On September 5th, a recruitment picture of miHoYo spread in the industry, and the recruitment information in the picture exposed 5 pre-developed products of miHoYo in one go, which aroused heated discussions in the circle and players.

Judging from the labels of pre-researched products on the recruitment information, miHoYo has brought a lot of surprises to the industry in terms of product reserves. Although there are also "Honkai IP" products that we are familiar with, there are more new IP projects, such as "Modern City", "Realistic Fantasy", "European and American Cartoons" and so on.

And the appearance of this series of "not so miHoYo" labels may also reflect a certain anxiety about miHoYo's track layout:

Is it really feasible to go all the way to the black?

I think miHoYo has thought about this question. The newly exposed project may be their answer.

5 new projects, miHoYo has a lot of cards in his hand

The first modern urban project, which everyone speculates, is "Project SH", which was discontinued by miHoYo in 2022.

Previously, it was rumored that "Project SH" was first developed by Cai Haoyu himself, focusing on two-dimensional open-world shooting, which is a bit similar to "two-dimensional GTA". However, the project was forced to stop in November 2022, and although there were subsequent rumors of the resumption of the project, there has been no clear and definitive news.

Judging from the latest job postings, this modern urban open world is not necessarily a shooter gameplay, and judging from the "multiple story lines" and "RPGs" in the label, the gameplay of this game may be more like a CRPG.

This is still quite different from the rumored shooting gameplay of "Project SH". Maybe the project has been redirected, or maybe it's two different projects entirely. But at least one thing is certain, the combination of "open world" and "modern city" is destined to be a high-investment project. Perhaps, this will also be miHoYo's next big trump card.

The second "Realistic Fantasy" pre-research project.

Judging from the recruitment labels, labels such as "realistic" and "fantastic" indicate that this may be a product that is not so miHoYo. This is the first exposure of the product, so there is no more information. Previously, there were also rumors that a well-known realistic shooting game producer resigned from a major factory to join miHoYo, which may also confirm that miHoYo began to exert efforts in realistic painting style.

There are rumors about this product that this product may be similar to "Monster Hunt" in terms of gameplay, with the label of "action", as well as miHoYo's experience in projects such as "Jeopardy Zero", "Honkai Impact 3" and "Genshin Impact", this product may be able to bring some surprises to everyone in the field of co-op gameplay.

The third "Animal Anthropomorphism" project, which is also the only project to announce the concept of the original art, is probably the product with the fastest development progress of all the exposure projects.

From the information revealed by labels such as "social", "anthropomorphic", and "life simulation", everyone's speculation about this product is also more specific, and they all think that this should be the "dynamic forest like" "Xingbu Valley" that got the version number not long ago, and the main gameplay is to build a house on a small planet, which coincides with the concept map exposed on the Internet.

This project is also the most casual one among miHoYo's products at present. This time, miHoYo is no longer obsessed with action-adventure, but has begun to do social and life simulation. It can be seen that miHoYo still attaches great importance to further "expanding the circle".

The fourth project is the pre-research of "Honkai" IP.

Some industry insiders say that this may be the "Honkai Impact 4" project. As one of miHoYo's leading IPs, the development of the orthodox sequel to the "Honkai" series is indeed reasonable, and we also saw some interesting information in this recruitment.

For example, "Elf Companionship" and "Fun Fantasy", it is obvious that miHoYo will try more new elements in the next projects, especially the gameplay that has been proven by the market. And this year, there is a related product "Phantom Beast Palu" that focuses on the companionship of elves.

This also indicates that the "Honkai" IP pre-research product may have a more obvious difference in product tone from the previous "Honkai Impact 3", and labels such as "sense of life", "elf companionship" and "fun fantasy" can also make people associate with the heavy world view, and the new "Honkai" may be more light and casual.

The last "European and American cartoon" project also has little information, based on labels such as "near future", "online" and "shooting", there are rumors that this may be miHoYo's "jet like" project.

The most interesting thing about this product is the point of "European and American cartoons", after all, this is also an area that miHoYo has never set foot in, and the audience of "European and American cartoons" is obviously aimed at more than the domestic market, and miHoYo obviously wants to create a global product with the appearance of the international market.

Judging from the 5 new projects exposed, whether it is an old IP such as "Honkai" or a new IP project, miHoYo is slowly stepping out of its comfort zone and trying to make some unprecedented attempts. Such a change is not only more diverse in the choice of themes, but also in terms of expression style, "two-dimensional" is no longer the only solution for miHoYo.

But I guess that for miHoYo, the significance of these 5 pre-research projects may not only be to expand the competition track, or to maintain the dominance of the two-dimensional category, but another important signal released by it is-

In this increasingly fierce competition, the money in the two-dimensional game may not be as easy to make as it used to be.

miHoYo's two-dimensional game business is becoming more and more difficult to do

"Is two-dimensional still a good business?" In the past few years, when communicating with my peers, many practitioners have confided similar questions to me.

The owner of a two-dimensional game company once bluntly said that as the development cost of the second game is getting higher and higher, the customer base is diluted by several high-quality products, and the two-dimensional game has become a category with no return rate or success rate.

