On May 28, Tencent held a SPARK2024 game conference, which instantly ignited the enthusiasm of players......

But it's not hard to see that there are still a lot of changes in this year's conference: more producers and studios are on the stage in person; From the perspective of the products that players pay the most attention to, there are not many new products, and more attention is paid to the operation of classic products and the creation of content.

At this press conference, a total of 34 products were released, of which 13 were new games.

In addition to the new developments of classic products such as "Glory of Kings", "Yuanmeng Star", "Peace Elite" and "Dungeons and Warriors: Innovation Century", there are also several products worth paying attention to, such as "Calabichu" mobile terminal is scheduled to start testing this year, "Delta Action" will start double-end testing in June, and "Love of Light and Night" will usher in the 3rd anniversary concert.

On the new product side, "World of Taris" is set for June 19, "Need for Speed: Assemble" is scheduled for July, and "Persona of the Three Kingdoms" will be unveiled for the first time and announced that it will be launched on all platforms in the fourth quarter of this year. In addition, "Silicon Universe" and "NBA2K All Star" are also debuted, the former focuses on the open world gameplay of the universe, and the latter is a sports competitive gameplay.

Silicon-based Universe

I was "surrounded" by the producers

This year's press conference was not so much about "release" as it was about "communication" between officials and players: the R&D team members of the core product, including many producers, no longer just worked behind the scenes, but went to the front of the stage, directly introduced the project to players, and even arranged face-to-face communication sessions.

The first impression of this form of sincerity to the matrix is "cordial", and at this press conference, the person in charge of 7 core products walked to the player and brought us the dynamic information of related products.

For example, Ma Wenshuai, the game producer of "New Swordsman Love Mobile Game", said that on the occasion of the 8th anniversary, the game will grandly launch nostalgic clothes to reproduce the classics. In addition, the number of sects will be voted on by players, removing a series of commercial direct sales activities, making the rivers and lakes more pure. At the same time, it also creates a number of love places for players, reproduces the well-known romantic scenery in reality, and returns to the purest emotional experience.

Robin, the publisher and producer of Maple: The Legend of Maple, brings us the blockbuster content of the year, with a new level of ancient equipment coming soon, and new Legion Leader bosses, five turns and other content will also be updated soon, providing fans with more in-depth exploration space.

Zhang Peng, the producer of "Calabichu", mentioned that after listening to a lot of feedback from players, the team continued to optimize the balance, matching, and difficulty of gameplay, and was committed to creating a shooting, skill, and stringing experience suitable for mobile phones. ”

In addition, it also includes Yang Min, the producer of "Tarisse World", who proposed the "Ten Million Bounty" incentive activity; "Black Desert" director Kim Jae-hee hopes that players can co-create their own stories in the game; "World Qiyuan" invited Sid Meier, the father of the civilization series, to invite players to open a "100 million" game......

And in the planning and answering session, this intimacy is further amplified. Tencent has collected a large number of players' opinions and questions this time, and the relevant project team has also answered players' questions in a heartfelt manner.

Take "Need for Speed: Assemble" as an example, the main planner Mr. Jin Long first summarized the Need for Speed game with four key words of "refreshing, interesting, lively and open", and at the same time also had a series of in-depth explanations on the big world gameplay, heat tracking, and social gameplay that players are concerned about.

The team has conducted in-depth research on the level settings, vehicle weapons, and caches of drivers in the past generations, and integrated them into the mobile game.

It is worth mentioning that "Need for Speed: Assemble" was personally designed by TiMi J1 Studio, and TiMi J1 once created "QQ Speed", which was once one of the three giants of Internet cafes, with the highest number of online users exceeding 3 million. At the same time, "QQ Speed Racer Game" was also launched by TiMi J1, which exceeded 20 million DAU in just one week, and also achieved dazzling results.

Although it has 10 years of precipitation and experience in terminal game IP, TiMi J1 does not work behind closed doors, but fully listens to players' opinions, carries out targeted function optimization, and even arranges in-depth players to participate in game research and development. For example, the addition of many models of domestic car series to the game comes from the research feedback of players.

Now that "Need for Speed: Assemble" is scheduled for July, along the way, you can see TiMi J1 constantly cultivating in the racing game track, gradually promoting its self-developed products to the world. In addition to its own technical strength, it has always put players first.

Of course, TiMi J1 is just one of many cases, and we still have to see that there are many studios that also pay attention to building a platform for player experience, and focus on "listening to persuasion" in attitude.

For example, this time, "Yuanmeng Star" shows its new progress in the game UGC creation ecology, integrating original protection, education and training, and incentive plans; In March this year, "Honor of Kings" held a co-creation plan, in which Honor of Kings not only actively listened to players' opinions, but also transformed excellent player suggestions into the actual content of the game; In addition, there is the Foyego co-construction plan of the "League of Legends" mobile game; "White Night Aurora" New Year Preview stands in the player's point of view and officially revitalizes the ...... By building and maintaining a closer player community, Tencent has taken a big step towards long-term development and sustainability.

"Pay attention to the emotions of players and return to the user experience" has always been the golden rule of Tencent and even the entire industry, and you can see that Tencent attaches more importance to players than ever after watching the whole press conference. This change can be said to be a more transparent and efficient way to adjust the content, and then improve the quality of the entire product line, or it can be said that Tencent pays more attention to the word-of-mouth shaping of the development team, but this alone may not be enough to summarize Tencent's elegant "turnaround".

