01 Most similar games of "Yu-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi-Gi TCG usually has a large number of cards, and according to subsequent version updates, the size of the card pool will become larger and larger. The order of draw cards in each game is different for different
decks, and endless changes are also derived from this.
Data source: Game Tea House
014-2018, Tencent NetEase and other major manufacturers successively entered the TCG market, and in terms of products, domestic products have experienced the process of introducing agents from original to well-known IPs. Some people estimate that TCG games will reach a market of RMB 10 billion in 2016. However, in recent years, most of the domestic TCGs in the above table have not been able to last for half a year. If you only look at the current successful TCG, the following table is:
combines the TCG system with the collection properties and play mechanism, which is highly consistent with the popular card drawing mobile games.
In 2021, three large IPTCGs will be launched intensively. This segment seems to be hot. However, marketing is hard to describe...
02 Buy volume: After three months of continuous release, turn to B station
Keywords: One wave of flow
Looking at the launch trend of TCG categories, you can roughly summarize it as "one wave of flow". In the two or three months of the online period, you can use a wave of peak release to create momentum, publicity, and attract new products, and then you can reduce the amount of materials in a cliff-like manner and even end abruptly. In terms of the delivery channel of
, the above four games choose to focus on byte system, and the combined proportion of the two platforms of Douyin and Toutiao has reached the range of 45% to 50%. "Bai Wen Card" and "Dull Link", which mainly focus on the second dimension and animation, have also not invested significantly in the vertical user base camp, Bilibili. The former accounts for only 5.89% and the latter accounts for only 6.96%.
chooses the delivery method of "one wave" rather than continuous delivery, and does not make little profit. "Harry Potter Magic Awakening" has been ranked first in the free game list and top 3 best-selling list for seven consecutive days in the National Day Golden Week (ranking data source: Qimai).
But through DataEye-ADX monitoring, the author found that " Yu Yu Duel Link " uses the most material copy as "return", which makes people worry about the game churn rate. According to the revenue estimate data provided by Qimai, the game's revenue in the first half of 2021 (about 12 million) is twice as high as the second half of 2021 (about 5 million). This is based on the premise that the game still has a small amount of release to this day, and the more Buddhist "Marvel Showdown" still has an estimated revenue of nearly 2.5 million yuan due to the conflict between the popular game "Magic Awakening".
Keywords: Vertical 2D
"a wave of flow" to attract new new products, TCG categories generally choose to continue to "dig deeper" on Bilibili.
uses the game itself to strong game quality or video incentive mechanisms to encourage up owners to "make a fuck" crazy, such as dramatic battles, starting strategies, civilian decks, and superior decks, etc. to contribute endlessly. Searching for keywords for these games, there are endless streams of videos with considerable views.
offline event is another vertical marketing method of "Dull Link". Due to the physical card bonus, it can be said that it is a natural result to hold offline events. The game will participate in various offline comic exhibitions, especially the Guangdong Provincial Exhibition where "card guys" gather. Such as BW (BilibiliWorld) held by Bilibili. This is their progress goal.
summary
large-scale release may not be suitable for games in this category. The author believes that hardcore competitive games such as TCG that emphasize deck composition and strategy understanding will have a great understanding of the game environment and the familiarity of the card pool in the middle and early stages.
is widely and continuously put into use, thereby attracting non-vertical players will lead to subsequent user churn and ratings drops. Marketing through the Bilibili platform may be able to retain players better.
03 Expert Marketing: Not addicted, lightweight
Keywords: It is still a wave of experts who stream
TCG videos are concentrated in the online period. Just like the launch trend, expert videos also choose to attract wide users in a stream, which is in line with the launch of material. Of course, there are also many popular videos produced by top experts in cooperating with current affairs hot topics.
In terms of expert selection, "Dull Link" can be said to be both good and good, and experts of all magnitude have choices. "Magic Awakening" tends to be a waist master, while "Marvel Showdown" uses almost 95% of the bottom masters. The proportion of magnitude chosen by
experts can be said to have gradually declined. The choice of top experts is more inclined to quality, while waist experts with higher cost-effectiveness and greater fan activity ratio can exchange quantity for a certain amount of quality.
