Is it impossible to do mobile games without forcing Krypton?
This should be a controversial issue at both the industry level and the player level.
In the early years, mobile games emerged with the popularity of smart phones. Then, with the characteristics of low threshold and fragmentation, it firmly grasped the trend of short and smooth, and occupied half of the global game market in just a few years.
In China, the proportion will go further
However, what is too different from the thriving development of mobile games is that at the player level, some people do not buy the "emerging force" of mobile games. For example, the game disdain chain, which has a long history and is widely spread in the player community, is actually the hard evidence that some console and PC players "persecute" mobile games and mobile game players.
Objectively speaking, the game is essentially a consumer product that meets the spiritual needs of players. Players should also evaluate the game based on their own quality, rather than prejudice against the platform. Although the term "game disdain chain" is biased, to some extent it reflects the attitude of some players towards mobile games.
In fact, since its birth, mobile games have been criticized in terms of gameplay, graphics, operability and other issues. No matter the native development on the mobile platform, or the migration from the host or PC, due to the hardware conditions of the mobile phone, the manufacturer will make some compromises on the operability, playing methods and pictures.
Looking back at the past from today's perspective, we will find that the main reason why mobile games are "discriminated against" by players is not its congenital defects. The real culprit is someone else.
Can mobile games not force Krypton?
To be frank, quite a few players probably don't hate mobile games, but they hate the mainstream business model of mobile games in the past - digital payment. In the eyes of players, it is often called forced Krypton.
Here, you can fold a piece of armour first. Mobile games are not only paid in the form of "free+internal purchase". Popular mobile games such as Sword of Robbery: Continent of Shadows and Ju Bang still use the buyout system. However, compared with the hot long-term service free games in the industry, the stand-alone games on the mobile platform are only a small category after all, and it is difficult to change people's inherent impression of the mainstream mobile game business model on a large scale.
Of course, in a crowd of free mobile games, it is not ruled out that some games, even if they have internal purchase elements, will not cause rejection of players. For example, games such as Traveler at a Wrong Path: Dominator of the Mainland, which are dominated by traditional JRPG playing methods, do not have any forced PVP elements and common "cheat Krypton means" of mobile games such as creating intensity anxiety, although there will be Krypton gold cards and other commercial content inside.
However, like buyout mobile games, compared with mainstream mobile games on the market, such products are still "rare species".
When it comes to digital payment, this model has always been a unique skill of domestic game manufacturers since the era of online games. After years of intensive cultivation, mobile games on the market have formed a quite mature business model. Even to some extent, it is because of digital payment that the mobile game market has become prosperous.
Normally, whether a game can operate healthily in the long run depends on its content output capacity, but digital payment completely subverts this point. For example, in order to improve the game stickiness of players, planners often use numerical competition to force players to roll in and forcibly extend online time. This "lazy" way is common in past mobile games.
The biggest problem with digital payment is that it has damaged the game experience of most players. Under the basic logic of numerical payment, it is business design that determines the game playing method. Therefore, when designing play methods, developers should first consider how many revenue indicators can be driven rather than whether players can feel fun from them. Moreover, when the numerical payment dominates the game playing method, the gap between Kryptonite and ordinary players will further expand, and eventually ordinary players will become Kryptonite's "game experience".
In fact, nowadays, not only players reject digital payment, but also many game manufacturers are willing or have to be willing to look at the negative effects of digital payment.
On the one hand, in recent years, the decline of traditional MMORPG and other powerful categories of digital payment has made game manufacturers feel a sense of crisis. The first problem is to get rid of the dependence on digital payment and explore new revenue channels.
On the other hand, the fierce competition in the mobile game market in recent years has led many manufacturers to take the initiative to go out of the comfort zone of digital payment and turn to the content of play. And players also enjoy the benefits of the manufacturer's introspection. As the saying goes, it is difficult to save from extravagance. In order to attract players, major manufacturers will focus more on polishing the game content.
