text/Nanshan
To this day, in the "battlefield" where the themes, sound and picture, and playback are getting stronger and stronger, it may be hard to imagine that there is a placement RPG that is difficult to say in various dimensions. In the past six months, it has achieved quite continuous good results in China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. It is the "Legend of the Secret Realm: The Relics of the Savior" (hereinafter referred to as "The Relics of the Savior") issued by 4399.
In mid-to-late April this year, "Shenmu Ruins" was launched in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well as 13 Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore , and soon topped the iOS free list in 9 of the countries/regions, and the iOS best-selling list in most markets is also ranked within the top 10.
Frankly speaking, GameRes noticed the outstanding performance of "Shenmu Relics", but after a simple experience of the game, the basic judgment made was that "Shenmu Relics" was too traditional numerical-driven RPG gameplay framework. In today's high-intensity inclination overseas market, it may be difficult to maintain a stable and linear performance trend.
However, in the past four months, "Shenmu Ruins" has not only remained stable within the TOP5-TOP20 in most markets in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Southeast Asia for a long time, but even after it entered the large-scale market in South Korea in June, it won the highest score of the TOP1+Top7 of the iOS free list, and it has remained stable within the TOP20 of the best-selling list.
"Shenmu Relics" Korean server best-selling list trend
Data source: data.ai
Looking back, it is obvious that GameRes' original prediction of the development trajectory of "Shenmu Relics" was wrong. Not only did this work not become a "one-wave" new product, but it maintained a fairly stable market performance after withstanding the pressure of loss after the outbreak of the launch, and thus became a game with the expectations of "long-term operation".
So, without major content innovation, why did the excellent achievements of "Shenmu Ruins" come from? With this question in mind, GameRes reviewed the entire process of "Shenmu Relics" overseas distribution, hoping to find the answer.
good music and picture quality, more traditional RPG gameplay framework
Before the chat is released, it is necessary to have a simple understanding of the content gameplay of "Shenmu Ruins".
In "Shen Wood Ruins", players who are in the "Singdao Tribe Alliance" in a Western fantasy continent can choose one of the five major professions of warriors, priests, rangers, shadow hunters, and gunmen. Based on the notes and letters left by their father, they aim to solve the mystery of their father's disappearance and resolve the crisis of the collapse of Xingdao, and embark on a fantasy journey.
In essence, "Shenmu Ruins" is a very standard "data-driven" placement RPG. Players basically don't have much room to operate during the game. Most of the time they spend in highly automated tasks, running maps, and fighting. The main pleasure comes from high-frequency positive incentives, such as continuously improving "fighting power" through equipment, pets and other systems, as well as upgrading the light speed of monsters with hanging up, refreshing equipment, etc.
However, it is commendable that the audio-visual performance of "Shenmu Ruins" is relatively outstanding, and the relatively exquisite Q-version modeling, Live2D, and combat performance all have certain advantages in the field of placing RPGs.
In addition, "Shenmu Ruins" also provides three game modes: horizontal screen, vertical screen and PC, which are relatively complete to cover the experience needs of different users.
Although the overall quality of "Shenmu Ruins" is among the best in the same type of games, it is an indisputable fact that there is a lack of differentiated and innovative content. So what efforts and breakthroughs have 4399 made on the distribution side to make "Shenmu Ruins" stand out in the overseas market?
"Shenmu Relics": Another iconic product under the "big promotion and distribution + comprehensive marketing" distribution model
After reviewing the overseas distribution path of "Shenmu Relics", GameRes believes that the overall distribution rhythm of the work is roughly as follows:
takes the product tone as the anchor point, focusing on the Asian market, gradually publishing and penetrating
Determining the most suitable distribution area for the product is an issue that needs to be carefully considered before every game goes overseas. How did 4399 think?
In terms of the product tone of "Shenmu Ruins" itself, the world view with a strong fantasy color, a picture closer to Asian aesthetics, and a more accepted RPG gameplay by Asian users all mean that from the inside out, "Shenmu Ruins" is a game that is more in line with the preferences of Asian players.
Based on this, we can observe that during the issuance and penetration of overseas markets, 4399 has a clear direction of going overseas, which is mainly Asian.
Specifically, after landing in the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan region that has the highest degree of content preferences with mainland Chinese players in mid-April and achieved good results, 4399 then promoted the launch of "Shenmu Ruins" in emerging markets in Southeast Asia in late April. After completing two rounds of verification of gameplay content and marketing methods, it was released in June to the South Korean region with larger market capacity but more fierce competition.
has obvious xenophobic characteristics. The local RPG strong Korean market has always been very difficult to issue RPG games
Observe this release path, we can reasonably guess that 4399 is mainly based on the estimate of the issuance success rate, and has chosen to move from easy to difficult, and steadily from small-scale areas to large-scale areas. During this period, it combined multiple rounds of data feedback to verify the acceptance of the game among the Asian player group, and penetrated while testing the waters, thereby ensuring the safety of the game going overseas. In the process, it also better summarizes the game's experience in marketing, operation and other dimensions to prepare for the release of the next area.
