"Journey IP" is showing more and more diversified appearances.

A few days ago, at the 2024 Journey Carnival, Giant Network announced that it would fully promote the mini-game version of "Original Journey" this year.

Prior to this, another mini-game of "Journey IP", "The King's Journey", had achieved good results before it was officially launched. Zhao Jianfeng, the person in charge of the Journey IP track and the producer of the game "Original Journey", told Gyro in an interview that this idle MMO has entered the top 6 of the best-selling list of WeChat mini games not long ago, and is expected to hit the Top 5.

Zhao Jianfeng's on-site interview

From PC games to native mobile games to mini games, "Journey IP" has been changing with the times. Not only has the product matrix become more diversified, but its content forms are also becoming more and more abundant, while constantly catering to the behavior habits of contemporary users.

Behind these changes and innovations, what has remained unchanged is the concept of "Journey IP": to let more people feel the joy of journey.

In Zhao Jianfeng's view, no matter how the times change, what devices users use, whether the way players get games changes, and the core of "fun and playable" will not change, "What we have to do is to continue to make the most fun products of Journey appear in its rightful position through technological innovation, art upgrades, and understanding of users." ”

Journey IP has added another fierce general: the customer acquisition cost of mini games may be 90% lower, and there is a lot to be done to break the circle

In the more than 30 years of development of the game industry, "Journey" is one of the few classic IPs that has been able to stand for more than ten years and is still developing rapidly. This IP started in 2006 with the "Journey" terminal game. At that time, the "Journey" terminal game was sought after by many players as soon as it was launched, and in 2008, it hit a new high of 2.1 million online that shocked the outside world.

In the 19 years since, "Journey IP" has been developing steadily and innovating with the development of the game industry. During the prevalence of terminal games, works such as "Journey 2", "Journey Nostalgic Edition" and "Green Journey" were launched; In the period of mobile game blowout, a series of mobile games such as "Journey Mobile Version", "Journey 2 Mobile Game" and "Green Journey Mobile Game" were launched.

Last year, Giant Network's newly launched "Original Journey" lasted three years of careful polishing, and the turnover exceeded 300 million yuan in the first month after the game was launched, and the cumulative turnover has exceeded 2 billion yuan so far, with more than 15 million new players, contributing to the return of a total of 5 million old players to the journey, which was called the best of the four mobile games of "Journey IP" by Zhao Jianfeng.

If the PC games and mobile games of "Journey IP" are products launched by Giant Network in response to the needs of the times, then the "Original Journey" mini game and "King's Journey" mini game, which will be officially launched this year, are another attack on the times.

Zhao Jianfeng told Gyro that the reason why the above two mini games were launched was not because he saw the industry dividends. In fact, as early as 2020, Giant Network began to lay out mini games in a planned manner.

"The fundamental reason is that we want to provide players with a convenient way to open the game anytime, anywhere, and we also hope that players can access the journey through more diverse channels. Therefore, we chose H5 technology to realize the cross-platform operation of the game, so that players can quickly experience our game and experience the fun of the game with a single link. ”

From the perspective of user acquisition, Mini Games are becoming an important way to acquire users. Zhao Jianfeng pointed out that in China, micro and small are booming, and super apps such as Alipay have brought huge traffic to mini game products as entrances; Overseas, Facebook and TikTok are gradually opening the interface of mini programs, and perhaps global trends will come, which undoubtedly contains huge opportunities.

It is worth noting that Mini Games are also expected to bring a more significant circle expansion effect to the "Journey IP". Zhao Jianfeng revealed that in the past, the customer acquisition cost of a single user of the journey was about 200 yuan, but the mini game has dropped to about 20 yuan, and the customer acquisition cost has plummeted by 90%, which means that more people can feel the charm of the journey with the same cost.

However, in the face of the vast blue ocean of mini games, Giant Network and "Journey IP" are not in a hurry.

Zhao Jianfeng said that from PC to native App mobile games, and then to mini games, in the process of crossing the era and passing through the cycle, the products of "Journey IP" must be officially met with players only under the premise that the data and user reputation reach the ideal.

