Chapter 476 Lovesickness
Du Yunkai came back at about eleven o'clock, and just as he came back, he received a call from Shu Mingyuan, saying that the market research and analysis report on B-game had been completed and sent to his email.
Du Yunkai returned to the office, opened his email, downloaded the report and read it carefully. Just as he expected, the market for B-games was also very huge. This report can be summarized in just a few words: you can enter the market.
While having lunch in the cafeteria, Du Yunkai briefly talked to Liu Wangxue.
Not long after lunch, Liu Wangxue took her laptop to Du Yunkai's office.
Du Yunkai had just printed out the report when he heard a knock on the door. His office door was not closed. When he looked up, he saw not only Liu Wangxue but also Xu Qingsong standing at the door.
After inviting the person in, Du Yunkai asked Xu Qingsong unhappily: "What are you doing here?"
He now disliked Xu Qingsong very much. This guy was showing off in the name of taking care of him during lunch, and he would often feel sorry for him for being long-distance when he just started dating. What's the matter? It's great to have a girlfriend around, right? The way he showed off was really disgusting!
Xu Qingsong smiled and took Liu Wangxue in his arms and sat down on the sofa: "My girlfriend is here to talk to you about work, so of course I have to be there."
Du Yunkai immediately rolled his eyes rudely.
"That's enough. The man over there is your boss after all." Liu Wangxue slapped Xu Qingsong's hand away, and said with a teasing tone, "You have to give him enough care and respect, and you can't make his feelings of missing him worse."
Du Yunkai pointed at the two of them with a stack of printed papers and commented, "People from the same family are like each other."
He sat down opposite the two of them and handed over the analysis report in his hand: "Here, take a look."
Liu Wangxue also turned on her computer. On the screen was the document of the Yiyou script. She turned it over and placed it on the coffee table, pushing it towards Du Yunkai: "Take a look at the rough outline and character settings."
"You got it so soon?" Du Yunkai was a little surprised as expected, and asked with a smile, "Is it the inspiration for the defense-breaking ending of the script-killing game?"
"Yes, that's right!" After Liu Wangxue answered, she and Xu Qingsong read the report together head to head.
"Otome" is a kind of female-oriented game, where "otome" is a foreign word, meaning a girl. Otome is a kind of female-oriented game, which refers to a love simulation game with a female as the main character and multiple males as the targets of pursuit.
The male characters in the game are diverse and distinct in their settings. Their personality traits are very obvious and are usually shaped using real-life CVs. The game's gameplay settings are mostly role-playing or adventure.
The report shows that seven years ago, the domestic otome game market was still blank. It was the Lover's Guide produced and released by Origami that filled this gap and became the first otome game in China. After that, other game companies also successively produced several female-oriented games.
Until three years ago, Origami's "Lovers' Guide" was still the No. 1 in the O-game market. In the past two years, "Lover's Notebook" published by Dream Entertainment and "Whisper of Time" published by Netda have become fierce competitors, forming a three-legged trend.
Just for the game Lover's Guide, it ranked third on the mobile app store's free download game list half a month after its launch. Its WB super topic with the same name became No.1 on the game list with nearly 3 billion views. According to authoritative big data on games, the game's turnover in the first month was nearly 250 million, with a daily peak of 18 million, and the subsequent data stabilized at more than 2 million daily active users. ① Although the data of Lover's Notebook and Whisper of Time are not as good as Lover's Guide, they are not far behind.
Otome games mainly target the female market. The report sent by Shu Mingyuan shows that the proportion of female players in this type of game is as high as 95%, and young women under the age of 30 account for the majority, accounting for more than 90%.
Taking Lover's Guide as an example, the largest number of users are from first- and second-tier cities, accounting for 60% of the total. In addition, data shows that among these female players, 30% of users have a daily active data of 2 hours, and 25% of users have a daily active data of 1 hour.
However, there is one unexpected data: the monthly income of most of these users is relatively limited, and 70% of them have a monthly income of less than 3,000.
Liu Wangxue had never played a B-game before, but she had seen it while watching videos and had some superficial understanding of it. After seeing this data, she asked Xu Qingsong: "Does this kind of game mainly target the sinking market?"
Xu Qingsong turned the report back a page, pointed to another paragraph that matched his understanding, and said, "This data should lack a certain degree of authenticity and is unlikely to hold true. Look here, for "Lovers' Guide", the number of top players and the degree of krypton gold they spend are also quite astonishing."