For example, today's mobile games have rolled out of the sky
Whatever the reason, the mainstream business model of mobile games has ushered in a change, and major manufacturers are willing to give up the past "forced Krypton" payment point design and instead explore a more stable business model.
Moreover, the success of many popular mobile games has proved that it is more difficult for players to reject the payment mode of paid in purchase and more conducive to the continuous and stable operation of products than to rack their brains to fill the payment points and "force Krypton" with high-quality game content to make players open their wallets willingly.
As mentioned above, the Traveler on the Wrong Road: The Dominator of the Mainland (hereinafter referred to as the Dominator of the Mainland), which is launched on the national service today, has tried to explore a possible path for the industry by virtue of its excellent game content.
How Does the Dominator of the Mainland Stand to Make Money
As an orthodox derivative work of Traveler on the Wrong Road (domestic players prefer to call it Traveler on the Eight Directions), The Overlord of the Mainland has been created and operated with the concept of "continuously updated stand-alone game" from the very beginning. In fact, you can hardly see any social content in the game, and all play methods of the game can be fully experienced in the form of a single person.
In terms of game content, The Dominator of the Mainland continues the high standard of the series. It is not so much a derivative mobile game as an extremely sophisticated "transplant". For no other reason, the advantages and highlights of The Traveler on the Wrong Road have been retained by The Overlord of the Mainland.
As one of the most topical JRPG in recent years, the game has conquered many players with its unique retro flavor. The exquisite pixel art style, the king like plot, the memorable character shaping, and the strategic combat experience all make the retro JRPG fans irresistible.
And while the game recreates these classic cores, The Traveler on the Wrong Road also gives the traditional JRPG with a new sense of the times with its excellent audio-visual experience. The game creatively presents pixel images in the form of HD-2D, creating a sophisticated three-dimensional world, which brings strong visual impact on the level of sound and painting.
In The Dominator of the Mainland, the art style of the game is not only the HD-2D pixel style of the signboard, but also you can feel the mellow sense of the age of retro JRPG: whether the original game is full of interactive fun, or the round playing method with strategic depth, it is fully reflected in mobile games.
For example, The Dominator of the Mainland perfectly reproduced the "fancy interaction" between the original and NPC. In addition to assuming fixed responsibilities and identities, NPC players in the game can also take their tasks, trade with them, compete with them, or recruit them. These unique interactions make NPC no longer just a carrier of a certain function, but a vivid person that the players met in this journey, which greatly increases the players' immersion in the game.
At the battle level, The Dominator of the Mainland continues the round playing method of the original with great strategic depth. Around the "break" and "weakness" mechanisms, players need to think about how to make the enemy quickly enter the break defense state and focus on fire output according to various factors such as the enemy's armor value, weakness attribute, and the character's attack order. In addition, there are many roles available for combat in the game, and each role has its own advantage range. This also requires players to flexibly adjust the team matching according to the characteristics of the enemy, so as to achieve twice the result with half the effort in the battle.
It is worth mentioning that "The Dominator of the Mainland" has been upgraded on the basis of the classic fighting game of the original. The mobile game will increase the number of players from 4 to 8, and divide them into front and back rows to participate in the game. The increase of combat characters means that the combat has a more diversified way of coping, which greatly increases the upper limit of the game strategy.
In addition to the upgrade in battle, The Dominator of the Mainland adopts a more linear narrative mode in the plot, and the task-based plot structure with a single character is also easier for players to understand. At the same time, the game also cancels the sub occupation and props system that need a certain degree of flexibility, simplifies the cost of character formation and operation in battle, and is more suitable for the gaming habits of mobile gamers.
Since its launch in October 2020, The Dominator of the Mainland has won wide attention both inside and outside the industry with its excellent game content. This can be seen from the commercial achievements and reputation of The Dominator of the Mainland in Foreign Service.
Famiton, an old Japanese game media, spoke highly of "The Dominator of the Mainland" as "an RPG that can constantly arouse all kinds of feelings". After entering the continuous operation stage, the number of players soon exceeded 10 million.