He gave an example: "We have been polishing the mobile game "Primal Journey" for 3 years, and "King's Journey" has been polishing for 2 years before it broke into the top 6 of the best-selling list, so we are not in a hurry to quickly introduce it to the market, the focus is still on improving the product and increasing the daily iteration - now we are still tuning the novice details and player payment of the "Primal Journey" mini game version, and strive to reduce the liver and krypton." It wasn't until the project team and players were satisfied that we started to push it out. ”

As we all know, as a national war MMO product, Journey is destined to be a game that the more people play, the more fun it will be. Now, with the opening of the traffic port of the Mini Program and the realization of the interoperability between the "Original Journey" App and the Mini Program, the player ecology built by the "Journey IP" has become more and more prosperous, and the game experience it gives to players will be further improved.

Continuous innovation, the layout of the national MMO e-competition, and the embrace of new AI technology

In addition to diversifying the product matrix, the "Journey IP" series of games is also reforming and innovating while keeping pace with the times. On the one hand, the Journey project team is very happy to "toss" the new mode on the operation side to meet the new needs of players.

For example, in recent years, while putting forward the concept of "national war e-sports", Zhengtu has also continued to improve and build an MMO e-sports event system. At present, more than a dozen e-sports methods have been launched in the "Journey IP" series of games, and various events are being promoted in an orderly manner.

However, unlike the professional e-sports events in the public perception, the "national war e-sports" of the journey emphasizes the participation of the whole people. Zhao Jianfeng explained, "Traditional e-sports events such as RTS, MOBA, and FPS are more competitive, while Journey E-sports wants to provide an atmosphere for every ordinary player to participate. Maybe they don't care if they win or lose, but under the guidance of the spirit of "national war" in the same boat and working together, every player involved in it can find fun and passion. ”

At the same time, the existence of e-sports events can further strengthen the sense of confrontation between different camps, mobilize players' enthusiasm, influence players' social behavior, and greatly help enhance user stickiness.

Zhao Jianfeng said that the role of "Guozhan E-sports" in the prosperity of the "Journey IP" game ecology is visible to the naked eye, so the Journey project team has invested a lot of energy in the past few years. Up to now, based on the idea of "national war e-sports", "Journey IP" has established a full-link e-sports event process including command training, event system, bonus system, and live streaming.

"For example, we have trained hundreds of them on major live broadcast platforms, which can not only drive the enthusiasm of old players to participate in e-sports, but also attract some users who want to understand the journey to watch." Zhao Jianfeng added.

On the other hand, embracing new tracks and new technologies is making the journey IP constantly renewed.

As early as 2022, Giant Network established an AI laboratory, completed the filing of the game AI model GiantGPT, and also built platform-based basic technical capabilities such as "iMagine AI Painting Cloud Platform", "CodeBrain Code Generation Assistant", and "Bailing AI Voice Generation".

Zhao Jianfeng told Gyro that the research and application of AI technology by Giant Network is not to simply reduce costs and increase efficiency, but to deeply explore the value of AI for gameplay. Therefore, the first thing Giant Network needs to do at this stage is to open up the three elements of the hardware layer, the model layer and the data layer, so as to find more possibilities for combining AI with the core gameplay of Journey in the future.

It is understood that the "Journey IP" series of games will first launch AINPC's responsive gameplay and AI crackdown on plug-ins, breaking the constraints of traditional game rules through AI technology and providing players with a higher degree of freedom experience.

It can be seen that from the product matrix to the content operation to the technological innovation, for this game IP that has been developed for nearly 20 years, there are not many innovative actions of the "Journey IP" of Giant Network, and the support for the main creative team is nothing more than the two. First, Shi Yuzhu, the founder of Giant Network, attaches great importance to and invests resources in "Journey IP"; The second is the huge group of gamers behind the "Journey IP" who are also willing to "toss".

"Growing with you" player ecology: the confidence of the "toss" of the journey IP

Looking back at the growth trajectory of "Journey IP", there is a group of highly loyal IP users behind every product out of the circle. This kind of typical player who "grows with you" is also the key to the continued success of Zhengtu's new products.

