The only thing that is to be happy is that when I opened Weibo to vote, I found that at least 560,000 people were stuck in the second level like me, which was nearly 15 times the number of people passing the level.

Over the past week, there has been a "century problem" that has always bothered me, that is:

Who can pass the second level of "Sheep is a Sheep"? !

Since I started this game a week ago out of curiosity, I spent an average of four or five hours a day to pounce on it. The magical BGM has become my "good night song", but it has only won the record of failing hundreds of times a day.

The only thing that is pleased is that when I opened Weibo to vote, I found that at least 560,000 people were stuck in the second level like me, and this number was nearly 15 times the number of people passing the level. It is said that the pass rate of the second level is less than 0.1%...

I felt for a moment that I didn't seem so sad, at least it reached the average level.

To be honest, the gameplay of "Sheep is a Sheep" is not complicated, the threshold is low and it is quick to get started. The overall logic is quite similar to " Happy Elimination ". You only need to find three identical patterns from the stacked blocks and put them in the card slot below to eliminate them. All blocks can be eliminated. If the blocks are not eliminated and the card slot is filled, the game will fail.

When playing the first level, there are 3 block patterns in total. It is a sure win, and you can pass it with your eyes closed. The second level directly changes the style, from the difficulty of 1+1 to the high number, and the stack of blocks force people to a "dead".

Moreover, this game also ranks the players' regions, and as long as you pass the second level, you can help the ranking of your province/city. This is not a fight for one person, but a province's honor! ! !

The player's desire to win and lose is ignited in failures again and again. Someone persisted in playing it more than 2,000 times, and some ruthless people said they wanted to leave their jobs and concentrate on passing the second level... (Brothers, there is no need.

Among the "resentment" of many players, "Sheep a Sheep" is the "source of all evil" and was successfully sent to the first place on Weibo's hot searches. As of now, the cumulative number of views on Weibo has exceeded 2.6 billion times, and the number of discussions has reached 283,000 times.

The popularity has been completely opened. More and more people are coming in. In 2 days, the mini program of "Sheep" collapsed 5 times. The content of the official Weibo can almost be summarized as: "Crashed", "Fixed", "Fixed again"...

After a while, they decided to recruit back-end server developers. There are 5,000 bonuses for those who recommend and self-recommended.

and the popularity is still controversial.

was questioned for plagiarism of the game "3 Tiles, suspected of being a "scam game" that cannot be passed at all, defined as a "traffic tool" that earns 4.68 million a day, etc. Although the producer also responded or denied some information, it cannot completely dispel the doubts of players.

At the time when "Sheep is a sheep" became popular for a week, I want to review from a data perspective, how popular is the phenomenon of , and how it is, how it is, how it is, how it is viewed as a "victim".

, the popular "Sheep is a sheep", alarming

l1 Ma Huateng personally denied the rumors

"Sheep a Sheep" became popular, not without traces.

Combined with personal experience and the experience of many players, many people first browse related videos from short video platforms, and there is an entrance below some videos to directly reach the game.

It is reported that on September 8, "Sheep a Sheep" launched a promotion task on Douyin star map, with an estimated budget of about 5 million yuan, and it is settled based on the number of plays.

Image from "Webmaster's Home"

coincides with the three-day holiday from September 10 to September 12, allowing "Sheep and Sheep" to quickly accumulate a group of audiences. A large number of netizens who are on vacation at home spend time and have fun by playing small games, and then continue to fission and spread through social sharing, from Douyin to WeChat. From

to September 13, the early popularity accumulation and promotion and marketing were added, "Sheep, Sheep" directly landed on the top of the Weibo hot search list, and since then it broke the circle and became a frequent visitor to Weibo hot searches.

at 8 am on September 13th

"Sheep a Sheep" hot search number one

"Xiaoyao Sanren" and "The Wind Term is in the Early Morning" have joined in the experience, adding another heat to the popularity of "Sheep a Sheep".

According to incomplete statistics, in just four days, "Sheep is a Sheep" has at least 20 hot searches on Weibo, of which 5 topics have reached the top spot in the hot searches , which is a new top spot in recent times.

not only Weibo, but the data on the entire platform has also begun to continue to rise.

On the WeChat public account, As of September 15, 2148 pushes have appeared, of which 19 articles have read more than 100,000+. Some complain that this is the national high-quality "stubborn donkey" selection competition, and some technical streams have tried to give some solutions.

