Tencent'S New Journey Of Game: Creating An "IP Universe"

A few days ago, on the fifth anniversary of the launch of "glory of the king", it announced that the average number of active daily users in 2020 would reach 100 million, which made glory of the king the most successful mobile game in history.

Yao Xiaoguang is vice president of Tencent and President of Tianmei studio group. He is often asked "what to do if the products decline in the future". This question is the source of anxiety for almost all product teams. Yao Xiaoguang is no exception, but he has found the answer: "I think as long as a product has a unique soul, it can be passed on forever.".

What is the unique soul of the product? In Yao Xiaoguang's opinion, it is culture and IP. Earlier, Tencent has announced that it will launch two new games, an animated series and a TV series based on the story of glory of the king.

In the eyes of many people, the game is Tencent's cash cow. But if the strong profitability is the face of Tencent's game, it is the inside of Tencent's game to make it IP based.

Since 2005, Tencent began to lay out its game business. Tencent has gone all the way from a pursuer to an industry leader. Here, Tencent has no precedent to follow, and what it wants to prove to the market is that Tencent games are more than games.

Tencent game's "B side"

In mid November, Beijing has begun to rely on heating to resist the winter cold. Hainan, thousands of miles away, is still hit by hot waves. On November 19, the second TGC digital cultural and Creative Festival, which lasted for six days, opened in Wanlvyuan, Haikou.

"Joy" is on the stage of every day. It seems that "joy" and "joy" are all on the exhibition stage.

However, after visiting each booth carefully, you will find that this is not a place for "playing games", but more like a large-scale market for cultural experience of games. For example, in the wangzhe gorge open day exhibition stand, including Yunmeng secret land, Jixia college, Yunyou Sanfen, Shengshi Chang'an, infinite king group and the surrounding areas of King's art, among which, in the Yunmeng secret land area, the audience can experience the story of their dream and encounter with Luling through interactive light and shadow; in the Yunyou Sanfen area, the audience will interact through the large screen under the leadership of Coser Feel the local conditions and customs of Yicheng, Weidu and Jiangjun.

An audience who has experienced the exhibition stand told the reporter that she does not usually play "glory of the king", but for this exhibition stand of King's gorge, she thinks it's like a play play play, and has a very immersive scene experience.

In addition to the above-mentioned experience of game culture, there is also a tomorrow Museum, which is mainly for digital experience with Dunhuang culture as the core, including a dome type ring screen theater, where the audience can sit on the ground and enjoy the "exploring Dunhuang · flying God Luyao" show; in the Dunhuang animation drama experience area, the audience can choose their favorite animation plays and serve them Dub, then scan the QR code to take the audio frequency away.

Hou Miao, vice president of Tencent games and general manager of Tencent e-sports, told reporters that the predecessor of TGC digital cultural and Creative Festival was Tencent game carnival, which had been done for ten years from 2008 to 2018. Last year, Tencent upgraded the game Carnival to TGC digital cultural and Creative Festival, "this is actually a very big change".

"TGC stands for technology, vitality and culture respectively. We no longer emphasize the game product itself, but the concept and cultural connotation of game IP." Hou Miao said that the most direct comparison is that in the past, there were hundreds of mobile phones and computers on the scene of the game carnival, and the audience was mainly to experience the game. But now, there are only a few dozen scattered mobile phones on the TGC site. What they come here to experience will be digital culture.

This is actually a great change in the mentality of Tencent's games. As can be seen from the scene, Tencent has deliberately weakened its game products when designing its booth. For example, the exhibition stand of glory of the king is called "King's Canyon open day", while the booth of "love every day is eliminated" is called "coffee shop for eliminating troubles". "The direction we are building is family fun. Now we have achieved that all projects can be experienced by all age groups, and there is no cognitive and operational threshold." Hou Miao said.

Tencent disclosed a data that in the past, nearly 90% of the participants in the game Carnival were game users, while the proportion of ordinary audience and game user in TGC has reached 6:4.

From "Pan entertainment" to "new cultural creation"

Tencent's revenue exceeded that of Shanda in the first quarter of 2009. Subsequently, Tencent held a high-level meeting within Tencent, the content of the discussion was: is interactive entertainment only game?

The final answer is No. After discussing the business direction and making preparations, Tencent put forward the "Pan entertainment" strategy for the first time at the annual conference of Tencent IEG (interactive entertainment business group) held in March 2012. In the same year, Tencent animation went online. In 2013 and 2015, Tencent literature and Tencent film also launched.

