Recently, the news that the reputation and income of "Dust White Forbidden Area" (hereinafter referred to as "Dust White") have both reversed must be noticed.
Recently, the news that the reputation and income of "Dust White Forbidden Area" (hereinafter referred to as "Dust White") have both reversed must be noticed. According to ios data, the number of new downloads of "Dust White" exceeded 1.2 million in one month, and the number of new downloads increased by 255% in April. In the case that the PC version accounts for a large part of the revenue, Dust White has such a good performance on the mobile terminal, which can be considered as a grand occasion of its total flow.
Estimation of downloads of "Dust White Forbidden Area" in the past month
On the free list of ios games, "Dust White" once exceeded "King's Glory" and ranked second. Combined with its continuous performance since its launch, it has never been tepid to close down, and then has become wildly popular. "Dust White" can be said to be a realistic portrayal of the reversal after bottoming out and rebounding.
On May 14, Guo Weiwei, CEO of Xishanju, the developer of Dust White, posted photos of offline activities held by his office in Chengdu on his microblog, with the inscription "Duck in the Dust White Forbidden Area! Believe in the power of trust!". In this event, Guo Weiwei awarded the "Dust White" team, which shows that Xishanju fully recognizes it.
Reviewing the "self-help" action of "Dust White", the changes around the 18+content may be talked about with relish, but "Dust White" can win the resurrection match by more than 18+. The more decisive factors are to find the right position, adjust the playing method and be sincere.
01
Stabilizing the basic market in the disturbance of ML and "charming houses"
A few days ago, I still remember the huge debate about "obsequious house" and ML (Master Love, which means that the characters show good feelings to the players in terms of plot, voice, etc.) in the second tour circle. In the second tour market, which used to be dominated by "charming houses", most of the game characters and plot content were created to cater to the emotional value of players. However, as more and more female players enter the game audience market, some games begin to adjust their character design and story script towards the general style in order to expand the player base.
This has led to games such as "Dust White", which initially featured male orientation but later found out by players that the goods were not the right version. From the beginning, some players were dissatisfied because of "selling mutton for dog meat". In the future, it is more likely that the game fell into the whirlpool of public opinion due to the poor response of the production team and the Sao operation.
Take Young First 2, which also focuses on the shooting market for beautiful girls, for example. The popular female characters in the previous game suddenly become unfamiliar when they reach the second generation. The emotional relationship between the female characters and the commander played by the players is also greatly weakened in the plot, and even has an ambiguous conversation with other male NPCs. The strange and torn game experience has made many players who are targeting the previous IP address directly fall for it, and also made the game known as "cyber fraud".
In the mobile game circle, when Master Love players are often backstabbed, the slogan of "men don't play" is shouted out, and the nickname of "Spicy Fairy" also appears. The dispute within the player community is divided, and the smoke of gunpowder is filled, even rising to the collision between male and female players in game preferences and style orientation, and a subtle opposition relationship has also formed between players and game manufacturers.
When we return to the topic of "Dust White", as a two-dimensional TPS game developed by Xishanju's civet cat studio, the original orientation of "Dust White" is also a shooting game for beautiful girls. At that time, the game itself did not clearly move in the direction of ML. Both the hard core character shape design and the "camera" style of the protagonist in the story were more inclined to create a general game.
However, the controversy over the male role "Ling Yi" and male logistics during the internal test and after the official launch made Dust White aware of the preferences of the existing player groups in game roles and positioning styles, so it "persuaded" to start a drastic adjustment: delete the male role and step by step replace the male logistics; Adapt to players' preferences, adjust character shape and interaction design; Optimize the script of the plot and clarify the emotional line of the role to the protagonist; Actively grade and upgrade the health system.
With this combination of boxing, the route of "Dust White" is very clear, and even the official took the initiative to send an email in the game saying "hotpot, I only eat spicy food", indicating to players that it is the male to ML route.
The purpose of Dust White is also very clear. The producer and publisher mentioned in the media interview that the primary pursuit is not user expansion. In the case that players have indicated what they want, the response of "Dust White" is "what you don't want, we will never do". It is clear that taking the male orientation is to deepen the field of subdivision and stabilize the basic market.
From the perspective of the second tour track competition, this idea of "Dust White" has a certain rationality. At present, the market competition is fierce, and audience positioning has become an important factor in determining the potential market and long-term business ideas of a second tour. The "men and women take all" game seems to be able to maximize the audience, but with the controversy of "men do not play" and "flattering the house", it is easy to be ungrateful in the design of roles, plots and other content.
