How to bring old games back to life is probably a problem that has plagued countless manufacturers this year. The version number is unstable and the supply of new games is small. To earn revenue, you still have to rely on old games. However, except for some phenomenal hits, old g

How to revitalize old games is probably a problem that has troubled countless manufacturers this year. The version number of

is unstable and the supply of new games is small. To earn revenue, you still have to rely on old games. However, except for some phenomenal hits, old games often have low popularity and high barriers to entry. Lost old players have no interest in returning and new players have low willingness to try. Once the game fails to achieve results in the early stage of launch, it will be difficult to improve in the future.

But success depends on God, and planning depends on people. If you want to boost the market's confidence in old products, there are not no methods available and no precedents to follow.

Recently, the science fiction-themed SLG mobile game "Endless Lagrange" released by NetEase last August has gradually climbed up the best-selling list and stabilized in the top ten, becoming another "campaign" of NetEase this year. Close the bulk.”

"Endless Lagrange" naturally has its own uniqueness, but from its content, gameplay output and marketing methods, we may be able to find some ways to "rejuvenate dead trees."

Science fiction themes are still a blue ocean, and gameplay innovation is particularly critical

First of all, before analyzing what "Endless Lagrange" does right, we must first explain the uniqueness of the product itself.

First, the performance of "Endless Lagrange" itself is not bad. It has basically remained in the top 50 bestsellers since its launch. The number of users and quality of the product itself are guaranteed;

Second, "Endless Lagrange" "Endless Lagrange" did not carry out large-scale purchases in the early days of its launch. The early attention was not high among NetEase's product lines, and there are still many potential new users to tap.

Thirdly, "Endless Lagrange" is a science fiction themed SLG, which is very rare in the SLG market where Three Kingdoms and multi-civilization themes are rampant;

Among them, the science fiction theme is undoubtedly "Endless Lagrange" "A big "killer trump card". When SLG players are tired of characters such as Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, and Arthur, an SLG with "no characters" and only ships can easily give players a sense of freshness.

Since "The Three-Body Problem" won the Hugo Award and "The Wandering Earth" grossed 4.6 billion at the box office, the science fiction genre has gradually broken out of the circle, moving from the prosperity of literature, film and television to the field of mobile games, and has become a popular category. sign.

Of course, the theme alone cannot make the game rise against the trend. The core is still the new changes in content and gameplay.

This time "Endless Lagrange" successfully broke into the Top 10 of the best-selling list, which is inseparable from the new personal agreement gameplay launched by the game on May 18.

To put it simply, the game has updated two new personal agreements-"Prospector" and "Neutral". After players sign it, it will replace the original personal assessment agreement, and different gameplays will be derived based on different agreement contents.

The Prospector Agreement focuses on the exploration and resource collection of map areas, while the Neutralist Agreement requires players to help the "privateers", the hostile force in the game, complete tasks.

One of the two makes full use of the seamless interstellar map designed by the game itself, and also designs multiple ways of playing for players outside of alliances, adding some fun to pure team battles, and is also friendly to single-player players. changes.

As the definition of 4X SLG says, the game must contain the four elements of exploration, expansion, development, and conquest. However, most SLG games on the market use expansion and conquest as core elements, with less exploration and development.

At the previous NetEase 2022 "N·GAME" game conference, Zhao Zhentao, the chief designer of "Endless Lagrange" said: ""Endless Lagrange" provides a kind of traditional like style. and COK-like experience."

It can be said that "Endless Lagrange" itself is also based on NetEase's most familiar "Lutu-like" gameplay. Although the theme is novel and unique, its gameplay paradigm is still difficult to escape from "Latu-like" and "COK-like" " category.

4X The other two common problems of SLG are that there is a big difference between forced social interaction and krypton gold experience. Small R players can basically only form alliances around big R players, otherwise they can only become the "game content" of big R players. ".

It can be seen that the new protocol gameplay of "Endless Lagrange" is designed to improve the experience of stand-alone and civilian players, while enriching exploration and management elements to provide a diversified experience. This is a challenge for SLG on the market, which is blindly "conquering cities and territories" For mobile games, it is indeed a good start.

But how to balance the relationship between new gameplay and numerical sales is still a major difficulty that "Endless Lagrange" needs to work on for a long time.

Volume and Marketing

It is said that SLG volume is not only the gameplay volume, art volume, and theme volume, but also the purchase volume.

At some point, the success of an SLG seems to be equated with the amount of purchase volume. Especially in the months before the Spring Festival this year, " Three Kingdoms Strategy Edition " and "Civilization and Conquest" were fiercely competing on the purchase list, and " Leading the Land " also came in from time to time to get involved. At that time, the top three SLGs on the best-selling list were already commonplace.

However, since this year’s Lantern Festival, the number of materials purchased for domestic mid-to-several mobile games has suddenly dropped off a cliff, and few products can sell more than 10,000 materials that week. This generally reflects the recent consensus in the gaming community that the purchase volume cannot be purchased.

combined with the hot cloud data mobile game purchase report and related data show that the domestic mobile game purchase volume in Q1 has declined compared with the same period. Throughout the first half of the year, the market size of game purchases has shrunk.

Of course, poor purchase results do not mean that marketing will not be done. The key is to spend money wisely and avoid problems such as ineffective and repeated placement of materials. Improve ROI.

According to Dataeye data, "Endless Lagrange" currently ranks first on the SLG track with a launch budget of 12 million, and has attracted approximately 450,000 downloads through the Douyin publisher plan, with cumulative cooperation The number of experts reached more than 1,200.

At the same time, science fiction themes also bring convenience to talent marketing. Using cosmic backgrounds, science fiction movies or space knowledge as entry points can arouse users' desire for knowledge, and on the other hand, it can invisibly reflect the freedom of the game itself. Openness and exquisite graphics can naturally bring novelty to users, eliminating the high cost of viral material delivery.

Take the recent video of an expert with a high number of likes as an example. The content of the video is based on the "Endless Lagrange" lighting up the Canton Tower event at the beginning of the year. It combines the starry sky with the virtual and the real, which not only achieves the integration of past marketing content Reuse also uses the scale of the event and NetEase's own influence to highlight NetEase's attention to the product itself, thereby attracting users to download the game to find out.

It has to be said that expert marketing is gradually squeezing out purchase volume and becoming a new trend in the field of game marketing. However, the current situation of SLG games being deeply bound to marketing methods has also put great pressure on the profit margin of the product itself. Once it slows down slightly, Marketing momentum and the paid performance of the game will also decline accordingly.

The most obvious examples are "Civilization and Conquest" which was in the limelight at the end of last year and " Return to Empire " which was launched this year. How to "untie" SLG games and achieve higher ROI needs to be done from the gameplay and platform sides. Make a fuss.

Conclusion:

Products and marketing are not a life-and-death relationship, but a "right and left hand" that complement each other and cooperate with each other for win-win results.

Especially now that the SLG track is becoming increasingly homogeneous, theme innovation can only cure the symptoms but not the root cause. If it does not improve the experience of small R players, it will be more difficult to attract potential users and find incremental markets.

focuses on the platform side. Talent marketing methods are mainly concentrated on the byte platform. The number of users is indeed considerable, but after all, it is difficult to cover multiple classes of users.

Moreover, there are obvious differences in user attributes between platforms. If more traffic pools can be targeted for targeted marketing, it may be possible to further improve marketing efficiency, optimize ROI, and make the product's profit margin more "beautiful."