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This summer, Station B will not compete with miHoYo

Zinc scale 2024/07/29 19:48

Zinc scale, This summer, Station B will not compete with miHoYo

"Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" is a key battle for Station B

Written by Chen Dengxin

Editor / Li Ji

Typography/ Annalee

"There are 100 million people coming to ChinaJoy."

At present, the climax of 2024 ChinaJoy is repeated, with Tencent, NetEase, Sony, Ubisoft and other major game manufacturers at home and abroad competing for glory, and hundreds of new games are competing against each other, presenting players with a "spiritual feast".

Among them, "Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World" brought by Station B is quite worth mentioning.

"Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World" has become a "dark horse" in the summer file, how important is it to Station B? Station B is no longer a two-dimensional game? Station B game, see the dawn of recovery or "return to the light"?

I've been waiting for a hit game for a long time

There is no doubt that "Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World" has become a key battle for Station B.

The reason for this is closely related to the situation of its game business: the proportion of the game business, which used to be 83.4%, has now fallen to 17%.

The problem is that B stands between ideals and reality, facing a difficult choice.

It must be known that since its listing, Station B has accumulated losses of up to 27.115 billion yuan, which is in stark contrast to Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of Station B, with an annual income of 246 million yuan in 2023, while the net profit of 3,527 listed companies in A-shares in the same year was less than 246 million yuan.

In this context, Chen Rui said: "We are confident that we will achieve positive profits in the third quarter of 2024 and start to make profits." ”

What is little known is that Chen Rui also has a third title, that is, the general manager of the game distribution center, personally grasping the implementation of the strategy of the game's return to the main business of station B, trying to regain the territory that was once lost, so as to "change his life against the sky".

Zinc scale, This summer, Station B will not compete with miHoYo

2024 ChinaJoy scene, source: "Three Kingdoms: Seeking the World" official WeChat

Still, strategic transformation doesn't happen overnight.

According to the financial report for the first quarter of 2024, the operating income of Station B's game business was 983 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13%, and the reserved program of "What did Station B games do wrong" was staged again.

From this point of view, "Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" can be described as a "single-rider savior": dwarfed by "Dungeons & Warriors: Origins", "Jeopardy Zero", "Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile Game" and other "popular spicy chicken", but it is also remarkable in the entire summer vacation game file, and on the day it was launched on June 13, it rushed to the second place in the iOS domestic game free list and the fourth place in the best-selling list, and then withstood the pressure of new and old competing products, and sat on the "top spot" of the SLG (strategy game) track that has become a subdivision.

China Merchants Securities predicts that the total turnover of "Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" in the first month will be about 1 billion yuan, and the contribution in the first year will be about 4 billion yuan, and the revenue will be about 1.2 billion yuan.

It is not difficult to see that there have been subtle changes in the game business of station B.

An industry insider told Zinc Scale: ""Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" is the first game to run out after the strategic shift of Station B, which can alleviate the previous repeated setbacks to a certain extent, but "Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World" is incompatible with the two-dimensional atmosphere of Station B, and it also raises speculation about whether the two-dimensional will no longer be stubborn in the future. ”

No more dead-locking two-dimensional?

As can be seen from the above, Station B seems to have opened its mind, and finally understands that game monetization does not necessarily depend on two-dimensional.

As we all know, Bilibili is the core platform of ACG culture, and its influence on ACG people is visible to the naked eye, which can be seen from Bilibili World.

Bilibili World is a nationally renowned comic exhibition and a "utopia" for the two-dimensional crowd, with tickets that are harder to grab every year than celebrity concerts, and the corresponding themed art show on July 14, 2024 has attracted 50 million people to watch online.

Theoretically, Station B, which has an innate advantage, should be the bull ear of the two-dimensional game.

In fact, it's very different.,The two-dimensional game of station B can't be used.,The only thing that can be played is the 2016 exclusive agent of "Fate/Grand Order", and it is with the performance support of the game that it successfully landed on the NASDAQ, and then never looked for the second "Fate/Grand Order".

Zinc scale, This summer, Station B will not compete with miHoYo

《Fate/Grand Order》

There are three reasons behind this.

First of all, the siphon effect is prominent.