Liu Wangxue remembered what Du Yunkai said, that Shu Mingyuan's sister spent hundreds of thousands of dollars playing "Summer Love Sky" in a month, and was shocked.
Du Yunkai looked up from the computer screen and said to Liu Wangxue with a smile: "The income filled in the questionnaire may not be true. For example, you don't even have a proper job, and your monthly income..."
Xu Qingsong glanced at him and said, "How can you say that? How come screenwriting isn't a serious job?"
"It was a slip of the tongue, a slip of the tongue." Du Yunkai apologized immediately. "I meant that for someone like her whose income is extremely unstable, there are times when her income is zero for several months in a row, so you can just take a look at this data and don't take it seriously."
Liu Wangxue thought about it and agreed. We should mainly look at the monthly turnover and annual income. These data are more real and reliable.
The second half of the report mainly analyzes "Summer Love Sky" released by Lumin Technology.
The three-way competition that was vaguely formed by "Lovers' Guide", "Lover's Notebook" and "Whisper of Time" was completely broken by "Summer Love Sky" which came out three months ago.
As soon as "Summer Love Sky" was launched, it topped the list of the free download area of the App Store in less than ten days, and then quickly seized the market share of the top three.
"Lovers' Guide" is a fine product in this category, so it can always maintain its leading position in the competition with other companies. But in front of "Summer Love Sky", it is really far behind, and judging from the existing data alone, it is not as good.
The game settings of "Summer Love Sky" are richer and more realistic, almost completely incorporating the details of daily life, such as "browsing WB", "posting to Moments", "online shopping", etc. After establishing a romantic relationship, there are also details of couples living together, such as "coaxing to sleep", "waking up", "cooking together", "shopping together", "giving gifts", etc. Turn on the one-click setting function, and you can wake up the character voice chat anytime and anywhere. Although the chat content in the program settings is not that rich, it can also provide users with all-day companionship, thus giving users a more realistic immersive experience.
In addition, the character modeling of several male protagonists in "Summer Love Sky" is also very good. Even if they are still just posing in a fixed pose in the dialogue scene, they are all 3D, with good looks and good figures. First of all, visually, they are better than those three games.
The CVs for "Summer Love Sky" include not only well-known veteran voice actors, but also the new generation of young people who became famous for a radio drama at the beginning of the year. These people already have their own communities on C Station, and the most popular one has 500,000 fans. They also signed a contract with the game's official website to regularly live-stream interactions on C Station using the character's voice to create a "real life" feeling.
In addition, the derivative IP of "Summer Love Sky" is even more impressive than "Lovers' Guide", including WB super topic, fan fiction, character re-creation, fan club, etc. The most grand one was on New Year's Day - the birthdays of several male protagonists were not announced in the game plot, but a month ago, the official suddenly issued an announcement to launch a player voting activity, and the birthday of the winning character will be set on New Year's Day.
It is expected that the birthdays of several other people will be determined in the same way later.
Shu Mingyuan's sister spent a lot of money hoping that her favorite character would win and have a birthday on January 1st.
On the 31st, the official voting results were announced, and at midnight on New Year's Eve, the character birthday videos were projected on the LED screens in the landmark building areas of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
This incident also became a hot topic, and was pushed to the top by the players themselves, but it was completely overshadowed by the incident caused by Tan Xin and Qin Zhihua.
After a while, she and Xu Qingsong finished reading the report, and Du Yunkai also finished reading the script outline and character settings.
Du Yunkai asked them: "How is it?"
Xu Qingsong nodded and said, "It is indeed very profitable. However, judging from the current popularity of "Summer Love Sky", it will be difficult for us to surpass it."
He was considering it from the perspective of Liu Wangxue's script.
"Summer Love Sky" focuses on immersive role-playing. The plot and character settings are inseparable from one core - sweet love, which satisfies all women's fantasies about love.
But Liu Wangxue's script is obviously not that.
No, it should be said that this script not only satisfies fantasy, but also brings up criminal law! The idea of the script is very good, but Xu Qingsong is not sure whether players are willing to buy it. After all, the purpose of playing such games is not to receive legal education.
Du Yunkai leaned back on the sofa and said, "Whether it makes money or not is another matter. After all, the investment in this kind of game is not much. As long as we surpass "Summer Love Sky" based on the existing conditions, it will be easy to make back the investment. This is not difficult for us."
