Text/Liang Lotte

To discuss the new trend of the game market, the dual-end release of APP+ mini games is undoubtedly a direction that everyone pays attention to.

Recently, Grape Jun noticed that "This City Has Good Fields", which has been online for a year, is a product with relatively stable performance at both ends.

Before the game was launched, Grape Jun had paid attention to and analyzed this product, thinking that it might become a dark horse in the simulation business track. Facts have also proved this, and "This City Has Good Fields" has maintained its position in the top 10 best-selling iOS simulation games for 6 consecutive months since its open beta in July 2023.

In October last year, "This City Has Good Fields" launched a WeChat mini game version, and as of June this year, the game has maintained the top 10 position on the best-selling list of mini games.

To be honest, it is not easy for "This City Has Fertile Land" to break through, because the simulation business track it is in can be said to be one of the most competitive tracks in recent years, and there are a lot of well-known products: "Call Me the Big Shopkeeper", "Jiangnan Hundred Scenes", "League of Legends E-sports Manager", "Time in Sandstone Town", ...... Not to mention that Yishi itself also has "I Am a Big Boss" and "Business Master".

In addition to dealing with competitors, the products on this track also face other problems: due to the lag in paid conversion, the simulated business type naturally does not have an advantage in customer acquisition; In terms of art, the category has been rolled to the extreme, and the marginal cost is high one by one; However, in terms of gameplay, it is difficult for this kind of product to break through the routine and bring freshness to players......

In such a market environment, how did Yishi's "This City Has Good Land" do it?

01

Simulate business gameplay, fusion cards + SLG

In the current mobile game market, it is not uncommon for products to integrate multiple gameplay methods, and elements such as simulation management, strategy development, and roguelike can be arranged and combined in different types. Compared with products with a single simulation of business gameplay, "This City Has Good Fields" integrates card development and SLG strategy on this basis.

Specifically, in the early stage, the game made a differentiated design in the simulation management part, enriching the business gameplay through three indicators: population, earning speed (the speed at which resources are earned) and official position.

At the same time, in addition to the simulated business gameplay such as collecting vegetables and selling goods, the game has added an RPG-style main line. As a county magistrate, the player will travel to the withered and dilapidated city with the official mission, and encounter the princess Gongsun Auntie, who embezzles taxes to help the victims.

As the game progresses, the player will encounter combat events. In the combat system of "This City Has Fertile Fields", the "wingman" as a combat unit has different positions such as healing, output, and tanks, as well as different rarities, and the cultivation system is similar to a card game. In addition, the strategic operation of the combat module is mainly reflected in the scheduling between the five positions in the front and rear rows, as well as the timing of the manual release of skills.

"Subordinates" don't just play a role in battle. In the simulation management part, players can also deploy their subordinates to county schools, bad divisions, fang cities and other places to assist players in collecting resources and triggering random events around their subordinates.

Although this part of the card development seems to be relatively heavy, whether it is the cultivation materials of the subordinate characters or the improvement materials of weapon attributes, they can be obtained through light games such as chasing fugitives and cultivating children.

In this way, the game has formed a set of gameplay system with "raising the city" as the core: following the development of the story line, players cultivate subordinate characters, and subordinate characters collect resources through business skills, influencing players' decisions on industrial planning and building layout. In the end, the game ended with tax capacity and demographic indicators, which in turn promoted the development of the main line of officialdom.

In addition, "This City Has Good Fields" also has a set of SLG gameplay, which is called "Kyushu" in the game. Similar to the COK-like in the traditional SLG category, the "Kyushu" gameplay includes sub-gameplay such as marching and fighting cities.

The reason for joining SLG gameplay should be to better retain players in the later stage through the sense of socialization and purpose provided by SLG gameplay.

However, as mentioned above, the early gameplay such as simulation management and card development is more similar to the experience of a single-player game. This raises the question: how do you steer players from a single-player experience to a socially focused SLG gameplay?

