Can "Magic Tower" go to the sea, can you carry Tencent's "Original God" dream?

Author | Qianli

Edit | Kwaiichi

At the end of June, Twitter, the official Twitter of Tencent's overseas distribution brand Level Infinite, released a dynamic about "Tower of Fantasy" ("Phantom Tower"). The official announcement of this game has opened overseas pre -annotations and will be officially launched this year.

On the list page of the official website of Level Infinite, "Magic Tower" was placed in the first place. Just about two weeks before, its display order was still 15th, in line 4 of the list, drowned in a 3A shooting masterpiece.

Picture Source: Level Infinite official website

Obviously, Tencent Games is about to push this product overseas.

The name "Magic Tower" is no stranger to the name "Phantom Tower". It is an open world game under the Hotta Studio under Perfect World. It has opened a public beta in China on December 16 last year.

Seeing the word "open world", it will naturally think of the phenomenon -level game "Original God" that has all over the world. In the publicity of "Magic Tower", the perfect world does "touch porcelain" in Mingli several times. For example, the preheated download phase before the game clearly positions the "Phantom Tower" as "the next TGA Best Mobile Game of the Year", and even copy the comments of "Original God" directly when the App Store brushes.

Now Level Infinite is about to release this product overseas. Can Tencent hold "Magic Tower" into the next "Original God" to gain a foothold in the two -dimensional game market?

It may be difficult.

"Phantom Tower" lives in the frame

Different from the original global market and the entire platform of "The original God", "Magic Tower" has gone through a market test for more than half a year before going overseas. For more than half a year, it can be said that it has experienced ups and downs.

As mentioned above, when "Magic Tower" was labeling with the "original god" in China, the expectations of players were full. According to Perfect World's 2021 financial report, the first month of "Magic Tower" has achieved excellent results with more than 10 million new users and nearly 500 million yuan in flowing water.

Nevertheless, the outside world's doubts about "Magic Tower" never stopped, the main question was plagiarism.

First, it was questioned by the weapon material of the stolen "Breaking 3" and the icon material of the Rainbow Six as the BOSS icon.

Later, after the public beta, he was "public execution" on Twitter by the Japanese animation team after the public beta. Hurray! It is said that some people told them that the PV of the Phantom Tower is very similar to the concept animation produced by the team, Hurray! After confirming and publishing a comparison video, it is proved.

Picture source: twitter

For this, "Magic Tower" has not yet launched overseas, and its reputation overseas has fallen to negative value in advance.

You know, "Rainbow Six" is a well -known shooting simulation game owned by Ubisoft, with many global fans. And Hurray! The Twitter dynamics also spread rapidly. Compared with the number of videos, it has only exceeded 50,000 in 4 hours, and now it has exceeded 140,000.

In fact, "The original God" was also questioned to plagiarize the "Serida" series at the beginning of the launch, but only stayed at the level of a few players. In the rules of the developer of the "Zelda" series, the gameplay is similar to only tribute rather than plagiarism. The technical effects of the original God, the quality of art, the world view and the setting of the character also make people see the sincerity of Mihayou.

In addition to doubts about plagiarism, "Magic Tower" has also experienced many technical tests since its launch. Players have already seen the apology letter on their official platforms on various game vulnerabilities.

Until April this year, "Magic Tower" updated version 2.0 and launched a new map. It has greatly improved artistic performance, interactive experience, and plot immersion. According to the data platform data.ai, on the day of the "Phantom Tower" version 2.0, its ranking in the App Store China game bestseller list has risen to 11th, and it has previously fallen to a hundred outs.

In terms of the quality of the current game, "Phantom Tower", as an action class MMORPG, has become superior among similar products in China. However, can Tencent, who won the right of overseas issuance from the perfect world, can you challenge the status of "The original God" with this work?

Between the two, we can still find some critical gaps.

First of all, at the level of content and gameplay, in the understanding of the two -dimensional target users, there are many differences between "Magic Tower" and "The original God" created by Mihayou, which is buried by the deep -buried two -dimensional gene.

The reason why the second dimension is called the second dimension is not just because of the anime art style. What the two -dimensional game requires is to allow users to immerse and love the complete virtual world and character, and pay for it, the so -called Pay for Love.

But "Magic Tower" does not seem to do it.