However, I learned the guide with a desire for knowledge. Thank you, you still have to lose.

pictures are from the new list

video platform, "Sheep is a sheep" has become a popular topic in the form of "traffic password". live broadcast of games, filming jokes and making bitter jokes, and the gameplay is also varied.

Douyin live broadcast room plays "Sheep a Sheep". The number of people online exceeds 70,000

"Sheep a Sheep" has played more than 3 billion on the topic of Douyin. The most popular video comes from "Honeyday L_l_". I shared that I have worked all night but have not contributed a sheep to Jiangsu, and I have been liked 1.033 million times.

screenshot is from the new Dou

B site. According to the data of the new site, the cumulative playback volume of the "Sheep" video has exceeded 10 million, with an average daily playback volume of 1.52 million, and 287 UP masters have contributed relevant content.

screenshot from the new site

With such a high popularity on the entire network, the traffic and revenue data about "Sheep is a Sheep" are also full of rumors.

A few days ago, a screenshot of its daily active data spread, showing that the daily active users on September 12 was 5 million, and by September 14, the daily active users increased by 4 times, exceeding 20 million.

The picture comes from the Internet

There is another information in this screenshot that on September 14, the daily income of "Sheep" before the share was about 6 million yuan.

It is understood that the current income of "Sheep" in WeChat mainly comes from the "resurrection" of 30-second advertisements or obtaining props, which falls within the scope of "incentive advertising". Some netizens said that they have read hundreds of advertisements in order to pass the level. The authenticity of the screenshot data above

is not verified. There is another screenshot showing that on September 14, "Sheep Le Gu"'s income in WeChat reached 4.68 million yuan, and its monthly income has exceeded 25 million yuan.

self-media person " Liu Xingliang " shared this screenshot on WeChat Moments, Then Ma Huateng personally left a message to reply to refute the rumors, saying that "it was verified that it was forged by PS" .

picture from the Internet

"Sheep a sheep" producer Zhang Jiaxu also responded in an interview with "Chinese Entrepreneurs": " picture is fake. For the sake of user experience, we have not added Banner to the game. Advertising and interstitial advertising, so the screenshots of revenue are not right for at all, and the time of popularity cannot make up for this total revenue. "

But some industry insiders pointed out that even if the data in the screenshot is not real, the game revenue will not be low. "The unit price of mini program video ads is very high, with millions of traffic a day, and the completion rate is basically 100%. The higher the completion rate, the higher the unit price."

Even some "peripheral" industries such as game plug-ins, brushing services, software assistance, etc. have made money in this wave of popularity.

It is reported that players only need 3-20 yuan to buy plug-ins. The latest plug-ins technology can reach the level of instantaneous completion, and you can directly top the friend rankings without even playing the game.

's most annoying game of the year, why can it become a phenomenal top star?

After "Sheep is a sheep" became popular, a group I was in once "deeply" discussed why this mini game can be so popular?

Sober people with a God-like perspective think this is a routine. You can figure it out after playing it for about 10 times. The principle is very close to "slot machines, small steel balls" and so on, with a little temptation of "knowing it is impossible, but you still can't help it." Whether the analogy of

will be noted for the time being. has to admit that the difficulty setting that cannot be overcome is indeed the topic with the highest degree of spread. We used the new list word cloud to analyze the key information of popular articles, and found that the same was true for the results. What is the concept of "the sheep pass rate is less than 0.1%" in the official promotion?

According to the analysis of "VIsta Look at the World", the number of students in the national college entrance examination in 2022 is about 11 million, while 985 universities across the country enroll a total of 60,960 undergraduate students, a proportion of 0.554%. In other words, it is easier to pass the exam to 985 than to pass the level of "a sheep".

Netizens entered the game because of their desire to win and solve, hoping to become 0.1%. However, the "Jingzhe Research Institute" believes that the real reason why "a sheep" has become popular is not that it abuses the player to the point of being incomplete, but that it can only admit that it lacks abilities, but that the gap is too easy for the first level and too difficult for the second level, which leads to the idea of ​​"trying again" every time it fails.

This is probably the calculation of "human nature".

In addition to the game difficulty setting, the popularity of "Sheep is a Sheep" is also inseparable from two keywords: social fission and the behind-the-scenes pusher.

" Pengpai News " analysis, the "provincial gameplay" in the game forms a virtual sense of honor of "I bring glory to my hometown" and a desire to struggle in a short period of time.