Even the big DAU game of "Original God" has been involved in the controversy over the exposure of the female character "Shen He" and the black silk of the male character "Linni". "Lost Without Time" also caused the criticism of "second visit to northern Myanmar" due to the difference in style between the early and current character design. That is to say, if the game manufacturer tries to take all in terms of audience positioning, it will face the preference collision, or even conflict, between different player groups. If it vacillates, it is easy to cause the ecological destruction of the player community and the differentiation of the audience market.
Therefore, in this case, it is wise for Dust White to choose the male to ML route, clarify the audience orientation, focus on improving the service quality under the segmentation idea, and stabilize the existing and potential player groups. After all, the direction is clear, and the playing method is naturally clearer.
02
Explore and adjust across 5 versions
Use "persuasion" to retain players
Looking at the previous updates since the launch, it can be seen that after taking the ML route, Dust and White has accumulated the strength of five versions to finally open the situation of this headwind situation.
In the summer of 2023, new tours will gather, and "Dust White" will be launched against the background of the "Big Escape" of the second tour. Seen from the IOS data performance, the download volume and water flow declined rapidly only half a month after the launch, and the free game list fell out of the top 100. All these show that the beginning of Dust White is a bit tepid. New activities and fashions such as online operations of the 1.2 version of "Misty Dream" also failed to warm up the game. By September, the omni channel flow had shrunk from more than 50 million in August to more than 20 million.
It can be said that "Dust White" started from version 1.3. Although the "swimsuit" skin was launched in November and players jokingly called it the "winter swimming" version, the introduction of the "tired skin" also led players to question whether the game was trying to "earn money and run away", but the precise targeting of players' preferences and the appearance of characters with good quality still objectively saved the bleak water in October, This attempt to break the ice can be regarded as the precursor of "self rescue" in Dust White.
After the preparation of version 1.4, the launch of version 1.5 can be said to officially open the "resurrection" of Dust White. With the image and interaction design of the new character Katya, which is "highly consistent with the preferences of the player community", successfully broke the circle, and in addition, the online play method update of the beach landing war, the modeling rendering and plot creation with significant quality improvement, not only attracted a large number of players into the pit, but also brought considerable revenue. Since then, the 1.6 version has received good performance data through steady operation.
1.7 The dual role version has brought a new explosive point of "Dust White", which publicizes the preferences of pv and character design sniper players, and cooperates with the adjustment promised by the official in the previous live broadcast to reduce the intensity of anxiety in the dual role version (such as giving one of the characters directly). "Dust White" once again came out of the circle, achieving a complete turnround, with an estimated flow of more than 80 million. It can be said that the accumulation of five versions of "Dust White" has come to the next step, which has realized the current situation.
It is worth noting that there is another key factor that has played a role in the "self-help" action since several versions of "Dust White", that is, the official attitude, which is particularly obvious in the two live broadcasts in the early morning. After the 1.5 version was updated, some players reported the character strength of Cassia, and the official patch was quickly launched, but the effect was still not ideal. In this case, the producer opened the live broadcast test at 2:30 am the next day to answer questions, explain the role playing ideas, and respond to the optimization commitment.
After the launch of the 1.7 version, Dust White launched its second live broadcast in the early morning, mainly responding to players' problems in card drawing, skin pricing, role formation, etc. The proposed scheme can also be seen to be dedicated to investigating players' real ideas and real needs, such as sending one of the characters in the dual role version mentioned above, adjusting the shipping probability and guaranteed quantity of the card pool Reduce the difficulty of forming a new role, send a set of logistics directly, and make it clear that the price of skin in the future will not exceed 200 yuan.
These two live broadcasts have won the favor of players, and the ring breaking effect has also attracted many new players into the pit, which can be said to be a win-win situation of accumulating game reputation and traffic while providing emotional value and practical dividends to players.
Players have feedback, officials listen to opinions, and then sit together to talk about solutions and future planning. This kind of harmonious scene is rare in the previous two tour ecology, which was dominated by opposition. The case of Dust White reflects that if the manufacturer sincerely respects and satisfies the players, the players will naturally feed back word of mouth and traffic.
03
epilogue
After finding the right position, Dust White has gained "tremendous flow wealth", but after the flow, we still need to think about the future power point.
From the current situation, as a gunfight+cultivation game, Dust White needs to be optimized in terms of playing method and productivity. When the game focuses on attracting players in roles, skin and other aspects, how to maintain the long-term appeal of the game through operation is also an important issue. After all, according to players' feedback, the emotional value of "Dust White" is far more attractive than its playing methods. That is to say, after breaking the circle, Dust White has a long way to go and even explores every step of the future without precedent.
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