In other words, if the market feedback in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan is poor, "Shenmu Ruins" is likely to not appear in the Southeast Asian and Korean markets, which is also a relatively insurance path to overseas issuance.
It is worth mentioning that 4399 has done a very detailed "localization" in different distribution areas of "Shenmu Ruins". In addition to the adaptive tuning of content such as game copywriting, the game icon and promotion KV in the three major regions have their own characteristics, and even provides customized dubbing for different regions including Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean (Southeast Asia does not seem to be equipped with dubbing, perhaps because the language systems of various countries are relatively complicated?), and starts with details to maximize the aesthetic preferences of players in different regions, and at the same time, it also narrows the distance between players as much as possible.
game icon: Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, Southeast Asia, South Korea
Regional custom dubbing
Online + offline dual channels to continue to take advantage of the KOL effect to explode loud volume
No matter which region is in, before and after the launch of "Shenmu Ruins", 4399 adopted the "big promotion" method that it is good at, and through large-scale offline hard marketing, as well as online hands with celebrities/celebrities, pan-entertainment and vertical KOLs in various fields, the most efficient large-volume communication method is released.
Take the Korean region with the greatest publicity efforts as an example. When "Shenmu Relics" was launched, 4399 offline subway stations and other areas with extremely high traffic were laid out, a large number of outdoor advertisements were laid for game promotion, and the public's brand impression of the game was established in an intuitive way.
At the same time, "Shenmu Ruins" also reached cooperation with a large number of local Korean celebrities including Choi Young-Cai, former South Korean presidential bodyguard, South Korean national shooting team athlete Qin Zhongwu , and well-known e-sports player Moon. By shooting cooperative PVs and KVs, they take advantage of their high awareness among the Korean player group to empower the influence of the game.
Similarly, in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the choice of "Shenmu Ruins" is to invite Lin Bosheng, a multi-aware artist who is often active in well-known variety shows such as " Kangxi is here " and "Variety Shows Play a Big Broadcast" as the spokesperson. He not only has a high recognition among the young players in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, but also has a humorous and efficient position setting, but also has a good fit with the light casual experience of "Shenmu Ruins". The spokesperson tone, the benign resonance formed by the audience and products can also better help "Shenmu Ruins" release enough influence before and after it was launched in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
In addition, since its launch, "Shenmu Ruins" has continued to expand customers through cooperation with pan-entertainment KOLs and game vertical anchors with obvious localized characteristics in various distribution areas, including YouTube, Twitch, afreecatv and other videos and live broadcast platforms. Among them, there are many popular YouTube videos with millions of views.
Overall, "Shenmu Ruins" has achieved accurate and natural diversion effects in various regions with cooperation with celebrities, celebrities and KOLs. This way of playing can strengthen the influence of the game brand, but also fully mobilize the players' herd mentality. Combined with the characteristics of regional culture, this way of playing is particularly effective in the Korean market.
Korean Pan Entertainment KOL "철구형"
twitch Taiwan game vertical anchor "Killing Memories"
It is worth noting that the cooperation between "Shenmu Ruins" and KOLs in various fields is not a wave, but it is obviously repetitive. For example, when encountering special nodes such as major version updates (such as the first major version of the new profession "Gunner" was launched in July), "Shenmu Ruins" chose many KOLs that have worked with and have good results to link up again to conduct secondary coverage and conversion of their fans.
Youtube Thai game KOL "FifaTargrean"
YoutubeHong Kong Cantonese series game vertical anchor "In the Lower Ip Man"
In addition to videos and live broadcasts, "Shenmu Ruins" and KOL cooperate to publish posts on Facebook is also very common.
According to GameRes observation, in the design of linkage promotion and distribution content, 4399 has been targeted based on the content preferences of young male audiences of "Shenmu Relics", and has anchored a large number of pan-entertainment KOLs with obvious labels of "beauty" and "funny". By customizing stylized and obvious photos and copywriting for them, they have achieved round after round of breakthrough penetration in a rhythmic manner.
Normalized and specialized medium and long-term buying logic
As one of the old "large buying volume manufacturers" in the Guangzhou-Shenzhen game circle, 4399 has a deep understanding of traffic and its practical application ability. In the process of going overseas to "Shenmu Ruins", 4399 has fully utilized its advantages in this regard. Since its launch, it has always followed the underlying logic of normalizing buying volume and specializing in materials.
Among them, the normalization of buying volume is reflected in the relatively stable placement curve of "Shenmu Ruins".
Take Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as an example. After the explosive buying volume in the first month of its launch, the subsequent advertising efforts of "Shenmu Ruins" did not quickly decline, but were always at a relatively stable level, and continued to harvest traffic to ensure that the game can form the long-tail customer acquisition effect on major traffic platforms.