And "Guo Ke" published a post pointing out that "Sheep is a sheep" limits the number of times a single user watches advertisements every day. After failing dozens of times, he can only rely on posting links to obtain relevant props, which promotes the viral spread of the game. After

became widely spread, "Sheep is a sheep" has formed its own public opinion field and has become a hot topic in social circles. Later, maybe everyone didn’t really want to play this game, but wanted to participate in the carnival of this meme.

A few days after the whole network became popular, "A sheep" has become a member of "KFC Crazy Thursday Literature". A long picture "deceived" countless netizens who were also buggy (I am also there).

These factors are like stacking bugs, making the traffic of "a sheep" bigger and bigger, and the theoretical analysis of its popularity path is also like stacking bugs.

For example:

The picture comes from the network

Of course, behind all this traffic and attention, the boost from game production companies is indispensable.

Information shows that the developer of "Sheep" is Beijing Jianyou Technology Co., Ltd. The company was established on January 26, 2021 with a registered capital of 1,169,588.89 yuan, and the legal representative is Zhang Jiaxu.

Jianyou Technology has previously developed the first WeChat mini-game "The Pirates Are Coming", which has a monthly turnover of over 100 million yuan. The A-share company behind it Gibit developed the phenomenon-level mobile game " Moore Manor " in June last year.

Zhang Jiaxu revealed to the media that the development of "Sheep" took 3 months. Because I have been socializing, I later created some topics to lay the foundation for the spread of the game."

As for the difficulty issue, he believed that the difficulty setting is actually a combination of game fun and social topics. "If it is like the first level, what is the fun? "

plagiarism? Scam games? A mini-game in public opinion storm, how far can it go

New things that became popular overnight seem to have similar paths of fate: first it was sought after, followed by doubts and controversy.

Plagiarism question was the first to explode.

Some netizens posted the external network game "3 Tiles", saying that "a sheep is a sheep" has plagiarized from the gameplay to the settings. Tiles". Some people said that they didn't copy correctly. The game must consider the pairing problem from the block setting. The number of stacked layers should not be too many, and the types of blocks are also given.

It is understood that "3 Tiles" was produced by overseas company ETALON, and the domestic iOS version was launched in September 2020. Compared with "Sheep, Sheep", the difficulty setting is more stable.

The 250th level of "Sheep, Sheep, Sheep," and the 2nd level of "Sheep, Sheep,"

was affected by the plagiarism storm. Tile" has also become the focus of attention and has become the "top" from the App Store free list.

In this regard, the "Sheep" denied the plagiarism rumors: "If the gameplay of three is plagiarized, then there are too many such games, and the company will not pay attention to it, and users will naturally have their own judgment. "

In addition to plagiarism, "Sheep a Sheep" also has overwhelming evaluations of "cutting leeks" and "scammers".

In a WeChat group, a group member shared the relevant content of "Sheep a Sheep" and was queued up by other group members to reply to "Scammers Game". It seems that a lot of people's hearts have been lost.

B site UP host "Forty-six Youjun" believes that "Sheep a Sheep" is not worthy of being called a game at all. Most cards are dead at the beginning, and in the end there will be an embarrassing situation where there is only one block left on the field. This video received It received 5.27 million views and 163,000 likes.

There is also a leak. I used special means to grab the code of "Sheep" by myself. I found that the game did not have the professional level planning as I imagined. The operation logic is to let the audience watch video advertisements and make money.

The picture comes from "Maimai"

"Director" calculated how long the player would watch advertisements: "I played 30 games, and the time I watched advertisements was almost a class; I played 300 games, which was equivalent to watching advertisements for the whole working day. ”

On the basis of these controversies, the future development of "a sheep" does not seem to be optimistic - most people think that it has become an "accidental event" and is likely to be "a flash in the pan".

Some practitioners said that from the game level, the gameplay and business model of "Sheep" are relatively simple. There have been popular mini games such as "Jump" and " synthesize big watermelon ", etc., but the subsequent long-term operation and traffic maintenance results are not ideal.

This has also become a practical problem that the production team of "Sheep" must face and solve.

There is news that the "Sheep" independent app is already in the review stage, the game content is about to be updated, and the surrounding cultural and creative content is under development. We will wait and see how far can this wave of traffic go with

be carried.

Again, the popularity of "Sheep is a sheep" also proves that there are still opportunities and markets in the mini-game track, which may also encourage more practitioners to invest in it and produce more high-quality game works.

. In fact, what I care most about is the question at the beginning: How to pass the second level of ?

If the production company directly starts a live broadcast to teach you how to pass the test, it can not only attract wave attention, but also earn wave rewards. I will definitely lie on time to see what the answers to the difficult questions that have troubled me for a week are.