The Qixi Festival is approaching, and offline merchants are full of surprises. At this time, game manufacturers who are roaming online will naturally not miss this opportunity. According to incomplete statistics from a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, as of press time, dozens of games have launched Qixi Festival-related activities, or launched special skins, or updated themed plots and game copies to create an online Qixi Festival in the game. Although this is incomparable to the big bonuses that often occur during the Spring Festival and anniversaries, for game makers, the Qixi Festival is still a good time to attract money. And as various games are swarmed and released in the same period, it is inevitable that the content and form of homogeneity will appear, which also reminds practitioners that quality is the key to maintaining the popularity while catching the fast train of the festival.
Change skins for love, and play dungeons for competitive games
As a traditional festival, Qixi Festival is endowed with more connotations of Chinese Valentine’s Day, and naturally becomes a schedule that love games will never miss.
During this year’s Qixi Festival, four head products, including “Love and Producer”, “Love of Light and Night”, “Undecided Event Book” and “Painted Traveler in Time and Space”, all launched new cards and updated side plots. In the game interface, all kinds of Qixi elements are also integrated, creating a Qixi atmosphere. The most surprising thing for players is that they can receive greetings and even phone calls from the characters.
“I was having dinner with my boyfriend, and I didn’t expect to receive a call suddenly. It was the character in “Love and the Producer” that was Bai Qi, and for a moment I felt that the character in the game really appeared in reality. A special gift.” Player Ms. Tian said.
Just as love games are gaining the favor of players through various interactions, competitive and light casual games have also resorted to their own tricks. According to incomplete statistics from a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, dozens of games in the top 100 free games list on the App Store have been updated with Qixi Festival-themed events. For example, the competitive game “Honor of Kings” will launch new character skins and launch on Qixi Festival. Sign-in welfare activities; the light casual game “Defend Carrot 4” has updated the Tanabata theme copy, collect reward items in the game, and the protagonist Carrot “Abo” also has a new skin.
Xiao Xu, a player who experienced the update activities for the first time, said that in recent years, it is very common for games to be updated in a timely manner, and there have even been cases where the window cannot be left empty even if the previous activities are re-enacted. It seems that the game and players celebrate the festival together. In fact, there are very few activities that can really be called welfare. More manufacturers are selling new skins for the pretext of the festival, or doing a side event to let players krypton gold and draw cards.
High yield in one day
Different from the Lunar New Year, the Spring Festival and the game anniversary, the Qixi Festival obviously does not have such a strong festive atmosphere, but for the game, if it can operate well, it can still be a good time to make money. Changes in income can be seen.
According to data from Master Cicada, during Valentine’s Day this year, games including “Glory of the King”, “QQ Speed” and “Harry Potter: The Wizarding World” all experienced an uplift in the income curve around February 14. Compared with the former, the performance of love games is more obvious, and the income curve in February climbed sharply in the middle. Among them, “Love and Producer” started a Valentine’s Day theme event on February 8, with an estimated income of $71,496 on the day, which was much higher than the estimated average income of $33,673. On the second day of the event, on February 9, it was Set a record for the best income in February, with an estimated income of $73,994.
In this year’s Qixi Festival, many players opened their wallets in order to obtain Qixi Festival-specific skins, cards or gift packs. Ms. Tian told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that she had planned to recharge and draw cards before, but she had never made up her mind. After receiving a call from the game character, she finally decided to do a ten-draw, which caused the game to be rushed again. a sum of money.
“On the surface, this seems to be the consumption brought about by the combination of the game season, but in fact, it is not all determined by the schedule activities, and it is still inseparable from the long-term operation.” Chen Peng, the person in charge of an independent game company, introduced that the early game passed Continued operation stabilizes the player’s sense of experience and stimulates players’ desire to consume, while the holiday schedule can become a stimulating point for players’ consumption, thereby driving up revenue for a period of time before and after the festival.
Do more with less effort and experience first
With the strengthening of the concept of schedules in the game industry, how to make good use of the festival effect and achieve multiplier effects requires continuous exploration by game manufacturers, especially the homogenization phenomenon that occurs after all events are launched, which has also become a problem that cannot be ignored.
“At this stage, the game track is getting more and more crowded, and the industry is paying more and more attention to the operation node of the festival schedule. If it is just like in the past, the schedule comes to make some simple skins and a new one, not only the players are not satisfied, but also the peers. Stalling in the competition.” Mr. Xu, the head of an independent game studio, introduced to the Beijing Business Daily reporter that game development is a systematic task, and even if it is just a skin, it requires multiple tests and judgments by the team before it can enter the publicity stage. , this process requires multi-sectoral collaboration. Scheduled events, including the Qixi Festival, are not just short-term planning that can be launched. It takes half a year from proposal to launch to a year of stalling. When formulating the annual operation plan, some activities have already taken shape.
Chen Shaofeng, director of the Academic Committee of Peking University Cultural Industry Research Institute, believes that there are different types of games, and most of them still rely on sustainable and playable content to retain consumers. Small games can be considered for linkage with large games to achieve better drainage. Effect.
In addition, in response to the homogenization of game content, game industry analyst Wei Mingye said that it is a marketing node that is not easy to make mistakes by using a good schedule to respond to players’ sense of festive rituals. Game manufacturers need to do their homework in advance, continue to innovate, and provide game content that meets the needs of consumers during the schedule. For traditional festivals, it is necessary to deeply combine the content and present the traditional flavor in the game.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Zheng Rui Han XinyuanReturn to Sohu, see more
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