Data source: AppGrowing Overseas Observation
In the production of creative materials, "Shenmu Relics" has always followed the concept of diversified and distinctive polishing, and the material design ideas in various regions are basically converging. GameRes believes that it can be mainly divided into the following types (the material screenshot example is sorted from top to bottom by Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan → Southeast Asia → South Korea, all sources are AppGrowing Overseas Observation):
2. Expert marketing style: Select high-profile game anchors in various regions, focusing on live game experience, focusing on highlighting the characteristics of many game benefits and card draws.
4. Game features refinement presentation: displays the game's special gameplay content, and some materials emphasize that "Shenmu Ruins" can meet the demands of all types of players.
Of course, in addition to these major material categories, "Shenmu Ruins" has many more subdivided creative polishing directions. At the same time, the scale of delivery of focusing on the product spokesperson matrix in South Korea is also very large, so I will not elaborate on it here.
Multi-platforms carry out community operations and continuously improve its "multilateral three-dimensional ecology"
To this day, it has long become a consensus in the industry to continuously drive and improve the game's "multilateral three-dimensional ecology" through "community operation". Therefore, "Shenmu Relics" has also continued to strengthen its own operational performance during its overseas trip.
For example, after "Shenmu Ruins" was launched, 4399 opened an official channel on Discord, backing the core positioning of Discord's "Always Online Chat Room" and related social functions to encourage and assist players in socializing, and "open black" in a relaxed online chat space to enjoy the joy of the game, thereby stimulating players' ecological activity.
In Southeast Asia, "Shenmu Ruins" also launched a YouTube anchor recruitment activity in early August, attracting more players to try live game broadcasts through multiple incentives, thereby enriching the product's peripheral content ecosystem.
On FaceBook, "Shenmu Ruins" is also suspected to have reached a cooperation with some KOC, and continues to output second-creation content related to "Shenmu Ruins" through their hands.
At the end of 2020, 4399 Chairman Luo Haijian once shared a passage at the "Fourth China Cultural and Creative Industry Conference": "Many foreign game companies are unwilling to invest money in large-scale marketing because they think that the products are good. They think that the wine is not afraid of the deep alley. However, in fact, mobile users in this era are lazy than before, and users need to push more, so we adopt the 'big promotion + comprehensive promotion + The joint marketing model has promoted the implementation and marketing of overseas products and achieved relatively good results. "
In GameRes' view, "Shenmu Relics" is another benchmark case driven by the 4399 " major promotion and distribution + comprehensive marketing " model. Its online and offline resonant promotion, spokesperson and KOL selection direction, as well as buying logic and material production ideas, etc., all reflect the central idea of local differentiated customization. The "going overseas transcript" it handed over also verifies the model advantages of "big promotion and distribution + comprehensive marketing".
Due to space limitations, this article can only sort out the peripheral effects presented on the distribution side of "Shenmu Ruins". If you are interested, you can try to deeply ponder the underlying logic behind each release step of 4399. I believe it will be helpful to improve the understanding of overseas distribution.
Conclusion
As we all know, between 2019 and 2021, 4399 released a celebrity overseas product "Sword of Miracle". The game performed strongly in , Japanese and Korean regions, and even became the Chinese mobile game with the highest revenue in the Korean market in 2021.
Interestingly, through the comparison between "Shen Wood Ruins" and "Sword of Miracle", it is not difficult to find that whether it is the gameplay framework for placing RPGs, or the localization ideas of the product, marketing and distribution methods, both have extremely high coupling.
In other words, we may also understand that after successfully releasing the popular "Sword of Miracle", 4399 has accumulated a set of increasingly mature and systematic overseas distribution strategies.
is also this systematic overseas issuance strategy that makes up for the shortcomings of the content innovation dimension of "Shenmu Ruins", so that it did not enter a downward channel after the initial outbreak of the first round of launch. Instead, it has always maintained a stable market share overseas in the past four months.
Looking back at the early days of web games, 4399 was one of the well-deserved leading manufacturers in the Chinese game industry. However, as the mobile game industry quickly went from budding to explosion, 4399, which was "one step slower", missed the best transformation bonus period at that time and fell into a period of confusion that was disconnected from the development of mobile games for many years.
But around 2018, the rise of the tide of domestic mobile games going overseas provided an excellent opportunity for 4399 to enter the mobile game blue ocean market. So we gradually saw that 4399's "King of Immortals", "Miracle Sword", "Sword of Miracle", and "Shen Wood Ruins" were successively launched. The R&D and distribution experience accumulated by 4399 during this process has driven the birth of the domestic SLG market rookie "Civilization and Conquest".
In GameRes' view, it is actually not easy to chase market hot spots, not blindly participate in innovative intra-volume, but learn from successful products incubated in the past, insist on doing what you are good at, constantly amplifying your core competitiveness, and "copy" one hit after another.
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