Judging from the results on the first day of launch, Bao Mengke Collection with its own BUFF aura showed unexpected Excellence, which was highly praised by many players and industry media. It can be said that compared with the doubts when we first met last year, the attitude of the outside world is more "really fragrant" this year.
However, we should also see that compared with the "collection and cultivation" gameplay often used in traditional Baokemeng IP games, "Baokemengju" is actually quite bold, changing the past tradition and focusing on team leisure and competitive gameplay. The seemingly radical approach has also caused some fans to question and even overreact.
This also makes me curious, knowing that it will cause controversy, why does Mei Tian insist on taking a road that no one has ever taken?
A powerful bullet of Baokemeng IP "expanding circle"
As one of the world-renowned IPS, Baokemeng's influence is beyond doubt. Over the past 25 years, this IP originated from games has spawned a series of cross-media works, covering games, animation, books, peripherals and related authorized derivatives.
In terms of games, the "Baokemeng" series is still a frequent visitor to the top of the Japanese game sales list. However, behind the high sales volume, most products are promoted by the sentimental party. This just reflects a long-standing problem of Baokemeng IP game-although IP is well-known in the public circle, the circle of players touched by the game is slightly solidified. From the development trend, the future of the game is still a very important field of Baokemeng IP, and it is also an important driving force for IP development. Moreover, with the game becoming the distribution channel of other entertainment/commercial products, and the rise of the Z generation, which is more keen on the virtual world, the importance of the game will become more and more prominent.
At this juncture, Bao needs a heavy product to solve the problem of broken rings, and "Bao Da Ji Hao" has high hopes.
At the TPC face-to-face meeting in June last year, the official held a separate press conference for the product, and the importance was self-evident. President Shintaro Ishihara also spoke bluntly at the meeting, hoping that "more people can play Baokemeng and understand Baokemeng IP". The meaning behind it is also very simple and clear-it is to realize the further expansion of Baokemeng IP.
In fact, TPC has tried several times for mobile games, but in terms of market performance, only one ar game "Poké mon GO" is still in the forefront of the best-selling list, with its historical revenue exceeding 5 billion US dollars, while other IP products are lacking in performance.
The appearance of Poké mon GO brought Poké mon IP into the field of mobile AR for the first time, which was a very successful re-creation. The success of this product shows that only breaking through the traditional design mode is the key to success. The "Bao Mengke Collection" authorized by Tencent is also a breakthrough in Bao Mengke's traditional way of gathering and playing, which makes this IP enter the field of team leisure competition for the first time.
Considering that the casual competitive game itself is one of the most popular games in the world and has a huge audience, and for this kind of derivative works with circle expansion as the pre-consideration, the volume of audience circle is an important consideration when choosing the core game, and heavyweight IP can often spread spontaneously among players, so the combination of "super IP+ leisure competitive" is expected to provide sufficient power for the further circle expansion of Baokemeng IP.
In addition, the new players of Baokemengju attracted by Baokemengju will feed back other games under IP to a great extent, further deepening and stabilizing the composite circle layout of Baokemengju IP.
It can be said that the emergence of "Bao Da Ji Hao" is precisely to expand the IP circle of the package.
IP is just for changing skin? There may be some misunderstanding.
No matter whether it was just unveiled or officially launched overseas, I noticed that some players called "Bao Mengke Collection" a "MOBA skinning" game, and used Bao Mengke IP as a tool to make money, which hurt the feelings of fans.
Daniel, is this really the case? The answer is obviously no, don't rush to scold, look at it one by one.
Regarding IP derivative games, the most easily criticized by fans is that IP is not restored. In the long run, the degree of IP restoration greatly affects the fans' recognition of the game. Therefore, how to better show the different characteristics of the package has become the primary consideration. The answer given by Mei Tian is: While ensuring the IP characteristics, we should not forget to consolidate the strategic competitive attributes of the game.
Character image is the first step to ensure IP characteristics. It is not difficult to see from the content displayed in the game that Mei Tian has spent a lot of time on the design of characters. In addition to the original moves of presenting classic characters, there are also some small details, such as incorporating the characteristics of sleeping, which not only restores the image of Bao, but also takes into account the core of the character.
At the same time, according to Bao's different styles of play, he also set up professional posts such as defense and attack, which on the one hand brought more strategic choices and teamwork to the game, satisfied the players' pursuit of different styles of play, and on the other hand improved the appreciation of the game.
It should be pointed out that every Baokemeng in the game also has its own assembly moves that can show the highlights. In addition, such as the classic "possession and combat props" setting and "evolution" mechanism in Bao Kemeng IP, it has also been fully restored. Players can get more satisfaction from it, and also enhance their perception of strange treasures in a subtle way, thus expanding the role of Baokemeng IP.
As an IP that has existed for 25 years, fans have deep emotional sustenance for Baokemeng IP. In order not to destroy the fans' overall understanding of IP, Mei Tian created a brand-new independent world view system on the basis of gameplay, and invited the famous composer Jingshan Jiangtai and the famous voice actor Sadakazu Tanigaki to jointly create the game audio to ensure the original music and sound effects of Baokemeng.
According to Mei Tian, the sound effects of Baokemeng moves are all designed from their own attributes, which not only enhances the expressive force of Baokemeng attributes, but also enables players to clearly identify their roles through sounds in melee.