The philosophy of Tencent's evergreen products

This year's new products are less than in previous years, and most of the classic games we are familiar with are presented, and Tencent has invested heavily in the major content updates of these old products. This shift also reminds us of the concept of "evergreen games" that Tencent has mentioned many times before.

As early as Tencent's 23-year financial report released this year, Tencent said that it has 8 popular games with an average daily activity of more than 5 million per quarter (2 million for terminal games) and an annual turnover of more than 4 billion yuan, becoming the main force driving the future performance growth of Tencent Games.

In Q1 of this year, Tencent's game business has achieved growth, laying the foundation for the recovery of game revenue growth in the next few quarters. Among them, the strong performance of big DAU games such as "Honor of Kings" and "Peace Elite" also made Tencent firm in the concept of creating evergreen products.

It is worth noting that although the two are closely related, there are still differences between the two games. The former emphasizes the need for more energy to maintain and upgrade while maintaining stable top performance; The latter is a continuous, all-encompassing process of industrial pipelines.

For example, in terms of attitude towards IP-adapted games, we can see that Tencent no longer takes down IP and rushes it online just because it is well-known, but is committed to polishing products, improving quality, and ensuring long-term market competitiveness.

Taking Call of Duty Mobile as an example, Tencent has given a new lease of life to classic IPs. A few months ago, the mobile game "Call of Duty: Warzone" was officially launched, and according to the estimated data, the initial revenue of the mobile game "Call of Duty: Warzone" only reached about a quarter of the initial revenue of "Call of Duty Mobile". Although both are the same top IP, Tencent has set a high standard for the market with its high-quality game quality and excellent service attitude.

Another example is that "The Battle of the Golden Shovel" stood out from the "Hundred Chess Wars", one of the main reasons is that it attaches importance to the content ecology and the community building of the game, while continuing to maintain a high production capacity. It not only launched derivative content, such as two-player battles, boss challenge modes, etc., but also actively promoted the construction of the event system, so that the brand influence and user stickiness to a higher level.

We can get a glimpse of Tencent's profound reflection and strategic transformation in the new environment. First, big DAU games have become a key competitor for existing users, which has become a market norm. For a manufacturer of Tencent's size, it is difficult to rely on a few small products to drive performance. In this regard, Tencent President Martin Lau mentioned: "Focus on fewer but bigger and better boutique games. ”

Second, Tencent's internal diversified talent training and resource support system provides soil and nutrients for the next batch of potential evergreen games, which alleviates product "anxiety" to a certain extent.

Tencent's strategic adjustment is obviously a reflection of its sensitive grasp of industry trends and continuous cultivation of user needs. At the same time, Tencent has also given more meaning to the concept of "evergreen games", which is not only to create popular products, nor to represent the lasting vitality of a game, but also to build a long-term and prosperous game ecosystem.

The press conference is a microcosm, through which we can see the transformation of Tencent Games, and today's Tencent has long since flattened its mind and is getting closer to the essence of this industry.

Tencent Games is heading for the next era

In recent years, the game industry has experienced unprecedented rapid development, and the market has gradually matured, which is not only reflected in the players' requirements for improving the quality of games, but also in the process of the industry gradually moving towards a high degree of segmentation and verticalization. For Tencent Games, the change in the general environment also means the end of the era of relying on the influence of large platforms and relying on quantity to make profits.

Last year, Ma Xiaoyi, Tencent's senior vice president, revealed to us the new direction of Tencent Games, which is transforming from a platform-based company to a product-based company.

This year's Tencent Game Conference is a concrete demonstration of this strategy: focusing on products is not just a slogan, but a real return to user experience, more in-depth mining of game content, and a more refined commercialization strategy.

From the perspective of the overall layout and the longer term, Tencent is fully prepared for the next era.

First of all, the overseas market is still a core strategic point of Tencent Games. Last year, "Dark Zone Breakout" quickly won the favor of overseas players, reaching the milestone of 100 million registered users in December last year.

At the same time, through the investment and acquisition of overseas high-quality game companies, Tencent Games is particularly active on the international stage, and it is understood that Tencent Games has more than 5,000 overseas R&D personnel, providing a talent pool for its rich and diversified product matrix.

In addition to the successful practice in overseas markets, Tencent Games' accurate insight into track segmentation is also worth paying attention to. The female-oriented game "Love of Light and Night" and the two-dimensional game "White Thorn Corridor", "Rush! Biscuit Man Kingdom has also gained a lot in their respective fields.

In addition, the cross-platform multi-terminal layout is also the key to Tencent Games' competitiveness. For example, the DNF mobile game just released some time ago has undoubtedly broadened the coverage of IP.

At the same time, Tencent is also making steady progress in game technology, such as the digital scripture cave and digital axis at this press conference, which are actually Tencent's consistent reproduction of the concept of "super digital scenes" and "cross-border applications of game technology".

Ma Xiaoyi said at the press conference in the same period last year that the game industry is expected to usher in a new "third expansion", that is, game technology is more and more widely integrated into more fields outside of games, becoming a more general technology system.

Overall, at the SPARK2024 Tencent Game Conference, Tencent has its unique industry insights and innovation capabilities. By continuously deepening the connection between products and user experience, accurately positioning and opening up new market tracks, and focusing more on "less but better products" and promoting the further integration of diversified platforms, we will wait and see how Tencent Games will create more possibilities and brilliance in the changing market environment in the future.

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