In the App Store, the current score of "Magic Tower" is 3.9 points. In low scores, "poor plot", "narrative no sense of replacement", "people are lacking of good, like mass production", "female lead plot Mary Su", "Characters have no expression changes" and other vomiting are more concentrated. Most of the online game evaluation also feedback "Phantom Tower" does not set up a world view and tells the story of the characters, and cannot cause players to be empathy.

In the original community LOFTER, the original content of#在 在 在 在 528,000 participated and 360 million views,#在 在 在 only 900 participation and 277,000 views. Two -dimensional users are "power generation" for these two IPs. The gap between the driving force is evident. Picture source: lofter

In terms of game content, "The original God" has weakened the social network between users in the game, creating the immersion of the player's immersion, and the player leads many rich game characters to start adventure. "Magic Tower" is still in the MMORPG category routine, continuing to play strong PVP gameplay such as traditional arena and guild warfare. Players who do not recharge are difficult to confront the "Golden Big Big" because of the attribute gap, and it is difficult to obtain the core of enhanced attributes The strength gap between resources and "Golden Grandbriends" will become bigger and bigger.

In the final analysis, although "Magic Tower" has the appearance of the second dimension, its main commercial thinking is still Pay to Win, which is completely different from the paid motivation of the two -dimensional core users. Investigating the fundamental, the perfect world of "Magic Tower", as a traditional game factory, has repeatedly polished the MMORPG business model, it is difficult to have the courage of "strong men breaks their wrists".

The "Mid -second" speech of "Save the World" as the company as the company's Slogan can be used to face the routine when facing the two -dimensional users, accurately pokes their hearts, and achieves breakthroughs.

In addition, at the technical level, there is a single -end data to interoperate, and there is still a essential difference between "Magic Tower" and "Yuan Shen". "Original God" launched the first day of the world's simultaneous launch, and the data interoperability of IOS, Android, PC, and PS4 platforms has been added. Since then, PS5 has been added.

It is worth noting that "The original God" has different degrees of expressiveness according to the equipment conditions. If the download package on the mobile game is less than 4GB, the PC side will account for more than 30GB of memory after the installation is completed. The PC version realizes higher -precision screen performance and operating experience. "Original God" players usually use mobile phones to complete the daily task of the game at the fragmented time, and time can experience the adventure process in the game through the PC -end depth.

"Magic Tower" also said that the data of the mobile phone and the PC side was also called on the eve of the launch. However, according to the player experience, its PC side is just the PC simulator of the game, that is, the computer can run the "Phantom Tower" like a mobile phone. The mobile version does not have the expression of PC. After the game was in the domestic public beta, the official has not obtained the PC -end version, and has deleted the download entrance of the PC simulator on the official website.

According to Data.AI, since the end of last year, although "Magic Tower" has updated multiple versions, the total trend of downloading and income has declined significantly, and there are currently no signs of rebound. From this point of view, even if Tencent has the ability to "banknote", it should be difficult to shake the global myth of "The original God" with "Magic Tower".

Picture source: data.ai

Tencent begged for a second dimension without

Although the second dimension is a niche category in the game, its user has high stickiness and strong paid ability. It is very attractive as a sweet "cake".

According to Data.AI's "2022 Two -dimensional Mobile Games Market Insight Report", in 2021, the global user use penetration rate of the two -dimensional mobile game is less than 3%, but the category user expenditure accounts for the total mobile game expenditure of the application store. 20%.

This is why Tencent's minds of the two -dimensional mind.

In particular, Tencent, which has witnessed the great success of "The original God" in the world, has threatened Tencent to enter the track. However, the problem is that the two -dimensional product category is difficult to harvest the user's favor by replicating and imitation. Even at the cost of technology and art, the cost and business model are mature and complete. If you do not understand the "point" of the second dimension users, it may still be more effective.

In June last year, Tencent released a two -dimensional mobile game called "Alchemy Stars" ("White Night Aurora") in overseas. This war chess -round strategy game comes from Tourdog Studio (Touring Dog Studio) under Yonghang Technology. Tencent is its controlling shareholder.

According to Sensor Tower, "White Night Aurora" broke into the TOP30 list of Chinese mobile games overseas in June last year, ranking 23rd, and still appeared on the list in July. Since August, the name of this game has disappeared from the list. Data.AI shows that the downloads and income of the APP launched in different regions in different regions have declined rapidly after the public beta month, and this year has become stable.