Xu Qingsong asked: "So what do you mean?"
Du Yunkai replied: "We have to find a new way in the plot."
To be honest, Liu Wangxue lost all confidence in her script after reading the report. Her idea coincided with Xu Qingsong's. What she was worried about now was not whether she could make money, but whether she would lose money if she really did so.
Liu Wangxue asked: "How can we find a new approach?" She was already prepared to modify or rewrite the script according to "Du Jiafang's" requirements.
Du Yunkai leaned forward, put his hand on her computer and pushed it gently, and the computer turned back to face her.
Du Yunkai pointed his finger at the top and said, "This is it."
"Ah?" Liu Wangxue was surprised. She looked at Du Yunkai and then at Xu Qingsong.
Xu Qingsong raised his eyebrows and asked Du Yunkai: "Are you sure?"
Du Yunkai leaned back on the sofa again. "Sure. There are so many love games. Let's not talk about those shoddy and template-based games produced by small companies. Just look at the four giants on the market. Summer Love focuses on love role-playing, Lover's Guide focuses on time-travel adventure, Lover's Notebook focuses on several women competing for one man, which is a female competition, and Time Whisper is about going back to the past to save your lover. But no matter how they change, the ultimate goal is to fall in love."
Du Yunkai said with disdain: "What's the point of just dating?"
Xu Qingsong leaned close to Liu Wangxue and whispered to her without controlling the volume: "I don't know what happened when we went to see him off at the airport. I'm sure he was upset."
Liu Wangxue raised her hand to cover Xu Qingsong's mouth, wondering why he was becoming more and more childish. Today he was just like a primary school kid who loved to show off. Then Xu Qingsong kissed her in the palm of her hand. She dodged and slapped him on the thigh at the same time.
Du Yunkai rolled his eyes elegantly at Xu Qingsong this time: "Can you please respect the word 'whisper'? Also, romance is prohibited in the office."
Xu Qingsong took Liu Wangxue's hand and held it, saying perfunctorily: "I know, I know."
One of the reasons why Du Yunkai made this decision was that he thought the script outline was really good after reading it. In current hot social news, there are quite a few cases where love affairs are discussed in the context of criminal law, so if this game is made, it will have certain social significance.
Another reason was Shu Mingyuan. His cousin had a boyfriend a year ago. He was from a scholarly family, a university teacher, and a handsome man. In short, he was very good in every aspect. His cousin was old enough, and her family was urging her to get married. The man also had plans to get married. The two of them were in love and hit it off. They got married half a year ago.
Shu Mingyuan had a very good relationship with his cousin when they were young. Later, his aunt divorced and remarried and moved to another province, taking his cousin with her, and they had less contact.
Shu Mingyuan would definitely attend his cousin's wedding. It was also the first time he met his cousin's husband at the wedding - before that he had only seen posts from his cousin on WeChat Moments.
When Shu Mingyuan was communicating with his cousin's husband, he always had a strange sense of disharmony in his heart for some reason. He didn't know where this feeling came from. It might be the extraordinary concern his cousin's husband showed for his cousin, or it might be the hidden hostility he showed when he heard about the interesting things he and his cousin did when they were young. In short, everything made Shu Mingyuan very uncomfortable.
Shu Mingyuan wanted to remind his cousin, but he didn't have the chance. He also saw that his cousin seemed to enjoy this excessive care and love, including the "jealousy" she noticed. People around them were also sighing at how well-matched this couple was, seeing how much they loved each other, and all they said were blessings.
Shu Mingyuan fell into self-doubt again, thinking that he was a grown man, how could he be so sensitive? He was thinking too much. Besides, this was at a wedding, and saying these words would both spoil the fun and bring bad luck, so he gave up.
After a long time of marriage, the first change Shu Mingyuan noticed was that his cousin stopped updating her Moments. He didn't think much about it, just thinking that his cousin was too busy. After a while, he heard the news that his cousin was pregnant. He sent a message to congratulate her, but received no reply. Later, he heard his mother talk about his cousin's miscarriage at the dinner table at home.
The night before yesterday, the doorbell suddenly rang in their house. The nanny hurriedly got up to open the door and was almost scared to death.
A thin woman with disheveled hair was standing at the gate of the courtyard. She was only wearing a thin windbreaker in the middle of winter. There were bruises of varying degrees on her brow bones and corners of her lips. The light from the courtyard wall could even see the marks of pinching on her neck.
