Text/Yiguang Flow

In the past August, I saw a unique way to break new ground for niche products.

I originally thought that the Qixi Festival would be the main theme of this month, but I didn't expect that there would be a game that would revolve around the Midyear Festival, which is also known as the "Ghost Festival". This picture has a strong sense of conflict.,Other families are greasy and crooked.,Your painting style here is very strange.。

But don't say, from the player's point of view, this unconventional way of playing is more fresh, so I swiped Xiaohongshu in the middle of the night, similar to "I don't feel sleepy in the middle of the night", "Ying Song and Dance is so shocking", "Hard control me for 10 seconds", "It's over, I want to play Taoyuan for a lifetime!" There were a lot of comments that popped up for a while.

Yes, this game that "gives players a little Qixi shock" is the simulation game "There is a Home in the Depths of Taoyuan", which Tencent Aurora plans to release for more than a year.

I still remember when it was first launched, many people questioned that this niche product would not live long, but in fact, it broke into the top 20 of the best-selling list with the momentum of a small dark horse, and has been able to enter the top 30 from time to time since then, reaching the highest 18th place on the best-selling list this year, and the results are relatively stable.

In addition, the registered users of the game have exceeded 10 million and are expected to reach 20 million by the end of the year, and the ratings of TapTap and Haoyou Kuaibang have also remained around 8 points, which can be said to be fame and fortune overall.

It stands to reason that niche games are difficult to do in the long run, but interestingly, "There Are Families in the Depths of Taoyuan" seems to have found a set of solutions: in addition to the conventional simulation business content, it seems to regard the content related to traditional culture and public welfare activities as the core elements of game operation.

This makes me even more curious about its development path: in today's competitive environment where triple-A mobile games are popular, why can a game with a small scale and niche theme rely on traditional culture and public welfare undertakings to maintain fame and fortune in the long run?

01

From the very beginning, you can't go off the beaten path

The beginning of niche products is often full of differentiating elements.

I still remember when it was exposed more than two years ago, it got TapTap 9.3 praise because of the characteristics of the painting style, healing and cute elements, unconventional simulation management, and many built-in small gameplay.

Producer Ye Tian once told us that the game was inspired by the life state in "Longing for Life" and the art style of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".

Obviously, such a product, whether placed two years ago or placed on the market today, is unique, or even unique. Naturally, the "uniqueness" and "taste" of niche products have quickly gathered many fans for the game, which can also explain the reason why a game with a fresh art style can rush to the 18th place on the best-selling list with many big works.

Relying on the differentiation of quality and subject matter can indeed provide freshness in the short term, but in the long run, it is easy to lose players after the freshness has passed. So the test for "There is a Home in the Depths of the Peach Spring" is what it can come up with in the long run to retain players?

From the point of view of pure payment design, this game abandons the numerical payment strategy of similar products, and puts the core payment point on "drawing cards to get special buildings". This has the advantage of reducing the sense of krypton and numerical oppression, but it also brings the challenge of how to continue to provide special buildings that players find worthwhile and interesting.

If you do it purely from the perspective of strong function and beautiful appearance, players will get bored after a long time, so this game cannot follow the traditional simulation business routine from the beginning. A better approach would be to find a way to give these buildings a deep core.

Tracing back to the source in this direction, we can find the long-term solution strategy of "There Are Homes in the Depths of Taoyuan": that is, to give cultural value and emotional value.

A simple review, you can see that the past word-of-mouth highlights and out-of-the-circle points of this game basically have the shadow of traditional Chinese culture and public welfare activities.

For example, the recent Midyear Festival theme event, on the surface, is the game uses a contrast strategy, relying on the freshness to compete for the Qixi Festival schedule of active players, in fact, in fact, in-depth look, you can find that many players because of this event, in-depth understanding of the charm of traditional Chinese "Nu culture", thus generating a sense of cultural identity.

For example, when I was doing the "520 Nutritious Meal" public welfare activity last year, there was an enthusiastic UP master who tracked and produced a video of public welfare, which received more than 5 million views, which also allowed players to truly understand the bits and pieces behind public welfare and have a real experience of doing public welfare.

Therefore, when the game content is endowed with a deep meaning, and the emotional identity of the player is aroused, then it will naturally follow with real word-of-mouth and income.

Therefore, from this point of view, "There Are Families in the Depths of Taoyuan" can become a dark horse with a small and broad breadth, relying on the cornerstone of differentiated product tones, and being able to gain a firm foothold in the long term depends on the player's continuous identification with its culture and emotions. Neither of these points is the mainstream practice in today's market.

02

Culture and public welfare do not rely on slogans

Some people may think that many products will do traditional cultural content, and they will also find ways to do public welfare, but it may not have the effect of "There is a Home in the Depths of Taoyuan".

