htmlOn August 12, the "Wild Championship" championship final was officially launched in Tokyo, Japan. A total of 20 teams from East and West Japan met to compete for the title of "Wild King", attracting a large number of players to cheer. On the day of the finals, YouTube's maximum number of viewers exceeded 65,000, and the total number of views on each channel exceeded 7.24 million, far exceeding the viewing of other e-sports events in Japan. The three-month schedule, more than 90,000 teams, and more than 500,000 total participants, are the high specifications, great momentum and wide influence, and are the first to be Japanese e-sports history. In local reports, "Wild Championship" was even rated as "the highest-level e-sports event in Japan" and "the largest national conference in the field of e-sports in Japan" by famous Japanese game media Famitsu and 4Gamer.
If you want to draw a list of products that have affected the strategy of NetEase , " Wilderness Action " will definitely be on the list.
Since its launch in the global market in December 2017, Operation Wilderness has set off a craze and is still very popular today. In addition to promoting NetEase's strategy of going overseas from point to surface, key breakthroughs and radiating the world, "Operation Wilderness" is also changing the entertainment and life of the most stubborn group of people in the world - the Japanese who are famous for their old-fashionedness.
The most stubborn group of players in the world finally opened the door for young e-sports. This is a day to celebrate for Operation Wild; it is also a good opportunity for the Japanese market to revisit.
There is no e-sports in Japan?
For a long time, compared with China and South Korea, Japanese players always give people a special impression. This traditional gaming power has made its mark in the second dimension that conquered the world, but has continuously turned away RTS and MOBAs that have become popular around the world. In contrast, e-sports, derived from strong confrontation competitive games, are also struggling in Japan.
According to Famitsu's parent company Gz Brain, the size of the Japanese e-sports market in 2017 was 370 million yen, equivalent to about 25 million yuan. During the same period, the "2017 China Game Industry Report" issued by Gamma Data showed that the actual sales revenue of China's e-sports market reached 73.05 billion yuan, nearly 3,000 times that of Japan, and the gap is astonishing.
Japanese game analyst Hirabayashi believes that the Japanese game market has long been dominated by console games, and players are accustomed to online battles at friends' homes, and in the early days, there was no Internet cafe, LAN and other things needed to breed e-sports, so the e-sports industry is still on the spot.
Over time, it has become a stereotype for Japanese people to dislike e-sports. Finally, this impression was successfully broken by the tactical competitive game "Operation of the Wild". E-sports are separated, namely e-sports. In fact, the Japanese do not like competition. On the contrary, Japanese competitive activities have a deep foundation, but their e-sports forms are different from the popular models in China and South Korea - mainly host and arcade fighting competitions, which is also closely related to the development form of the Japanese game market.
National Game, the first turn off the offensive
In other words, what Japan lacks is not the soil for e-sports, but the appropriate products to stimulate e-sports potential. "Operation Wilderness" plays this role.
Nikkei Chinese website statistics found that since its launch, Operation Wilderness has ranked among the top three most popular free applications in Japan for six consecutive months. To date, Operation Wilderness has more than 25 million registered users in Japan, becoming the darling in the Japanese mobile game market.
According to data released by GameAge, the game market research organization, at the Japan Online Game Association, in 2018, there were more than 34 million Japanese game players. It is estimated that "Operation Wilderness" has a penetration rate of more than 70% in Japan, which is already a real Japanese "national game".
It is worth mentioning that according to the report data released by Gz Brain, the scale of Japan's e-sports industry in 2018 reached 4.83 billion yen, equivalent to RMB 320 million. Although there is still a big gap with China, it has achieved a 13-fold growth year-on-year. Interestingly, the whole period from the end of 2017 to 2018 was the time when Operation Wilderness became a hit in Japan.
At the same time, "Operation Wilderness" has long occupied the top 5 best-selling list of Japan's App Store and has frequently topped the list.For example, the important moment of the change of the Japanese era - the first day of the first year of Reiwa (May 1), "Operation Wilderness" once again surpassed a number of Japanese local mobile games and ranked first.
Even said that May 5, when the Wild Championship e-sports event began, was officially certified as the "Wild Operation Day" by the Japan Memorial Day Association. "Operation Wild" can have its own anniversary in Japan, a treatment that has never been seen in any Chinese game before. From this point of view, it shows how broad the mass base is.
is a game, and it is also life
As we all know, Japan is a typical aging society. In March 2018, the national aging level of Japan reached 27.7%, and the average age of mobile game users was over 40 years old. Surprisingly, "Operation Wild" - a game from China - successfully broke through the age structure of the Japanese market and truly achieved "appropriate for both young and old".
For example, in this wilderness Championship competition, the East Japan champion team "të*ripi's Team" consisted of 3 office workers and 2 high school students. Such a special team composition may be very rare worldwide. This is a proof of the nationalization of Operation Wilderness, which shows that it has a large number of fans in all walks of life in Japan.
"Why do young people like wilderness actions" has also become a hot topic in the Japanese media. "Being able to play with friends" and "being pulled into the trap by friends" are opportunities for many young Japanese people to enter "Operation Wilderness".
In fact, due to the broad mass base, Operation Wilderness is no longer a game, but a social phenomenon, becoming an important part of the lives of many young people, and a social means to meet and exchange feelings with new and old friends.