For a domestic game IP, it is not easy to maintain its vigorous vitality after accompanying players for many years. Fortunately, Giant Network and "Journey IP" players have jointly established a complete ecosystem. In the past few years, the production team has had a lot of communication with players for the launch of almost every product and major version update, and the relationship between the two sides is quite close.

This can also be clearly seen at the Journey Carnival site. This year's carnival site has set up face-to-face offline activities as always. During the event, the R&D team members and player representatives jointly adhered to the concept of "building a better journey together" and carried out zero-distance communication, and the players of the journey were also very active in contributing ideas to the game.

Zhao Jianfeng recalled that in fact, before 2018, there were not many opportunities for the Journey project team to communicate with players for a long time, and the market performance of Journey also declined slightly during this period. The turning point came after the first Journey Carnival in 2018, and with the opening of offline communication channels, Giant Network also opened a window to create a journey with players.

Up to now, the way to link with players includes but is not limited to online meet-and-greets, communication groups, etc., "The Journey Carnival is a larger and more direct occasion - as the so-called inspiration comes from users, when we sit face-to-face with players, we can feel the emotions of players more intuitively and understand the real needs of users more deeply." At the same time, we let players know that we care about their opinions and ideas, and that we want to make the game better through their feedback. ”

Not only that, the carnival is also an offline scene to showcase game culture.

For example, the journey carnival integrates the national tide style tea ceremony, stage performances, electric competitions, and Dong'an Pavilion dragon egg smashing welfare, etc., and there are shocking performances such as the Dong'an Pavilion light show.

Synchronized with the offline activities, the Journey Carnival not only distributed various welfare activities online, drew Xiaomi SU7 cars, but also announced cross-border cooperation with traditional intangible cultural heritage dragon boats and the 99 version of CCTV animation "Journey to the West".

For Journey players, the Journey Carnival has become an annual festival, and some veteran players even drag their families to participate in the carnival...... With this group of loyal players who have been growing up, it is no wonder that Journey has attracted much attention every time it launches a new product.

In the future, the "Journey IP" series of games will continue to innovate. Zhao Jianfeng revealed that in addition to relying on terminals and platforms to reach more users, Giant Network also hopes to expand overseas markets, so that players from different regions can also feel the charm of "Journey IP". He believes that the slowdown in the development of MMO is not limited by the category ceiling, but after the birth of phenomenal products such as "World of Warcraft", there have been no explosive models on the market for a long time, and the market plate is naturally difficult to expand.

The next thing for "Journey IP" to do is to target the underestimated global market and attack calmly. At present, the Zhengtu project team has conducted a lot of preliminary research work on the diversified versions, distribution methods and operation strategies in different overseas regions.

In Zhao Jianfeng's view, to promote the "Journey IP" to the overseas market, it is not expensive to be fast, "Although we do have ambitions for overseas markets, everything has to be done step by step." Especially in terms of localized user needs, it is necessary to slowly sort out the needs of different regions. For example, Japan, South Korea and China are culturally similar, Southeast Asia is slightly farther away, and North America and Europe are more alienated. After all, games are cultural products, and before facing overseas users, we must fully do the corresponding market research, reserve and improve our products. ”

epilogue

In 2007, he began to do the journey, and since 2018, he has been face-to-face with the majority of players at the Journey Carnival, and after more than ten years of journey, Zhao Jianfeng bluntly said that his biggest feeling over the years is "walking on thin ice".

He admires Charlie Munger's lifelong learning philosophy and insists that making games also requires a long-term learning ethos.

"I feel that every time I communicate with players on the journey, I can learn something new; And if you don't make contact with the player, you may miss something. "So it's inevitable that sometimes I think it's really hard to make a game." When you need to stick to one thing, you can't let go for a moment. If you don't tighten your strings enough, you could miss out on opportunities to make the game better. ”

In Gyro's view, it is precisely because the main creative team of Journey is closely connected with Journey players that Journey is a classic domestic game IP that can still shine after many years. With diversified product forms, rich operational activities, innovative science and technology, and keeping up with the pace of the times and the needs of players, "Journey IP" will go further and more steadily in the future.

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