Note: When Fanzhongfu was officially launched, the game quickly topped the list on both Android and iOS.
At the user level, "Dominator of the Mainland" received unanimous praise from most players, and 7000 people in Google Store gave 4.4 points (out of 5 points). For a long-term service game that has been launched for three years, it is really valuable to gain such reputation.
Is it too late to change to national service now
At the beginning of this year, when The Dominator of the Mainland got its version number, many players expected what the national service would look like. But to be honest, when we saw that the domestic agent was NetEase, the inherent impression in the past inevitably made us worry about what adverse events they would bring about again. Now, with the public beta gradually approaching, we can also see NetEase's sincerity at the operational level.
First, it is reflected in the publicity strategy. Generally speaking, the promotion strategy of new products when they are launched is to "spread the net" as far as possible, to attract passers-by into the pit in the form of input and purchase, and then to start the stage of screening users.
However, the propaganda strategy of the national service of The Dominator of the Mainland is unusual. The official has made clear its core audience from the very beginning, and even said that "players who are not interested in the story will not like this game". There is a great sense of "game to choose players".
Of course, this does not prove that the official wants to keep other players out of the game. More importantly, it expresses that the game has the confidence to meet the demands of JRPG fans, both in the content of the game and in the subsequent operation. Now NetEase's series of actions before the game's public beta also prove this.
As for the feedback from foreign service players, NetEase and SE have made exclusive optimization for the national service version.
In fact, compared with the two "Travelers on the Wrong Road", due to the landing on the mobile platform, "The Dominator of the Mainland" has shrunk in the picture to a certain extent. Therefore, NetEase and SE together focused on upgrading the screen performance of the game. It not only supports the host "original picture quality" with a 60 frame refresh rate, but also further evolves the audio-visual experience. It also provides the option of fine version skill special effects, so that players can adjust the screen performance according to their own configuration and preferences.
On this basis, the game also adds the option of "wide view". When it is turned on, it can expand the visual field of the game screen, so that the overall image appearance is closer to the original specifications on the host side, and more immersive.
In terms of game content, in addition to keeping all the original upgrades of the Foreign Service, the National Service also launched its exclusive five-star character, Jekyll Ritter. She dressed as a chivalrous person, fully demonstrated the oriental classical aesthetics.
Players can get it for free only by signing in
Whether it is the screen upgrade or the exclusive national style role, the exclusive content of the national service has made some players in the traditional Chinese service envious for a long time, and frankly, they want to switch to the national service.
In fact, NetEase's sincerity in operation is not only in the game. On the eve of the game's launch, the National Service and T3 Travel launched a series of warm-up activities.
In the previous offline activities exclusive to the national service, the official also invited the ladies and game producer Yuren Suzuki to interact with the players.
In addition, the official offline activities today also have many "Coser" little sisters who are hard to turn away from. From exclusive online content to special offline activities, the "supreme status" of national service players is self-evident.
Let's just say if this dancer can let you stay here for two more seconds
Although the game has just entered the public beta period, the authorities are actively trying to create a healthy community environment. From this point of view, players do not need to worry about the situation of making a profit and running away. This time NetEase really wants to do a good job in long-term operation.
epilogue
In today's mobile game industry, which is full of roll on, forced PVP, numerical payment and other abnormal modes, it is rare to have a game that is positioned as "pure stand-alone experience", such as "Dominator of the Mainland".
Now, with the official public beta of the national service, The Dominator of the Mainland will also face the test of domestic players. Whether it can reproduce overseas success can only be judged by time. However, I still hope that The Traveler on the Wrong Road: The Dominator of the Mainland can prove to the industry and the majority of players that it is worth trying to do mobile games with the idea of focusing on content alone.
It can be sure that, no matter how successful its business is, for JRPG fans, "Travelers on the Wrong Road: Dominators in the Mainland" is still a masterpiece worth trying.