"This City Has Fertile Land" solves this problem in three steps.

First of all, the game has a proper simplification of SLG gameplay. In traditional SLGs, players need to build barracks to recruit troops, and the classes are usually divided into cavalry, infantry, archers, etc.; However, in "This City Has Fertile Fields", the barracks are called "Folding Battalions", and the types of troops are also simplified and unified into different levels of "government soldiers". This design not only makes it easier for players to get started when playing PK, but also reduces the social pressure that traditional SLGs may bring.

Secondly, the game attracts players by setting up a reward mechanism to allow SLG to generate more rewards for management and card development at the beginning. In the early stages of the game, players can upgrade the "Taichang Camp" in the county to enhance the damage of PVP and the attributes of the subordinates. With this, the building not only connects with the SLG gameplay in the later stage, but also interacts with the early gameplay through the cultivation of subordinates.

Finally, as the game progresses, players will find that "This City Has Good Fields" gradually reduces the management and cultivation elements, and instead focuses on SLG gameplay.

In the "Taichang Camp" we mentioned earlier, there is a "Intensive Study" system, which is similar to the "Technology Upgrade" in the general SLG.

Players need to collect three resources: gold, wood, and grain and grass. These resources can be obtained by participating in daily activities, or by visiting specific buildings, for example, wood can be obtained from the "Wood Camp". In the early stages of the game, wood was mainly used in the construction of buildings; In the later period, timber was used more for fortifications and siege equipment.

In addition, in terms of specific measures, the game also adopts a season-based operation model, through a weekly rotation activity, and a six-week season content rhythm to balance the overall experience rhythm of players.

For example, in the S4 season, the game added a new game of simulated management "Open Up Trade Routes", a new building "Mutual Market Port", and a new collection of characters "Nie Yinniang" and "Guo Ziyi".

These integrated content with the same theme allows players to start with the characters, story, and simulation management, and then gradually transition to SLG after getting familiar with the season, so as to eliminate the abruptness of SLG.

On the whole, through the integration of gameplay, "This City Has Good Fields" alleviates the lag of payment points and the lack of freshness of gameplay in traditional simulation games to a certain extent.

The card development system brings additional bonuses to the simulation management, and the resources obtained from the story adventure also have a slight intersection with the simulation management, and then gradually transfer to SLG to ensure the long-term operation of the product. At the same time, due to its own simulated business attributes, the game will not be like traditional SLGs, with complex resource management and strategic deployment.

02

A distribution style that emphasizes the story and brand sense

On the issuance side, Grape Jun observed their actions in the past year and roughly summarized the following key points:

First of all, in terms of spokesperson selection, unlike other products in terms of celebrity endorsements, which pursue a high topicality and large traffic, "This City Has Good Land" is more inclined to find spokespersons who have a certain appeal in the post-90s and post-00s user groups and are highly consistent with product attributes.

Within a year, the game invited 3 spokespersons. In this one-year anniversary event, "This City Has Good Fields" invited Song Yi to shoot the brand TVC. Song Yi is well-known to the audience for dramas such as "The Pretender" and "Celebrating More Than Years", and the fresh and natural image she shows in the play is in line with the healing pastoral style built by the game.

Similarly, in terms of theme song marketing, "This City Has Good Fields" is also a fresh and natural healing style. So far, the game has launched a total of 4 theme songs, such as the first anniversary theme song "Where is the peach source in the world", inviting the ancient singer @shallow shadow A to sing for the product, and after the song was released, it was combined with the same healing style of the master for marketing conversion, which is different from the purchase material of traditional heavy products.

Secondly, in terms of purchase promotion, "This City Has Good Land" reflects the two characteristics of "strong investment" and "pursuit of interesting materials".

According to DataEye-ADX data, on the day of its launch, the game carried out explosive material delivery, with more than 10,000 sets in a single day; In terms of the total amount of materials, during the game's launch last year, more than 210,000 materials were released in a single month. Both data are higher than those of simulated business products launched in the same period.