As early as 2018, this phenomenon began to take shape. In June 2018, "Operation Wilderness" also became the first in the "JCJK Investigation Team" operated by AMF, Co., Ltd., and is the avant-garde female junior high school student and high school student who speaks every day.
In May this year, Japan's Fuji Channel also launched a TV program of the Women's Wilderness Action Team; since its launch, many Japanese artists, idols and even athletes have said in public that they are playing Wilderness Action, including Rino Shirahara, Takuya Tetsugaki, 2018 Winter Olympics figure skating runner-up Masama Uno , etc.; in the 2018 Twitter Topic Awards ranking, "Wilderness Action" won 7th place, and the number of related video views on YouTube has remained the first in the mobile game category for a long time.
became popular in Japan. "Operation in Wilderness" also knows how to grasp it. Since its launch in November 2017, it has quickly adopted a down-to-earth "people-friendly" approach in the Japanese market, and has frequently cooperated with well-known local IPs, such as "Attack on Titan", "Evangelion", and "Fairy Tail", etc., which continue to maintain product popularity and bring players a rich experience across dimensions. After the first anniversary of the launch of the Japanese server, "Wild Action" also began to promote the two-step online and offline strategy, not only focusing on online promotion, but also carried out a large number of scene layouts offline: participating in the YouTube offline fan event Fanfest, launching customized products with young trendy clothing BEAMS and opening offline brand stores in Shibuya, and then to this Wilderness Championship event, continuing to achieve all-round penetration into the Japanese market. In this way, many players have regarded Operation Wilderness as a tangible part of their life, in which they enjoy, entertain, and socialize.
is understandable. "Operation Wilderness" already has a significant social influence in the Japanese market, subtly affecting the lifestyle of young Japanese people.
National Esports, bottom-up
has such a broad and huge mass base, which is destined to "Operation Wilderness" to take a bottom-up national Esports path in Japan .Unlike other products that have airborne the entire professional club system, "Wild Championship" opens the qualifications to all Japanese players over 15 years old. Any player who is over 15 years old and lives in Japan can sign up to participate, truly creating a new e-sports form of "national e-sports".
In addition, "Wild Championship" has specially planned a three-month schedule, starting from May 5th to ending on August 12th, and the audition stage is even more lasting for one month, leaving players with enough time to participate.
In order for the auditions to be carried out smoothly, the "Wild Action" product team also designed a new system for the competition in the game. Team registration, participation, statistics, and rankings can be completed in the game, greatly reducing the threshold for ordinary players to participate and breaking through the previous difficulties of manual operation of e-sports. The national nature of
"Wild Championship" is also reflected in the diversity of ways players participate in the event, and a link that allows all online and offline players to participate in the event is set during the event. In the finals, the maps used in the last two games: Fierce Battlefield and Hurricane Peninsula were generated by players participating in the official Twitter platform "Wild Action-" formula" voting at the start of the game. In addition, the finals also uniquely joined the selection of "The Strongest Think Tank in the Wild", and viewers can participate in answering questions at the competition site and online live broadcast platforms. This design not only adds tension and excitement to the entire game, but also increases the participation of the majority of players, allowing the audience to participate in this e-sports carnival.
In addition to the wonderful wilderness finals, "Wild Championship" also designed many relaxing and pleasant entertainment activities. For example, in the series, the top Break Dance group "MORTAL" was invited to the series. COMBAT" held an opening performance to ignite the atmosphere; between the finals, Japanese funny artist Taku Suzuki led the Wilderness KOL team to compete with the East Japan Women's Team on the spot, and set up special mission rules competitions - "The Strongest Sniper Selection Battle" and "The Strongest Airborne Soldier Selection Battle". Such arrangements add a bit of fun to this professional competition, allowing online and offline audiences and contestants to enjoy this esports event better.
is still the initial stage in Japan's e-sports, and the public's awareness of e-sports is relatively low. "Wilderness Operation" has been with Japan's largest e-sports The brand RAGE jointly operates, allowing players to truly participate in e-sports events and truly experience the fun of competing with friends through local events. This is not only a way for players to continue to pay attention to the competition, but also one of the ways to give back to players who love it.
Finally, under the dual role of the appeal of the product itself and the friendly design of the competition system, Wilderness Championship has become a milestone in the history of Japanese e-sports, successfully released the potential of Japanese e-sports that has been suppressed for a long time, and embarked on a brand new way for Chinese e-sports to go overseas: is based on practice, targeting specific markets and uses Users need to create a "tailored" customized e-sports product.
While e-sports are going overseas, "Wild Action" is also exploring richer in-game experience settings, such as adding a large number of domestic weapons and equipment such as Martial Arts-10 and 95 to the game. In this way, not only Chinese e-sports, but also "Wild Action" has become an important window for Chinese culture to go overseas, opening a new model of Chinese game content that goes overseas with thousands of faces and is inclusive.
Conclusion
Since its birth, "Wild Action" is not only a flagship product for NetEase to explore the strategic direction of globalization, but also an important step for NetEase to explore the strategic direction of globalization. Now, "Wild Action" shoulders the important task of Chinese e-sports going overseas.
Almost every time, "Wild Action" has no precedent to be tested, but it has achieved unexpected results in a complex environment that seems to be mixed with luck and strength, which inevitably makes the outside world's expectations higher.
A game may have a limit, but "Wild Action" is breaking through the limit again and again, categories, entertainment, life, and e-sports, what is the next time? Let's wait and see.