Picture source: data.ai

As a second -dimensional game that was bet on Tencent, the "White Night Aurora" of "Past Time" was considered "a flash of flowers" and failed to support the burden of occupying the second dimension category. Tencent's "current time" and "Magic Tower" still lacks key breakthrough factors. As for whether "future time" can be done, it is not known.

Sort out 21 products released by the official website of Level Infinite. In addition to "White Night Aurora" and "Phantom Tower", there are no other two -dimensional category reserves. Of these 21 games, there are only 6 of the mobile games, 5 of which are produced by domestic developers, and only "YLANDS" ("Island of Ilan") from Tencent's acquisition of equity Bohemia Interactive.

More than ten other products are PCs or hosts made by European and American developers who have participated in or acquired by Tencent, and they still take shooting as the most important type. It can be seen that although Tencent has always wanted to make a difference in the two -dimensional track, it did not spend a lot of effort to invest in the rhythm of investing in good investment and continuous water testing in overseas markets.

In terms of mobile games, from the perspective of Tencent's layout, it still maintains confidence in the commercialization of domestic products; and on PC and hosting, we will continue to rely on "buying and buy" to obtain issuance and investment income worldwide in the short term. Selecting the successful IP for mobile games for mobile games, and the old path of "PUBG Mobile" and "Call of Duty", still mainly based on the shooting.

At the "Spark 2022" Tencent game conference just passed, Tencent did not put heavy dramas on the new product promotion, but introduced the "Digital Great Wall Project", "Game -driven Robot Accelerating Intelligent Learning Project", "Quanzhen Interconnected Digital Factory" "Wait for 7 major game technical cooperation projects. Using these technologies, Tencent is trying to expand social scenes such as "digital cultural protection", "industrial manufacturing", and "cutting -edge exploration".

In the game product section, in addition to the classic old IP of Tencent Games, this press conference is more impressive, that is, its photon -owned studio group uses an illusory engine 5 martial arts open world game "Code: Zhi Jin Yong", and A few products such as the shooting RPG mobile game "Avatar: Return to Pandora", which is agent from Zulong Entertainment.

Picture source: Tencent Game Official Public Account

I have to say that after "Glory of the King", Tencent not only did not break through in the two -dimensional category, but also did not find the national -level explosion in the mobile game. In 2021, Tencent's annual revenue declined for the first time, a decrease of 8.8%from 2020.

Nowadays, Tencent is putting more resources on the exploration of game technology and the expansion of application scenarios, not the development of game products. Based on the layoffs of its interactive and entertainment business group in June this year, Tencent may be in the next game reserves "green and yellow".

In this way, it is even more impossible to find a two -dimensional global phenomenon product that is sufficient to launch a shock to the original God in the short term.

On the other hand, Mihayou, who embrace the aspirations of the "Technical House to Save the World", has "Original God" as the confidence, and is "burning funds" more fiercely.

According to public news, the new IP "Break: Star Dome" adopts a turn -based gameplay, which has been launched at the end of May, or can be available in the year. "Zero Zero" is differentiated with the previous product. It will take the first test in July; in June, the "Kocci Frontline" in China was speculated that the RTS (instant strategy) game "Instant Strategy) game" Instant Strategy) game " War 2061; Montreal Studio, which was announced in November last year, is committed to the development of the 3A open world gun war action adventure game ...

Behind "Original God", Mihayou's two -dimensional new work is in the queue, and the record of charging the records created by his predecessors. From the category selection of these products, we can still see Mihay's "gambling god" spirit: two -dimensional+round -round system, two -dimensional+mech shooting, two -dimensional+RTS, perhaps in the future, it can be Mihayou around the world Occupy more two -dimensional segment tracks.

And Tencent and its overseas distribution brand Level Infinite, we may look forward to its next shooting and competitive explosion models, but we can't expect it to win the next "Original God".

Reference materials:

[1] High energy throughout the process! 2022 Tencent Game Conference Essence Collection, Tencent Game

[2] Can the "Phantom Tower" that is continuously evaluated, can there still be the confidence of the benchmarking "Original God"? , Overnight, talk about animation

[3] "Phantom Tower" ushered in new changes, the perfect world goes to the sea 2.0, and the nuclear competition

*Cover, head map source "Magic Tower" official website

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