Keywords: mild content
In terms of creative latitude, since it is concentrated on the byte system platform of pan-users, mild content is obviously more in line with user characteristics.
imitation cos or promotes the exquisite pictures of "Harry Potter" and "Marvel Showdown" to avoid overly hardcore game content scaring away players. Lighter and entertaining content also helps the dissemination of videos and creates entry points with the original IP audience layer.
In other words, the core of marketing is light entertainment content, not games.
Keywords: Making articles around IP
Using IP's own culture is also an important video creative output. The editing, introduction and inventory of the original game's famous scenes to arouse the audience's feelings is also a tried-and-test routine.
is on the native user layer accumulated by IP, and evokes feelings through a series of original videos, and then attracts it to become a potential vertical user through "restore" at the game level. As a world-class well-known IP,
has emerged in many hot spots inside and outside the circle. Grasping these sudden hot spots out of the circle and accurately publishing them can also achieve excellent results.
"Dull Link" had an "unexpected" number of videos and a compound burst of likes in June 2019. At that time, it was not a key node for game updates, but a pure gold blue-eyed white dragon card that caused an uproar in the domestic auction website, and the official will certainly not miss this "door-to-door" natural traffic. A creative video of
"Pure Gold Blue Eye White Dragon Card Auction" is still the most popular video with the highest number of likes, comments and reposts in "Dull Link".
In addition, the 19th Hangzhou Asian Games in 2022, e-sports, as one of the major events, includes the individual events of "Heartstone". As an important node for the game to enter mainstream sports meets, there will naturally be a wave of video content to support it.
summary
Whether it is material delivery or video delivery, creating lighter content around IP is the current trend of cooperation among experts in TCG categories. Use emotions and current hot topics to accurately output, with significant results while avoiding the cost of continuous buying.
04 Summary
TCG game marketing presents the following characteristics:
lightweight: avoid the core gameplay of the game and conduct appropriate promotion, use entertainment and relaxation as creative output videos, attracting potential users to transform into vertical users.
Circle-layering: using IP as "package" of TCG categories and high-quality production comparable to IP, attracting more potential vertical users to the game through IP originals and natural hotspots while ensuring the gameplay.
Verticalization: Customize another set of appropriate videos, cultural content or offline activities for vertical users to increase the adhesion of vertical users.
has obvious advantages and disadvantages.
advantages
021, TCG seems to be inseparable from IP. The traffic and hot spots that the IP comes with are continuously bringing marketing materials to the game. Rational use can reduce the marketing cost of to a certain extent and bring new users to the game. Interaction between IP games can also create new benefits for each other. Although is not a popular category, the core users of this type of game are quite high, and the ever-expanding card pool attracts this group of players. In addition, the attractiveness of this big pie in the e-sports market that game manufacturers have been looking for opportunities to reach in recent years makes TCG have a certain competitiveness. Since its launch in 2014, Hearthstone, which successfully popularized e-sports, still has an estimated revenue of about 7.5 million in the past three months (data source: Qimai).
disadvantages
The game itself succeeds and fails IP, and it is too led by it. If negative news occurs, it will directly kill any degree of marketing. TCG's own development threshold is also very high, and it is not a combination that small and medium-sized manufacturers can achieve if they are added.
category prospects
Currently, TCG has basically occupied its market share under the impact of a series of two-dimensional, real card adaptations, European, American, Japanese and Korean and other different IP games. At the same time, in addition to the top hits, most of the products in this category seem to be becoming more and more niche. If the rising star of
wants to stand out, it can be said to be the difficulty of "hell" challenge. The author believes that in the environment where this category is occupied by large manufacturers and IP, positioning low-cost combined with chess and card games and cooperating with expert live broadcast marketing (chess and card games are very suitable for live broadcast) may be a way out. Otherwise, you can only go to sea. How to refer to
small and medium-sized manufacturers?
Another way out is: lightweight and casual, and the integration of gameplay is a breakthrough. For small and medium-sized manufacturers with insufficient art/technical capabilities, it is wiser to integrate and innovate gameplay, and cooperate with expert videos and expert live broadcasts and other marketing techniques to create "hot products"!
IP authorization or proxy consumes a lot of resources, and TCG hardcore gameplay faces the same proportion of churn rate, not to mention that when the game substitution rate is so high, numbing is thankless. Making good use of the value of its IP and then outputting vertical content to players is a more cost-effective marketing idea.