The two-dimensional game is a "winner-takes-all" track, and miHoYo is the best proof of this: it stood out from the fiercely competitive track with its masterpiece "Genshin Impact" and became the "weather vane" of the two-dimensional game, and with the launch of "Honkai: Star Dome Railway" and "Jeopardy Zero", the dominance of the two-dimensional game has been further strengthened.

What's more, the basic disc of the two-dimensional game is limited, and even miHoYo has to escape the problem of competing with the same door, let alone other competing products.

As a result, Station B has mixed tastes.

The article "Water Reversal and Counterattack of Station B Games" revealed that "there are many people in Station B who feel that miHoYo's position should belong to Station B".

Second, there was a strategic miscalculation.

At the beginning of the listing, the capital market was worried about Station B's excessive reliance on the game business, so Station B started a "pan-two-dimensional" approach, and value-added services replaced games as the first major business.

In this way, Station B took off the hat of "game company".

Subsequently, station B relied on channel services to eat part of the turnover of the two-dimensional game, but it couldn't get the lion's share, and it couldn't make the performance "supportive".

What's even more troublesome is that the game business is moving towards crotch pulling.

A market source told Zinc Scale: "Because of poor promotion and lack of technical ability, there are often all kinds of strange bugs after the game is launched, and it has gained the name of 'mobile game graveyard'." ”

Again, self-research is not powerful.

The two-dimensional game has already entered the era of "content is king", and self-developed masterpieces have become the consensus of the industry, but the self-developed games of station B are difficult to describe, "Shendai Menghua Tan", "Slude", "Mobile Battle Queen: Fusion" and other poor results after being launched, and they did not stir up much waves, so they did not gain the right to speak in the industry.

According to public information, of the six self-developed studios of Bilibili Games, only Echo Saisi Game Studio is left to support the lineup, with a team size of 100 people.

Don't open champagne in the middle of the season

After being "beaten" by the market, although Station B was unwilling, it decided to change its way of life.

Yu Yang, deputy general manager of its game publishing center, said: "There have been no new explosive products in the SLG industry for five years, and the user structure and cognition have changed. ”

As a result, Station B bet on "Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World".

"Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" advertises "not forcing the liver, not forcing krypton", and has taken a road of "small R + big DAU", that is, to make the basic game of daily life bigger and gain more light krypton players, which is very different from the traditional SLG style of play.

An Internet observer told Zinc Scale: "The customer acquisition cost of traditional SLG is high, the basic market is relatively stable, and taking the heavy krypton route is a last resort, and Station B not only has a large natural traffic, but also young people are willing to try it, so the cost of customer acquisition is low, and "Three Kingdoms: Seeking the World" has the capital to disrupt the situation." ”

According to public data, the average activation cost of new users of SLG games is 419 yuan for i0S and 158 yuan for Android, ranking second in medium and heavy games; And more than 45% of users learned about "Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" for the first time through Station B.


The lineup mainly breaks the first division

The above-mentioned Internet observer further said that although "Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World" has made a good start, it must not open the champagne in the middle of the season, and it still faces a severe challenge of how to last for a long time.

In fact, although light krypton players can get a cool feeling during the wasteland period, the disadvantages become more and more obvious after entering PVP, and it is the only way to draw cards to improve combat power, but you can only get a high-level lineup but can only re-krypton, and return to the old road of traditional SLG.

In this regard, "On the Outside" pointed out sharply: "The number of card draws for a similar lineup of "Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World" is about 3 times that of the competing "Three Kingdoms: Strategic Edition", and 'Krypton' seems to exist in name only. The big R, who has the ability to draw more cards, soars in combat power and kills all sides; The small R with limited krypton gold has a lineup that pulls his hips and acts as a blood bag. In the long run, it may only be a matter of time before the little R players who can't afford it get out of the pit game. ”

All in all, Station B jumped out of the inherent two-dimensional thinking and found a breakthrough in SLG, and the game's strategy of returning to its main business has achieved initial results, but whether "Three Kingdoms: Plotting the World" can become an evergreen game, and whether Station B has mastered the methodology of creating a hit, still needs to be observed.

Then, there is not much time left for station B.

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