Under the overall planning of the "Pan entertainment" strategy, Tencent IEG has extended its business from a single game to animation, literature, film industry and later E-sports. According to IEG's strategic development idea of "vertical first and horizontal later", the business depth of most professional fields is only the prelude, and the realization of the linkage between these businesses is the key.

In 2018, pan entertainment has become a trend in the industry. Many companies have upgraded "film and game linkage" to strategic level, and Tencent is undoubtedly the pioneer: the game business has become one of the best in the industry, the independent listed reading group has become the Internet overlord, and the animation and film industry have also become the leading players in the field.

What's more, Tencent has changed the online text into games, remakes into movies, and changed the games into animation and movies. These originally independent content fields have been broken through, and the connecting bridge between them is IP. In 2017 alone, more than 100 works were adapted with IP authorization.

But also in 2018, Tencent upgraded its "Pan entertainment" strategy to "new cultural innovation" strategy. Cheng Wudang, vice president of Tencent group, CEO of Yuewen group and CEO of Tencent pictures, said that the "new cultural innovation" strategy is an upgrade of Tencent based on Pan entertainment practice in the past six years, and it is also a brand-new strategic thinking of Tencent in the cultural dimension.

As for Tencent's "Pan entertainment" strategy, some industry insiders have commented that on the one hand, it has driven the industry to solve the concept change of cultural production mode, that is, the concept transformation from "taking works as the core" to "IP as the core"; on the other hand, it directly promoted the geometric progression of the cultural industry value.

For Tencent, upgrading "Pan entertainment" to "new culture and innovation" is actually an advanced strategy. According to Cheng Wu, this advancement is reflected in two aspects: one is to pay more attention to the cultural value of IP; the other is to upgrade the way and method of shaping IP.

An insider familiar with Tencent's new cultural and creative strategy further elaborated to the reporter. He said that Pan entertainment and new cultural innovation are both based on IP. In the pan entertainment period, it realized the transformation from works to IP, and laid the industrial foundation in the vertical field. On the basis of Pan entertainment, new cultural innovation pays more attention to the systematicness, long-term and order of IP construction as the core in practice.

In addition, new cultural and creative enterprises put forward higher requirements and goals for the production of cultural and creative enterprises. They not only pay attention to the industrial value brought by creativity and experience, but also emphasize the consideration of "cultural value" to promote industrial upgrading.

Shaping IP soft power

In 2018, Tencent also had a major event, namely, 930 structure adjustment. In this adjustment, more attention has been paid to Tencent's newly established CSIG (cloud and smart industry business group). In fact, IEG has undergone great changes. In addition to retaining the game and E-sports business, animation and film industries have been integrated into PCG (platform and content business group).

In the past, all mutual entertainment businesses were included in IEG, and Tencent's new cultural and creative strategy was implemented with IEG as the main body. After the structural adjustment, the "new cultural and creative" strategy was upgraded to the group level. In terms of specific business, although IEG was split, the person in charge of PCG and IEG was Ren Yuxin, Tencent's coo, so it had little impact on business linkage.

Not only that, because new cultural innovation has become a group strategy, the business of other business groups is also integrating. Hou Miao told reporters, for example, in the field of culture and tourism, in addition to the linkage in content, there is a set of smart city programs behind it, including ticket selling, consulting, tour guide, etc., all of which are completed by Tencent cloud.

In spite of the new cultural innovation at the group level, what IEG has to do now is very focused, that is, the shaping of game IP. As Yao Xiaoguang said, making game products IP based is actually giving the game products soul, which will greatly continue the vitality of game products.

IP naturally has two attributes: industrial value and cultural value. From the perspective of industrial value, although Tencent is currently the leader of global game manufacturers, it relies more on the Chinese market, and its challenge in the international market is still huge. As for how to develop the international market and create more game IP is the answer.

It is reported that Tencent has a "three-step" strategy to expand the international market for self-developed Games: the first step is to cooperate with international top-level IP, such as "call of duty" and "baokemeng"; the second step is to integrate into Chinese culture and expand the influence of China's IP factors with the help of these international IPS; the third step is also the ultimate state Tencent hopes to achieve, that is, to create independent IP.

With independent IP, the most intuitive impact is that there is no need to take into account the requirements of partners, there are not so many restrictions on the use of IP, and there is no need to share with them, which undoubtedly maximizes the industrial value.

In terms of cultural value, Ge Jianxiong, a famous historian and senior professor of liberal arts at Fudan University, recently said that he never played games, but in recent years, he has come up with an idea that games are actually a good self-expression.

