In the past year, the world's most popular 2D game is Genshin Impact. For example, last year's Thor Pond set a new record of 51 countries and regions reaching the top. It seems that no one can stop it from dominating the world.

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Hello everyone, I am Dr. X. In the past year, the world's most popular 2D game is Genshin Impact. For example, last year's Thor Pond set a new record of 51 countries and regions reaching the top. It seems that no one can stop it from dominating the world.

However, in Japan, there is a game that blocks Genshin Impact’s path to domination, with an annual revenue of US$1 billion, which is as much as twice the Genshin Impact (in Japan). It is Cygames' horse racing girl.

A while ago, the horse racing girl held her anniversary celebration, and I went back to the pit and studied it carefully and found that the success of this peak work of the 2021 2D mobile game is actually quite tricky. As for its successful methodology, most domestic manufacturers can't learn it even if they want to.

So today, Lao X, I will take a look at how horse racing girls succeeded.

Japan's little genius of the second dimension - Cygames

To talk about horse racing girls, we have to first talk about the manufacturer behind it, the Japanese second dimension master Cygames.

Perhaps because the parent company is a Japanese Internet advertising giant, Cygames has an extremely sensitive sense of business and a particularly high success rate. What are the blue fantasy , idol masters, princess links, shadow poems, and the horse racing girl we are going to talk about today, are all from it.

I studied it and found that there are actually two reasons why horse racing girls can conquer Japanese players.

First, Cygames found a golden idea, which is the basis for making money; second, Cygames used an exclusive solution, which is the ability to make money, and no one else would be able to make money.

So what is the golden idea of ​​Cygames? The answer is to make horse racing games.

Everyone knows that Japanese players are always furious in their money, with a game market size of more than 110 billion, which is very large. But it can only be regarded as a younger brother in front of the horse racing market.

I looked at the data. In 20 years, the size of the Japanese horse racing market reached 3 trillion yen, equivalent to RMB 177 billion, which is more than half of the game market. There are at least millions of horse racing enthusiasts in Japan, and even betting on horses has become a legal business run by the state.

For example, Kogoro Mouri is a typical horse gambling enthusiast. Once, he went to bet on horses to make up for the loss of 3 million, but he lost 5 million. He picked up someone else's lottery and won 1 million, which is really a horse racing genius.

So Cygames is actually smart. People who play horse racing love to spend money and fall in love with them. If they make money from a game, wouldn’t they have a great future? Of course, since it is a golden idea, some great clever ideas must have come up with it.

For example, the "Horse Racing Tycoon" series developed by Glory, which takes the high-end route, has a very playable experience in detail. But because it's too hardcore, it's just a niche stand-alone player.

There is also the Japan World Cup that takes the entertainment route. Various ghost players compete on stage, such as machine horses, boki horses, Trojan horses, strange breeds, and even seals and truck drivers, one more outrageous.

But no matter how funny it is, not many people pay for it. It is far better to watch videos than to play by yourself.

So, why are others niche in horse racing, but Cygames can make a fortune by making a fortune? This is what it has to say about its exclusive solution.

The story of digging horses

Five or six years ago, Japan slashed a wave of anthropomorphism, everything could be transformed into a mother, such as squid mother, mechanical mother, Nissin ramen mother, and even cockroach mother. Under this wave, Cygames, who had a particularly sensitive sense of business, suddenly realized it and combined the horse and his mother.

The former Ma Niang danced by humans were afraid of watching it. Now Ma Niang not only can sprint and overtake in beautiful clothes, but also sing and dancing after victory. I can only say that I love Ma Niang is actually myself.

But if you think the success of the horse racing girl is just a layer of two-dimensional skin on the horse, you are very wrong.The essence of the horse racing empress is actually to tell the story of the horse using anthropomorphic techniques.

pair, the exclusive solution for Cygames to succeed is to tell stories. In other horse racing games, horses are an animal and a set of numerical values. But in the horse racing girl, the horses have become flesh and blood characters. I don’t know how much you know about horses. After I played the horse racing girl, I almost opened the door to a new world.

