's official Weibo Corp, Wechat, or Little Red Book accounts.

The promotion of large-scale festivals and feedback on players' opinions can often trigger extensive discussion on social networks and even go on hot searches.

In this regard, the "code name kite" that has not yet been launched by the national service is currently only actively operated by overseas Fackbook accounts, and its degree of Internet discussion still depends on the spontaneous word of mouth.

Lack of stable operation of women to the game is difficult to ensure long-term vitality, for telepathic mutual entertainment, how to build these "supporting facilities", there is still a lot of room for growth.

02 technical skills and methods of play, there is still room for "inner roll"

Back to the game itself, the quality of the finished product is indeed noteworthy.

Women to the game, or the more subdivided B Tour, there have been few new popular styles in the past two years. After the online love between Light and Night exploded in 2021, the pattern of the "four countries B" has been basically determined, bringing together the four giants Tencent, NetEase, Inc, Mihayou, and paper folding.

In contrast, the game mode is also gradually solidified. After the template of B you brought by Love and producer has been widely used for reference, the phenomenon of homogenization of B you has become more and more prominent.

Draw card + visual novel, is the main element of this kind of game, standing painting, dubbing and plot become the core elements of whether a B tour can stand out.

Under this premise, the new things brought by telepathy and mutual entertainment are quite competitive.

First of all, there is the technical ability *, which is the guarantee advantage that relying on the big factory can provide. The excellent Live2D animation level of the production team makes the "code kite" qualified as "out of the circle".

Women attach importance to the visual expression of games, especially the emotional expression ability of the picture. In April last year, the code name Kite attracted attention with its exquisite Live2D animation when it was tested on a small scale on the Jiuyou platform.

At present, the role dynamics and demeanor shown in the game are obviously blessed with technical skills, coupled with the design of narrative planning such as the transition of the mirror, which shows excellent performance in terms of immersion.

Secondly, there is some innovation in the way of playing.Domestic women have been criticized for being too simple and boring in the game for a long time. "Code Kite" still uses the card combat system as the main way to play, but a large number of feeder plots and vertical games are added to the "card raising" cycle to enrich the game content. At the same time, the numerical value and mechanism design of the combat system are relatively more complex, and strive to move closer to the strategic card game in the play experience.

Women to the game has experienced the stage of market development and prosperity in the past few years, and the aesthetic taste and consumption demands of the players have changed accordingly.

First, the improvement of the requirements of gameplay, female players are no longer stereotyped can only accept simple, easy Mini Game, but require game manufacturers to pay more attention to play design. Second, the diversity of values, popular culture advocates women to actively explore the realization of personal value, purely provide love content is no longer strong attractive, the career, life, social environment more mining game content is more favored.

Capturing the changes of these concepts and applying them flexibly to game development and design may become a magic weapon for women to win the game.

But it should be noted that it is not only the "code name kite" that is trying to innovate, but also the entire female race track.ConstantlyEmergeNew product.

Improving technical performance is the most direct way to combat category homogenization. "Code Kite" is an article on Live2D, while "in the name of Shining", released at the same time, attempts to revolutionize the game experience in 3D form. Under the premise that the core method of play remains unchanged, the entire visual expression system is made into 3D form "in the name of shining".

Breakthroughs in play are not the only ones delving into mutual entertainment. The game life cycle of Love and producer is running out, and the new project Love and Deep Space, which just won its title in March, has been positioned as a "next-generation 3D action game", introducing the real-time combat system as a new selling point.

At a time when the domestic version number is relaxed, a large number of new games will be launched one after another in the second half of the year. In order to avoid a flash in the pan and maintain a good trend at the beginning, the code name Kite has to make a good long-term operation plan.

03 popular style preparation, still one step short

Although the "fashion style" is full, the code name kite still has one of the most critical constraints: when will it be launched in China?

Although the "code kite", which is only available in Hong Kong and Macao, Xinma and other areas, is aimed at consumers in the Chinese cultural circle, it lacks domestic operation and network restrictions, so its influence is limited.

As the domestic purchase of foreign service game value-added services can only be recharged by a third party, as of the date of publication, the maximum number of monthly payment orders for the single store of "code-named Kite" on Taobao has exceeded 7000 yuan, which shows that the willingness of domestic players to pay is exuberant.

At the same time, many onlookers are unwilling to invest in sunk costs and hope to wait for national service to go online before spending "krypton gold".The loss of revenue caused by the time difference will become more and more obvious.

According to the China copyright Protection Center, a game software called "such as Kite" was registered on February 17. At the same time, the "code kite" animation video, series of music, characters and plot CG and other related content, has also carried out software copyright registration. Multi-party information shows that the national service name of the game may be "such as a kite".

However, according to the current content of the "code kite", the history of the subject matter, a larger scale of copywriting style, in order to land in China to get the version number, should also need to be greatly adjusted.

This can be seen from the fact that the official TapTap game reservation interface has changed the game content tags many times, which shows that the producers are still hesitant about how to position the content according to the domestic environment.

In addition, as mentioned earlier, it is very important for women to operate to the community of the game. At present, the game has better reviews in Weibo Corp, Little Red Book, Douban and other relatively vertical female player communities, but it has also caused a lot of controversy because of historical adaptation and "ethyl curd antagonism".

After the launch of the national service, the influence of the national service will be enhanced, and the environment of public opinion will become more complicated. how to balance the interests of all parties in the dispute and do a good long-term operation is still an arduous task for women to entertain each other to the "novice".

There is no doubt that the "code kite" made a good start, in the case of domestic play channels are more limited, but also continue to accumulate heat and maintain the upward trend.

However, the problems and challenges are equally obvious. Before we really join the domestic women in the scuffle to the track, the "code kite" is still some way from becoming the new business card of the Ali game.

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