Luckily, my aunt had no heart problems. She covered her chest and looked at it for a long time before she asked with trembling lips, "Is it my cousin?" When she was holding the other person's hand and walking inside, my aunt really doubted whether she was holding a corpse. It was too cold.
Then, throughout the whole night, the lights in the Shu family villa were turned on and never turned off again.
Shu Mingyuan was so angry that he wanted to buy a plane ticket and fly over to beat that guy up.
The whole family has been in a bad mood these two days. Lawyers and doctors have been coming in and out. On the one hand, they are assessing my cousin's injuries and providing psychological counseling, and on the other hand, they are filing for divorce.
At this critical moment, Shu Mingyuan's sister came to him to ask for money to vote for the paper man - the character she liked did not get New Year's Day as his birthday, and now she wanted to help him get a birthday on the Spring Festival.
Shu Mingyuan was so angry, but he couldn't bear to scold his sister, so he took out all his anger on the game "Summer Love Sky" and asked people to give low scores and bad reviews. After finishing it, he suddenly thought that his sister was so addicted to this kind of love game. What if she developed a love-brain? What if she didn't know people well and met a scumbag like his cousin? Establishing a correct view of love starts from "baby". Shu Mingyuan didn't care whether it was late at night or not. He picked up his mobile phone and called Du Yunkai. He worried and complained, and finally asked Du Yunkai: "Helping me to get revenge now is secondary. I will find other ways to deal with Xu Han sooner or later. Brother, can you make a love game with educational significance?"
Du Yunkai was still thinking, "Educational significance", don't you know that the majority of people hate "educational significance" the most now? Watching a movie is to be educated, watching a skit is to be educated, reading an online article is to be educated, and even playing a game when you have nothing to do is to be educated? "It's not that kind of education," Shu Mingyuan continued. He didn't know how to describe it. He really hated himself for not reading more books before. "It's the kind of education. You can talk about love, but before you decide to be with that person, you must master the method of observing the character from the subtle details, so as not to jump into it and find out that it is a pit of fire."
After listening to this, Du Yunkai remained silent for a long time.
Shu Mingyuan asked tentatively: "Brother, do you understand?"
Du Yunkai thought of the inspiration for the script that Liu Wangxue had mentioned after the script-killing game ended, saying that it was to rectify those harmful views, and was teased by Wenxi as "the inspiration to break defenses." He guessed that it might meet Shu Mingyuan's requirements.
Du Yunkai said, "I understand. Just prepare the funds. I have already found a screenwriter for the game. Once the script is written, we will start the project."
Shu Mingyuan was overjoyed, thinking that once the game was launched, he would force his sister to play it from beginning to end.
Du Yunkai explained the reason at this moment. Of course, he mentioned Shu Mingyuan's cousin in two sentences, and Shu Mingyuan himself did not say much, but everyone who heard it knew what it meant.
After hearing this, Liu Wangxue was a little dumbfounded—not about Shu Mingyuan's cousin, but about Du Yunkai and his people: "Are you all so hasty in making decisions?"
Xu Qingsong hooked his fingers together with Liu Wangxue's and squeezed them, saying, "You'll get used to it. He was also very careless when he decided to do "The Twenty-one Cases of Dazhao"."
Du Yunkai disagreed: "I wasn't careless, I just fell in love with the script at first sight."
Liu Wangxue pulled back his hand and said quietly, "Boss Du is the one who knows what's good."
Xu Qingsong quickly grabbed it back and said, "I was wrong, I was wrong. I was just kidding."
Du Yunkai rolled his eyes sarcastically at Xu Qingsong.
Xu Qingsong immediately mocked back: "Why, has lovesickness affected your eyes? You can't even stand the close distance between your upper and lower eyelids, right? You insist on stretching the distance between them infinitely."
Liu Wangxue burst out laughing, and then just listened to the two of them bickering with each other for several rounds before she spoke up to stop them.
Next, the three of them discussed the script of this game. During the conversation, Liu Wangxue came up with many inspirations. After writing them down one by one, he hurriedly took the computer and left the office.
She returned to the rest area at the bar and began to concentrate on her creation. She felt that time passed very quickly. It seemed that she had not written much yet. It was getting dark outside and Xu Qingsong came over and asked her to go home.
① and some of the content below are from a study on the consumption of B-game users. If you are interested, you can take a look.
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