In my opinion, there are two reasons: first, for many large-scale products, culture and public welfare have little to do with core income, so they just shout slogans and go through the motions; The second is that the product cannot deeply reflect the significance of traditional culture and public welfare content at the production level, so it can only rely on the gourd to draw the scoop.

1. The breath of life is the foundation of culture and public welfare

In contrast, culture and public welfare are not only the core content of the game, but also the life attitude, life details, and cultural connotation that the game itself wants to present.

Anyone who has played this game will appreciate that the details of the game are very life-like. For example, the turnip people in the building will have the details of getting together to play cards, and when they go to work, the last turnip man to leave will sneak a look at the other people's cards before leaving.

In my opinion, traditional culture and public welfare undertakings are closely related to life. The former is the essence of the living habits of different people, and the latter is full of the vision of a better life for more people. Therefore, the game has a strong atmosphere of life, which can more easily support a large number of cultural and public welfare content.

For example, two days ago, "There Are Families in the Depths of the Peach Spring" and Tencent Charity jointly launched the "Stray Animal Guardian Program", during which the players' feeding and love donations reached a total of 2 million, and the Tencent Foundation will support professional public welfare organizations to provide 25,000KG of love rations to rescue no less than 300 stray cats and dogs.

This public welfare activity is basically seamlessly connected with the content of the game. The reason is, firstly, the game was originally designed with the gameplay of "auspicious cute beasts", so that players can cultivate cute beasts, interact with them intimately, and add a stray cat and a stray dog to the original gameplay system, which will not have a sense of disobedience at all.

Second, players in the game have developed the habit of wandering around and interacting with NPCs everywhere, and there are new changes in the city, so they will naturally come up to see what is going on, so when they encounter new stray cats and dogs, they can also interact with them without thresholds, and then trigger the gameplay mechanism of public welfare activities.

Compared with the public welfare activities in the form of activities, the cultural content is integrated with "There Are Homes in the Depths of Taoyuan", which is even more moisturizing and silent.

It is understood that in the process of creation, this game has incorporated at least 20 kinds of intangible cultural heritage elements, including Kunqu Opera, Guqin, Suzhou Embroidery, Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo, Suzhou Pingtan, Suzhou Lantern Color, Bonsai Skills, Suzhou Calligraphy and Painting, Suzhou-style Pastry Making Skills, Bamboo Weaving, Traditional Wooden Boat Making Skills, Riddles (Pingwang Lantern Riddles), etc. At first glance, these elements may not be associated with intangible cultural heritage content for a while, but if you carefully study them, you can find the cultural heritage behind them.

Of course, some intangible cultural heritage elements are suitable for quietly integrating into the lives of players, while others are suitable for making them more three-dimensional, fuller and more recognizable. For example, the Taoyuan Su Luo Stage, based on the ancient Suzhou stage, included 4 commentaries, and after the corresponding stage module in the game was launched, it attracted more than 4 million users to participate and won unanimous praise from players.

With the support of the breath of life, the threshold for culture and public welfare is indeed lower, but from the player's point of view, it is not the game that has done culture and public welfare, and players will recognize these contents. In order to truly penetrate the hearts of the people, we must also find the right angle and grasp the scale.

2. Only persistence and effectiveness can make public welfare touch people's hearts

Take public welfare content as an example, it must be insisted on, realized, and let players see it, so as to have actual results. In the past year and a half since the launch of "There is a Home in the Depths of Taoyuan", this game has held six public welfare activities.

The first phase is the aforementioned "520 Nutritious Meal" charity, in which players make "Egg Fried Rice" and "Fish-flavored Shredded Pork" in the game and donate them, and these foods will become nutritious meals donated to students in mountainous areas.

The target donation volume of this phase of the event was 2 million, and the result finally reached 21.25 million, exceeding the target by 10 times. And with the tracking reports of some UP masters, players have also received real feedback and felt the meaning of doing public welfare.

Echoing the first phase of the charity activity, on May 20 this year, the game held a new phase of the "Nutritious Meal" charity activity again after a year. During the period, we not only continued to expand and optimize the arrangement and implementation details of the event, but also made 520 an exclusive public welfare day for "There is a Home in the Depths of Taoyuan", as well as an important memory point for old players.

In addition, the game allows players to participate in the rare bird protection plan through the tired bird ting gameplay, and also popularizes the knowledge of cherishing birds; Through the customization of the in-game prop "Love Apple Seeds", with a full set of gameplay, 220,000 users finally participated in the donation, donating a total of 400,000 yuan to the agricultural project; The game also participated in the rural winter clothing public welfare project, and delivered 272 warm winter clothing bags to rural children at minus 30 degrees.

In addition, this year's "Jiujiu Charity Festival" game has further upgraded the public welfare strategy. On the one hand, it will continue to maintain the mode of limited-time activities, launch the "Stray Animal Guardian Project", and form a linkage with the existing gameplay in the game; On the other hand, there is a new resident charity module and a gameplay "charity tree", which allows players to review the records of past charity activities at any time.

