If only electricity is generated!

Why do players make games?

The success of DOTA seems to have been a catalyst.

However, UGC has not broken the circle for many years in the future.

But occasionally, it can play the role of a savior for some game studios.

According to media reports, in 2021, in Shenzhen, Yichen Studio, which was independently founded by five senior game developers, earned more than 700,000 revenue in only 100 days on the UGC sandbox creative platform "Mini World".

However, who would have thought that this studio was on the verge of collapse a few months ago.

The studio previously represented a game engine to do the secondary development of mobile games.

But when the mobile game was launched, the data was not very ideal.

In the end, they found that the UGC creativity of "Mini World" was in hot demand, so they entered it and developed works such as "Extreme Cool Run" and "Prison Break Puzzle", which repeatedly exceeded one million downloads and turned losses into profits.

But this is also an isolated proof, although more ordinary people can also rely on the platform's editor tools to create mini-games, but most of them are just entertaining themselves.

More often than not, the UGC feature is just the key to the game's long-term popularity.

In 2013, an arcade + music game "Geometry Dash" was launched, and it was not shocking for a while.

Until 2014, it suddenly broke out, and until 2017, the game ranked first in the United States audio game and arcade iOS paid lists, and the average fifth in the total paid list.

The reason for its success is that in 2014 the game was released on PC, making it easier for players to edit levels on their desktop.

Subsequently, the magnitude of the level increased dramatically.

At the same time, the ultra-difficult levels attracted game gods and game anchors to challenge, which made the spread of the entire game explode and become a phenomenal game.

Also in 2014, Nintendo launched Super Mario Manufacturing, which for the first time allowed players to freely design game levels.

The results were staggering: on the 20th day of release, the game sold 1 million copies worldwide, 2.2 million self-created levels were created, and more than 75 million levels were played ...... worldwide

At this point, the sandbox game can be said to give full play to the effect of UGC.

The best of these games is Minecraft, which was launched in 2011 and has sold 200 million units by 2021.

In 2016, a sandbox mobile game called Roblox took this "player-driven" concept a step further.

It's not so much a game as it is a DIY platform for mobile games.

By giving players more "edit" permissions, players are encouraged to make new types of games on the platform with ready-made materials and share them with other players.

It has a wide range of editable genres, from shooters, action, MOBAs, role-playing, and more.

Data shows that by 2019, more than 5 million teenage developers have used Roblox to develop digital content such as 3D and VR, making it the world's largest multiplayer online creation game.

By the way, in the metaverse game craze that began in the 2020s, it has become a pioneer and a model case.

It's just that behind the hot game, it seems to rely on a large number of "migrant workers" to build a foundation.

It's rare to hear of a player who has made a lot of money by buying homemade levels, and most of them have just become the lubricant for the game's continued popularity, and they are full of love for power.

For example, by the end of 2020, Roblox officially said that there were more than 8 million active developers, but only 4,300 reached the withdrawal threshold, which is $250.

Of course, the path to making money is not to sell homemade games.

For example, Evan Zirschky, a well-known developer on Roblox, told the media that he only reached the withdrawal threshold at the end of 2018, but in 2016, he earned tens of thousands of dollars by broadcasting the game and self-made scenes.

It's just that it's still a very special minority.

More often than not, you don't make money.

For example, a domestic developer of the "Dark Dungeon" mod once said: "In the "Dark Dungeon" circle, there are twenty or thirty active mod developers, but there are only two of them who can generate income and work full-time for it. ”

And another news said that the "Hunting Skill MOD Production Team" was once one of the largest MOD domestic production teams of "Monster Hunter: World", after the game was launched in 2018, when its popularity was at its highest, the production team had 6-7 player customization orders a month, and by 2022, there will be almost no orders.

Commercialization is a difficult problem.

Fortunately, most players are originally for fun and interest, and to generate electricity for love.

Published in the People's Post and Telegraph on April 12, 2024, Issue 397 of the column of "Le Youji".

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