In addition, the biggest feature of the game is to combine the props being made in Bao Meng Ke Da Ji with the leisure competitive gameplay, and design props that can be worn with the hand and have the functions of strengthening strength and improving speed. The simplified setting not only lowers the entry threshold for new players, but also conforms to the world view of Baokemeng IP.
From the map mechanism to the game innovation, Bao Mengke's Collection pays more attention to "competition" than "fun"
In terms of gameplay, perhaps the lightweight design of Bao Meng Ke Da Ji compared with the traditional MOBA game makes many people question the depth of gameplay, but from my actual experience, in fact, the gameplay balance of the game in leisure and competition can be described as ingenious.
Fast-paced games in the market often expose the problem of insufficient game content. By enriching the map mechanism and gameplay mode, Bao Mengke Collection effectively enhances the strategic depth and provides players with more diversified experience choices.
To this end, Mei Tian specially adopted the time-limited scoring mode of "Countdown Victory+Score" for the game. In the game, players will be able to choose two modes, namely, the big map battle mode of 5V5 and the small map battle mode of 4V4 and 3V3.
In the 5V5 battle, the duration of a single game is limited to 10 minute, and the map area is larger. However, the whole 4V4 and 3V3 modes have been slimmed down. The reduction of map scoring points and the placement of different organs shorten the fighting distance of players, and different wild treasures further accelerate the pace of the game. Even under the setting of 5 minutes in a single game, you can get more diversified combat experiences.
It can be seen that the time-limited scoring method of this game is not based on knocking down the opponent's base like the traditional MOBA game. On the one hand, it avoids the high threshold and high pressure of traditional MOBA games, and the fixed game duration of a single game is relatively more free. Players can come to several games by bus and subway, which is more in line with the needs of young people's fragmented entertainment. On the other hand, the relaxed game rhythm also conforms to the consistent family fun characteristics of Baokemeng series games.
In terms of the most important balance of competitive games, Mei Tian also aimed at the positioning of Baokemeng, balancing its strong period in evolution. For example, some baokemeng's strong period is relatively high, which may quickly help the team establish a leading edge; However, some treasures have a strong period in the second half of the game, and each evolution can get a breakthrough in their own ability and gradually control the game.
On the surface, the "evolution" mechanism restores the setting of the characters' growth and evolution in Baoke's dream, but at a deeper level, players can choose two different moves to deal with different battlefield situations after evolution, which actually further distinguishes the traditional MOBA gameplay and enriches the game strategy and experience.
Considering that different treasures have different strong periods, how to allocate lineup and route resources during the game has become the key to affect the trend of the war. With the passage of time, the scene of MOBA headwind is often presented in the game, which shows that "Bao Meng Ke Da Ji" has the same competitive experience as the traditional MOBA game.
In the game, players can also experience three different theme maps based on the rotation mechanism-Gifford City, Ola Park and Mar Arena. It should be pointed out that each map has its own unique core gameplay and mechanism, such as Gifford's "speed change zone", where two treasures will move faster when standing on it, which provides players with more operating space and brings them a unique mobile gameplay experience.
From the point of view of gameplay design, the addition of rotation mechanism creates a stronger sense of game, and map elements such as super springboard can make the team change lanes quickly, which plays a huge role in both offensive and defensive ends, and also accelerates the pace of the game and brings more exciting competitive experience.
It is not difficult to see that Mei Tian actually intends to distinguish the game from the traditional MOBA by adding innovative competitive elements, and at the same time increase the interest and strategy of the game, so as to take into account the needs of leisure players and competitive players and expand the potential user base of the product.
Mei Tian played a "breakthrough card" with his strength.
There is an interesting little detail in Bao Mengke da ji: After the player scores, some Bao Mengke will make a similar dunk. Therefore, this game has also been ridiculed by many players as "slam dunk".
It is such a "slam dunk game" that was not optimistic at first, but its performance on the first day of its launch far exceeded expectations. Considering that the leisure sports category has always been unpopular in overseas markets, players can be collectively "really fragrant" through reduction and innovation, which reflects the recognition of Mei Tian in the research and development of leisure sports category.
In fact, Mei Tian's R&D strength has always enjoyed a high reputation in the world, which can be seen from the market performance of its mobile games the glory of the king and Call of Duty.
After Mei Tian's R&D strength is recognized, its next important direction of continuing to attack is already obvious-namely "exporting content", which is also the development trend of the entire game industry in China.
In Bao Meng Ke Da Ji, Mei Tian has made a preliminary attempt, such as making great efforts to realize data exchange between switches and mobile phones. Cross-end interoperability brings great technical difficulties in development, which requires not only the simultaneous development of two platforms, but also the consistency of the overall system functions and contents of the game on different platforms.
However, the benefits are obvious. Cross-end communication not only breaks the boundary between Switch host players and mobile game players, but also allows players including novices to easily enjoy the fun of fighting together, so that mobile phone players with larger user groups and more young people have a dream window in Jie Bao, and even hope to open up new markets.
Supported by the top R&D strength of Mei Tian R&D team and the love and ingenuity of Baokemeng IP, the cooperation between Mei Tian and TPC is very eye-catching. It can be seen that after combing and absorbing the successful cooperation experience of top international IP such as Activision and SNK, this time, there is a more substantial and deeper innovative design in gameplay, which not only reflects Mei Tian's growing hard power, but also feels its firm pursuit of game quality. Perhaps after a series of excellent cooperative R&D, we will see Mei Tian's independent R&D with better quality. Personally, this expectation will come true in the near future.