In addition, these materials are more interesting, emphasizing the expressiveness of the subject matter and art, and enhancing the sense of story through UGC-like materials. In the specific practice of buying and placing volume, the product is minimized, and even does not use the hard information of the game, there is no gift code, no immediate download, no forced recommendation, and the content is output in a subtle way.

Take the following material as an example, it uses visual elements such as comic strips and villain books to tell a small story of a county order governing a city. While the footage has some basic introduction to the gameplay, it doesn't directly lead you to a download, but indirectly promotes the game by arousing the curiosity of potential players through the storyline.

Finally, "This City Has Good Fields" carried out high-density crossover activities, aiming to enhance the operation of the game and expand its brand influence. For example, "This City Has Fertile Land" has collaborated with cultural and museum units such as Xi'an Museum and Shaanxi History Museum to launch the car skin "Heavenly King Treasure Driving" and the architectural skin "Ancient Capital Pearl", giving players the opportunity to contact and understand the elements of traditional Chinese culture.

In addition, "This City Has Fertile Land" also held a number of player activities, through public welfare activities such as the promotion of traditional culture during the Spring Festival, rural aesthetic education projects, and offline animation exhibitions, in order to shorten the distance with players.

In general, "This City Has Fertile Land" follows the two principles of "three-dimensional marketing" and "content-driven". In terms of means, publicity is carried out through various means such as spokespersons, theme songs, and buying volume; In terms of publicity materials, compared with the purchase materials of traditional heavy products, more content with a healing style and a strong sense of story is used.

For sim players, they prefer interesting stories and a fresh and healing style. And "This City Has Good Fields" is through story-led content creation that attracts these players.

03

A slow-burning track that requires patience and determination

In addition, Grape Jun also noticed the manufacturer behind "This City Has Good Fields" - Yi World. In the impression of Grape Jun, most of the products of this manufacturer are simulated business types.

Since its establishment in 2012, Yishi has successively launched a number of simulation games such as "SynTao Master", and "SynTao Master", as a representative of the company's long-term operation project, has been in operation for 5 years since its launch in June 2019.

In addition, this is not the first time they have ventured into the business genre. As early as May 2021, Yishi launched "I Am a Big Boss", and it rushed to the first place on the iOS free list on the same day. The commercialization framework of simulated management + card cultivation of "This City Has Good Fields" has also been verified by users in products such as "Business Master" and "I Am a Big Boss".

Previously, Lin Yun, the distribution VP of Yishi, said that the essence of the simulated business track is to simulate cultivation and operation management, the former is to simulate the character identity and immersive experience, and the latter is the strategy of resource allocation, as well as progressive growth feedback.

Compared with Yishi's past simulation business products, "This City Has Fertile Land" jumped out of the comfort zone of modern business themes, and chose the Tang Dynasty and its celebrities as the main worldview, providing a fresher character simulation experience.

In addition, it is worth noting in terms of distribution that after the success of the mini-game version of "I Am a Big Boss", Yishi also put "This City Has Good Fields" on the mini-game side.

In Lin Yun's view, compared with apps, the advertising conversion link of mini games is shorter, and the unit price of customer acquisition is lower; At the same time, the user scale of the mini game is large, and the product can reach a wider user group. However, "This City Has Good Fields" was not launched at the same time, but after accumulating enough data and feedback on the App side, it took a few months to adjust before launching the mini game side. As of the day of press time, "This City Has Good Fields" is still in the top 3 position on the best-selling list of mini games.

Lin Yun also mentioned that for simulated business products, the team's current approach is to adopt a good commercialization model to avoid risks and iterate the content of the product itself to improve the quality of the game.

For manufacturers who want to lay out such products, they not only need to be prepared for product polishing and continuous optimization, but also need long-term patience and determination to do a good job in the early stage of investment and recycling control."

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