"I once communicated with professors at Harvard University who invented the theory of soft power. We have reached a consensus that only when a culture becomes a cultural product or service and can be accepted by others, can it really form soft power." Ge Jianxiong said: therefore, from this perspective, various cultural products, including games, can make Chinese culture form soft power and help Chinese culture go to the world.

In July this year, many experts including Ge Jianxiong also participated in the creation of a new version of "three parts of the land" based on the Three Kingdoms. On the premise of grasping the core of the Three Kingdoms culture, the expert team and game product designers have carried out innovative interpretation of the Three Kingdoms culture.

Hou Miao told reporters that in the actual operation process, the cultural value and industrial value of game IP do not conflict, but complement each other. "For example," King glory "has done new cultural and creative work earlier. Now it has cooperated with traditional culture in many kinds of skins. Most of these skins are free of charge and have no commercial interests. However, according to user data feedback, these skins are very popular, so the product R & D team has a strong motivation to do this kind of cooperation.".

Not only that, the IP construction ideas of new cultural innovation can also bring more imagination space for the development of the game. Hou Miao said that "QQ bicycle tour" has recently been put on a new version called "all the way to Guizhou". This is when the game planning team was exhausted, when I arrived in Guizhou, I suddenly found that the local mountain terrain was very consistent with the design of the game track, so it also brought a sense of spirit to the team.

Build "Tencent IP universe"

According to the "2020-2021 mobile game IP market development report" recently released by Gamma data, IP will still be one of the core resources of game enterprises in the future for a long time. In addition to obtaining through authorization, original IP is the focus of future development of Chinese game enterprises.

According to the report, unlike ordinary game products that only rely on game content to attract users, original IP products are highly rich in plot, picture, music, characters and other content, which can create more secondary content that attracts users, and can accumulate a certain number of core fan users, so as to lay a user foundation for the long-term operation or continuation of the product Foundation.

For example, IP linkage has become an important means of IP operation at this stage. According to Gamma data statistics, representative game IP has carried out IP linkage around film and television, FMCG, culture, games, animation and other fields. Among them, 78% of IP has carried out IP linkage around at least three fields, and linkage can further expand the user boundary of game products and continuously enhance the popularity of products.

Take peace elite as an example. Since the beginning of this year, some mysterious suspense story clues have been added to each version of the product, which can guide players to perceive the story behind the world of peace elite. After nearly a year of preparation, at the Tencent game conference in May this year, "peace elite" officially announced its own IP world outlook - "the competitive adventure world of global players".

Around this world outlook, the peace elite has also been arranged from the role, story, music and other dimensions. For example, next year, peace elite will launch a series of official character cartoons. Meanwhile, the peace elite cartoon work peace Elite: tracing the war god will be launched in the first half of next year.

In addition, in the IP derivative link, "peace elite" will be deeply co created with "venom 2" produced by Sony Columbia film company; meanwhile, "peace elite" has restored the Metropolitan Museum of art in New York to the game in a ratio of 1:1, so players can feel the elegant demeanor of Art Masterpieces when they walk into peace elite. This "art adventure" is also right The concept of "the world of competitive adventure for global players" will be interpreted in a new round.

All of the above are Tencent's operations around the "peace elite" IP. Under the entire Tencent game product matrix, such IP development work will be copied to more products. Hou Miao said that Tencent will find a specific breakthrough point for each IP with potential. It will do it first and then gradually enrich it. "We will not do complicated IP logic at first, but we will deconstruct IP, first make the human settings, scenes and story segments, and then assemble them.".

As for which IP has potential, Hou Miao said, first of all, it should meet the needs of large enough users and be able to be popularized. For example, the TGC cultural and Creative Festival has limited venues, so the IP displayed are actually carefully selected. "We should first make those IP elements that can be closely integrated with public life, such as happy tea house and forget worry pub, which can be understood by ordinary users at a glance.".

At present, TGC has been upgraded to a strategic project and platform of Tencent, and it is also a window to display the new cultural and creative strategic achievements of Tencent. Hou Miao told reporters that if these IPS are to be built into a paradise similar to Universal Studios in the future, there are high requirements for the spirit, story and role of each IP.

As for whether Tencent wants to build a world outlook like Marvel Universe, Hou Miao said that it may be beyond Tencent's ability now, and it will take a long time to get there. However, it has taken nearly 80 years for marvel to make Marvel Universe. The Internet will shorten this time, but it is impossible to shorten it from 80 years to 5 years. At least it will take more than 10 years or even longer.