Judging from the feedback from players, the design of the charity tree is also quite popular with players, which not only creates a beautiful image of the wishing tree, but also evokes the memories of the past of players, so that the warmth and healing sense of participating in public welfare have a clear carrier in the game. It is conceivable that through the charity tree, players' awareness and enthusiasm for participating in charity activities will increase.

Judging from the strategy of the new "resident" public welfare activities, the binding of public welfare is more closely related to "There is a Home in the Depths of Taoyuan": doing public welfare is neither three days of fishing and two days of drying nets, nor is it thunder and rain, but a thing that is continuously being done and can see the landing and results.

With the subtle guidance of the game, players will gradually identify with the game's practices because they continue to witness the results of public welfare, and then take the initiative to accompany the game to continue to do this meaningful thing.

3. Traditional culture needs to regain its human touch

In addition, the integration of traditional culture, in the modern environment, the rigid copy of traditional culture is bound to be unflattering, and more importantly, let the humanistic care and fireworks of traditional culture representatives be re-integrated with the lives of modern people, so that they can enter everyone's hearts. From this point of view, the approach of "There Are Families in the Depths of Taoyuan" is more humane.

Taking the past Zhongyuan Festival activities as an example, the theme of the event is "Zhongyuan Thoughts", which means "sustenance of the feelings of the deceased", and the details use the ghost opera and Chaoshan Ying song and dance of the intangible cultural heritage "Nu culture" to convey the meaning of driving away the plague and avoiding the epidemic and seeking peace, and focus on refining the element of "Nu mask", which is applied to the stage, architecture, face decoration and other details in the game.

Combined with the game's original fresh art style, as well as the night scene and the group dance of NPCs, it presents a strong contrast that is both terrifying and cute. It also makes the theme activity of "There is a Home in the Depths of Taoyuan" very different among the mainstream games in August, and continues to implement the game's unusual style.

And from a broader point of view, this kind of just right attention to detail has been the strategy of this game all along. For example, the aforementioned architectural radish playing cards peeks at the details, as well as many intangible cultural heritage elements that moisturize things silently, as well as the Suzhou Pingtan Stage, which is highly praised by players. The same is true for the linkage between the game and the scenic spot of the China Embroidery Art Museum in July this year.

In this linkage, the game not only restored 16 exquisite embroidery works 1:1, but also carried out text appreciation of these works, and through secondary creation, the beautiful embroidery and the cute radish man were combined together, giving people a fresh visual experience, and finally using small games such as "flying needle threading" and "embroidery eye skill" to enhance the sense of interaction.

It can be seen that when "There Are People in the Depths of Taoyuan" produces these traditional cultural contents, it is more inclined to "integrate these contents into all aspects of the game, and then let players enter through the platform of simulation management", so that the culture has a breath of life, and the players substitute into the simulated life, and under the natural edification, players can feel the details and charm of the culture.

In general, whether it is doing traditional culture or public welfare activities, you can slowly grasp the appropriate methods and scales if you continue to do it; Presenting this content in a humane way can bring you closer to the player. The cultural identity and emotional sustenance are in place, and "There Are Families in the Depths of Taoyuan" will be more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

03

Give players a meaningful paradise

Looking back, in today's impetuous and fast-paced social environment, players cannot always chase competition, chase victory, chase the game experience of fighting and killing, and there will always be a moment when a calm environment is needed.

At the very beginning, the survival method of "There is a Home in the Depths of Taoyuan" is to provide players with such a "Taoyuan" that can calm down and stretch the long axis, and the sustainable survival of the game is to give a deep "meaning" to "Taoyuan": that is, the resonance and pride after in-depth understanding of traditional culture, as well as the emotion and empathy after participating in public welfare activities.

In recent years, domestic players' demands for cultural identity and emotional value have become stronger. On the one hand, the fields of film and television, literature, music and other fields have successively given birth to their own masterpieces, and the game field has also appeared one after another to make the Chinese people proud; On the other hand, in recent years, the gaming circle, which has gradually become emotionally out of control, also needs to be balanced by love, peace and tolerance.

It's just that nowadays, there are still a few domestic games that can provide cultural identity and emotional value. In my opinion, this market gap can also become an opportunity and breakthrough for many niche and differentiated game works.

You know, we are backed by the huge treasure of Chinese culture, and there are also huge and diverse groups of people who stage different lives in this land. Sometimes, as long as you dig into a little bit of cultural heritage, or move a part of the population like doing public welfare, it will bring more than just word-of-mouth and rewards to games and manufacturers.

On the road of integrating traditional culture and public welfare undertakings with games, I believe that not only can "There Are Families in the Depths of Taoyuan" go further, but there are also more excellent works that can be bred from it.

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