In the eyes of some people in the investment circle, the current two-dimensional game has even become a "category that cannot be touched" in the capital market - "After several years of blind expansion, the two-dimensional game is facing a big inflection point, from the head company to the small and medium-sized manufacturers, and the reshuffle is inevitable." If we take into account the special audience and community atmosphere of the second tour, the attitude of investors is more cautious. ”

I believe that miHoYo not only sees the above-mentioned dilemma of two-dimensional games, but also empathizes with it.

On the one hand, the extremely chaotic community public opinion not only makes the two-dimensional game community increasingly fragmented and chaotic, making players tired of the community fighting each other and losing confidence in the game content, but also directly leads to the loss of judgment of game manufacturers on the needs of players.

Not long ago, miHoYo Viagra cried on Genshin Impact FES, "In the past year, both the Genshin Impact project team and I have experienced anxiety and confusion, and we have experienced many difficult moments. Some voices are particularly sharp, belittleing Genshin Impact and the Genshin Impact project team to uselessness, and there are many voices saying that the project team is particularly arrogant and can't listen to everyone's voice...... It's just that for us, we hear so many voices that we need to settle down and figure out which ones are the real voices of the travelers. ”

There is no way, represented by "Genshin Impact", the community rhythm around miHoYo is endless, and even indirectly affects the flow of products, how can the boss not be anxious when he sees it?

Taking "Genshin Impact" as an example, in the past year alone, the controversy surrounding the characters such as Balladeer, Navillette, Water God, and Clolinde has basically not stopped, and during the 4.8 version, the public opinion turmoil has gradually begun to shake the user's basic disk.

A noteworthy phenomenon is that the number of fans of the official account of "Genshin Impact" Station B has been infinitely close to 20 million (the highest time exceeded 19.99 million, maybe the official even the congratulatory picture is ready?). But after several public opinion storms in version 4.8, it has fallen to 19.762 million - hundreds of thousands of live fans, which is roughly equivalent to the number of players of a small and medium-sized two-dimensional product.

On the other hand, when the dividends of the second-game market disappear, the stock competition will inevitably lead to the diversion of players and the dumping of products.

Since May of this year, "Singing Tide" has taken the lead in launching a charge to the two-dimensional open world, and in the next few years, it can be seen to the naked eye that there are also competing products such as "Codename: Infinity", "Different Ring", "Blue Star Plain: Ballads", "Mochizuki" and other competing products that sell well and are not inferior to Mijia games are lined up to be launched. Considering the generation difference and style similarity of the products, the impact of latecomers on Genshin Impact and other products of miHoYo is inevitable.

However, before the arrival of the "new force", miHoYo now has a more serious problem to be solved: the two-dimensional circle expansion effect is gradually fading, players' freshness to Mijia games has faded, and several of miHoYo's top products are experiencing collective malaise.

According to the statistics of some netizens on Tieba, in the first 8 months of this year, "Genshin Impact" and "Crashing Iron" both declined to varying degrees, of which the domestic mobile turnover in the first 8 months of "Genshin Impact" fell sharply by 54.77% compared with the same period last year, and overseas also dropped by 37.54%.

The situation of "Crashing Iron" is slightly better, but it also fell by 16.48% in China (fortunately, the performance overseas is relatively stable).

The domestic mobile revenue of the "new force" "Jeopardy Zero" in August plummeted by 76% compared with the launch of the service in July.Even in the most active summer file of the student party, the performance of "Genshin Impact", "Crashing Iron" and "Jeopardy Zero" was not satisfactory. According to the statistics of some netizens, throughout July and August, the peak of miHoYo's three major products failed to exceed Douyin, except for the opening card pool of "Jeopardy Zero". Even if the battle line is extended to June to the present, in the past four months, only the popular character "Flowing Firefly" of "Crashing Iron" has been super jitter for 57 hours ("super jitter" is generally regarded as one of the criteria for whether the card pool is strong).

The most surprising thing is the card pool data of Genshin Impact 5.0. As a version with a new kingdom "Nata" and the blessing of the anniversary, 5.0 is a tie with iQiyi on the list - in the words of some fun people: "Even the most extreme 'Mi Hei' never thought that the data of Genshin Impact 5.0 would be so unbearable." ”

So reserved as "Genshin Impact", it also gave away 10 consecutive in one go, self-selected five-star resident characters, increased withdrawal rates and other benefits, all of which have only one purpose: to retain existing players.

Some people say that the decline of miHoYo's various products can be attributed to the ebb of the two-dimensional category or the product operation cycle, which has little to do with other factors; Some people also say that the decline in the turnover of Mijia games actually reflects the gradual collapse of the "Mimen's world" (simply put: the specific content routines, business logic and revenue methods of miHoYo's products).

Some people who have seen it more thoroughly believe that this is the inevitable result of the complete saturation of ACG products - when the users of the second game market have peaked, miHoYo's "reform" is imminent.

epilogue

Perhaps a small number of players have mixed feelings when they see miHoYo trying to get out of the second dimension. After all, this company arose in the second dimension, and fans certainly hope that this group of creators can be loyal to the second dimension in the future.

But I think players can rest assured. In fact, stepping out of the second dimension is only an inevitable way for miHoYo to reduce risks, seek corporate stability, and avoid the company's over-reliance on a single category or individual products. The diversification of product categories is also more conducive to miHoYo's more stable development in the future. With the early completion of the "self-revolution", the road under the feet of miHoYo may be broader and more open.

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