We Chinese people would say that old horses know the way, and horses understand human nature because horses have high IQ, which is at least equivalent to three-year-old children. Every horse has its own personality and temper. Because of this, many wonderful stories about horse racing have been accumulated in Japan's more than 50 years of horse racing history.

For example, the protagonist prototype of the second season of the animation, the Emperor of the East China Sea, flows with the noble bloodline of the seven-champion "Emperor" in the history of Japanese horse racing. He is a standard second generation of emperors.

At the beginning, this second generation of emperors' lives were very smooth. Since his debut, he won consecutive victories and had never lost. He was only one step away from achieving the same great achievements as his father, winning the biggest achievement in Japan's Marian Race, the triple crown.

But at this time, the Emperor of East China Sea was found to have a fracture and had to recuperate for half a year and missed the triple crown.

It was also from this time that fate strangled the throat of the Emperor of the East China Sea. During the three or four years of horse racing, he experienced four fractures, which delayed a lot of time and did not achieve much.

In the winter of 1993, one of Japan's most important competitions, Arima Memorial Competition, began. Most of the players in this event were voted, and they can be said to be full of strong people and have extremely high value.

And "Emperor of the East China Sea" also came to participate after a year-long offseason. Many viewers thought this was a retired show match for the Emperor of the East China Sea, and even its former riders refused to ride it. In an interview before the race, he said: "I think the Emperor is finished, so I gave up."

It was in this situation that everyone was not optimistic about, but the Emperor of the East China Sea was like a white meteor, and at the last moment he sprinted past the most popular horse before the game and won the first place.

The audience shouted the name of "Emperor of the East Sea". The commentator was shocked and said "The Resurrection of Miracle". The rider even stroked the horse's neck with one hand and wiped his tears with the other.

Obviously, the tortuous story of the undefeated emperor becoming the unyielding emperor is inspiring and touching. There are many such wonderful stories, such as "The Oriki Hat, who grew up from a civilian, and who made a comeback by earnestly working hard", "The Golden Ship that is naughty and playful" and so on. The success of

Cygames is that it captures these wonderful "Ma Sheng" and uses very exaggerated content to interpret it in the game.

The main plot of the horse racing girl is adapted from reality. The protagonist of each chapter has more than an hour of plot animation, which is comparable to an animated movie. After the player draws a character, there is also a simple character exclusive plot.

But unlike other games, Ma Niang’s gameplay is not about pushing pictures, but about telling stories. In the training model, as trainers, we must experience various events with Ma Niang over three years, make choices to improve Ma Niang's abilities, and achieve the training goals. There are billions of details hidden in

. Because each horse has different personalities and different history, their cultivation goals, special events, dialogues, etc. are all different.

For example, they are all going to hot springs, and others are taking a walk after taking a hot spring, while the naughty golden boat can make strange screams when taking a bath. For example, if you make up for the regret of the Triple Crown King for the Emperor of the East China Sea, there are also hidden plot texts, etc.

also integrates a large number of roguelike elements in its gameplay. What are you in a bad mood, unexpected events, and suddenly getting sick. Just like the reality of raising horses, it is very challenging and has a strong sense of substitution. Combining the sense of contemporary experience combined with historical stories gives players the urge to help Ma Niang realize her dream. The most typical chestnut is Ulala who has never won in his career 113 defeats.

Like many competitive events, horse racing is also very cruel. Only the first place can stand in the spotlight. Just like the famous saying goes, "One horse takes the lead, ten thousand horses are gone."

Ulala is a horse that is very timid and has not excellent bloodline, so it has been losing streaks in its horse racing career and has never won. But even so, it still works very hard to run every game and never gives up. After

loss of 88 games, Ulala's story was reported by the media and spread throughout Japan. Its spirit of never giving up has given many sick and suicide Japanese people courage and has become a national idol. Even the Japanese Prime Minister at that time noticed that he wanted to see Ulala win. The same is true for Ulala in the horse racing girl. Even if she is the last place every time, she will wave and smile to the audience. Only behind the scenes will she quietly cannot control her crying.

was also moved by this story. Many hard-working players spared no effort and spent their energy to help Ulala realize her dream of winning in the game.

Just talked about games. In fact, outside the game, Cygames shaped the story of the Ma Girl through animations, comics, performances, etc. regardless of the cost.

For example, the two seasons of the Horse Racing Girl, one is 9.7 points and the other is 9.9 points. The quality is quite explosive, whoever watches knows.

, like the game, there are many details in the animation that restore reality, such as Silent Suzuka 's habitual left circumference, invited Wu Fenglai, the legend of the Japanese horse racing world, to make a guest dubbing, and even the unique imperial dance steps of the Emperor of the East China Sea, and carefully restored the details.

Racing girl's krypton gold hell

Of course, after spending so much money on the game, Cygames also has to keep a hand. If you start pursuing the strength of PvP after entering the pit and want to help producer KMR realize his e-sports dream, then congratulations, welcome to Krypton Gold Hell.

At that time, less than a week after the horse racing girl was launched, the top three local tycoons spent a total of 71.5 million yen, or 4.27 million yuan. Why is this game so kryptony money? Simply put, it is actually because of the support card mechanism in its development.

is like Genshin Impact. If you draw a character to the full life and then draw a weapon to the full life, you will end up spending the rest.

But in the horse racing girl, the strength of character development actually depends on the strength of 6 sub-cards. For the rich, if you raise an SSR Ma Niang, you need at least 5 5-star SSR support cards to deduct the loan. Then the maximum is RMB 3,500, which is RMB 3,500*5*5,900.

. Different tracks have different strengths of characters. The requirements for supporting cards for each character are different...

But I think it is one thing to be deep or not, and it is another thing to force you to jump. A colleague like me, I spent 70,000 or 80,000 yuan to play PvP, but he still recommended me to get into it because if you only play PvE to watch the plot, you can have a good time playing for free.

I think that when it comes to this, the audience should know why horse racing girls were so popular last year.

Cygames gives players not only the appearance and numerical pursuit in the game, but also the story and spirit behind it, and this is what really touches people.

Relying on this moving ability, the horse racing girl affected reality in many aspects last year.

For example, in April last year, Japan's "Retired Horse Association" launched a crowdfunding for a prototype horse of a game character, hoping to help her move to a nursing home.

originally set a goal of 2 million yen, but because of the popularity of "Horse Racing Girl", I directly received donations of more than 20 million (now 30 million) yen, which can better accommodate more retired horses.

not only had an impact on horses, but also built a bridge of communication between two generations in Japan. Because many prototype horses in the game were active in the 1990s, it was the experience of many players' parents and even ancestors.Some Japanese players played the game of watching characters and guessing horses with their grandfather.

From a higher level, horse racing girls also spread the Japanese horse racing culture to the outside world. The animation is full of popular science barrage, and some netizens have already learned about the horse racing story. Lao X, what I am talking about today is just the most introductory thing.

So in all aspects, horse racing may have many shortcomings, but it can be regarded as an amazing game.

So, can the success of the horse racing girl be copied? I think it's really hard.

You may not know that Cygames' vision is to "become the company that makes the best work." From a business logic point of view, it means spending the most money to make the best works and using quality to attract players.

For example, in order to achieve high-quality motion capture performances, Cygames has set up Japan's largest studio, 72 high-end cameras of 7 million yen, nearly 26 million yuan; there is also a 3D studio composed of 209 SLRs, which can instantly create 3D models.

In the process of being a horse racing girl, he even missed the ticket twice and changed the producer. He developed it for 5 years in order to make the quality better.

Nowadays, especially in China, a market that pursues cost-effectiveness, profit efficiency and shortcuts, there are still too few manufacturers willing to do this. I hope that after the horse racing girl achieves such a huge commercial success, there will be more manufacturers who will work hard to make games.