author | Fu Zhixing
Since its launch on October 18 last year, "It's finished!" I'm surrounded by beautiful women! 》has become the benchmark masterpiece in the interactive video game industry.
has topped the best-selling list on Steam in China for many days in a row. It has over 65,000 peak online players and a favorable rating of over 92%. It has been on the top of the hot search list on domestic social networking sites many times, with over 100 million topics. Within the industry, it has aroused the pursuit of many film, television, game, short drama and other companies, and a large number of "Finished"-like games have been launched one after another. It can be said that the popularity of "The End" has driven the development of the entire interactive video game market.
How was the production process of "The End"? How was it issued? What are the highlights of the content? Why is it successful? With these questions in mind, Entertainment Capital interviewed Yang Sheng, the producer of "The End". While answering the above questions, he also expanded his outlook on the entire category of interactive video games .
"The contents of TO C are all in order"
Entertainment Capital: How did you get into the film and game industry?
"The End" producer Yang Sheng (the same below):
I have worked in the film, advertising industry and games, and I found that these TO C contents have methodologies.
Audiences will like content that can stand the test of time. These tens of thousands of novels have been handed down throughout history, and they are all good content with certainty. We can find creative rules from dramas and movies.
Entertainment Capital: Were there any considerations when designing the characters for "The End"?
Haohao’s mother is in line with the underlying design logic of the character. Her hotness is superficial, but the core is tragic. She gave birth to a child at the age of 16, did not receive a complete education, and was entangled with her ex-husband. When we shape the story, we ask the screenwriter to think about the worst details. If the protagonist does good things step by step and helps Haohao's mother grow up, then in the end the protagonist can get a lot of positive emotions.
Entertainment Capitalism: What about system design?
We will consider the player experience from the perspective of system achievement design. The design of the achievement system in steam games is very important . We will think about what the anchor can do to get more people to post barrages if he plays. The achievement badge is actually the barrage system of our production team.
We have designed many "fun" options, such as the option to talk to the landlord when surrounded by beautiful women, the option to talk to the man in the hospital bed opposite, etc. These self-deprecating fun may also be one of the selling points of "Finished".
Entertainment Capital: What is the perfect chargeback rate?
is very low .
We set up a lot of small "mazes", I call it the moment. For example, in our game of rock, paper, scissors, if you win, I will pay, and if you lose, you will pay. The most beautiful thing in love is these moments, the memories of these moments.
Many players can play all day long and are reluctant to quit.
movies are reasonable and unexpected, and short plays give you reversals and questions. Many movie screenwriters believe that the great thing about love is that it gives people something unforgettable. Our creative team believes that love is composed of countless tiny details.
From the content point of view, the director of the movie chose the one that impressed him the most among dozens of endings. In the game, players can shape their own stories, and the two experiences are completely different. Instead of betting on the director to impress you with , it is better to get started and choose directly.
Entertainment Capital: Have you had similar experience before?
I used to be the screenwriting team leader for the action game "Hardcore Mecha". At that time, I looked at the gameplay first and then wrote the story. The story matched the gameplay. "Finished" is much better because the gameplay and story are created together.
Talking about "Finished"-like games
Entertainment Capital: What is the core of "Finished"-like games?
Many people think that "The End" is just about a few beauties and I can do this, but it's not true. The threshold is very high and it's not that simple. The most important thing about
love games is to allow players to avoid negative emotions and get positive feedback.The main reason why works like "Finished" are hitting the streets now is that they have mistaken the direction of love. The focus of love is not to get someone or conquer someone, but the process of getting closer to each other.
Game makers should focus on the big and let go of the small, that is, they should control the main line and make the details give users the illusion of control. The core of interactive games is to give players the illusion that they have free will . Great magic always makes the audience a participant. People's free will in love is fake. If you really had it, you would love 6 people, but no one would.
Specifically, players have a lot of freedom in their choices. At the end, Shen Huixing will ask the player to play rock, scissors, and tells the player that she will make a rock. The player can choose to defeat her or lose to her. "Players" have a choice.
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of the work of screenwriters in games like "The End"?
Most of the current batch of people making products similar to "The End" are film and television people. They regard the game setting as a branch script in film and television creation, that is, the protagonist is given two options A and B somewhere, and the position is also called interactive screenwriter. The choice is also the most difficult, because the protagonist’s options involve the protagonist’s values, game experience, and whether he is willing to pay for the next section.
Entertainment Capital: What do you think of the development of sideline "Finished" games?
What boys want when playing love games is emotional experience. Except for your parents, you cannot find such a person in your life who trusts you and loves you unconditionally. The edge game is a false proposition, because you can't play the game and edge it at the same time. It's equivalent to drawing a circle with one hand and a square with the other. It's impossible for players to get a good experience.
Entertainment Capitalism: Why do you think movies like "Finished" are less successful?
Now when we talk about the reason for the success of "Finished", it is actually to find certainty in randomness and find things that can be technically reused. If simply replicates the love/emotions in the "Finished" game, it cannot constitute a moat .
Entertainment Capitalism: How was the release of "Finished" done?
Before "Finished" was launched, I hit a wall outside. Sometimes people will ask us to leave after speaking for 15 minutes. No one thinks highly of our . Others say that boys are the kind of people who break their teeth and swallow things in their mouths. How can they have emotional needs? On the night when
was launched, I posted a message on WeChat Moments, to the effect that I was working hard on the project and I hope everyone can support it.
After several game bloggers tried it out that night, they quickly became popular. According to reports, a certain anchor made nearly one million from his live broadcast that night. After word of mouth, players gathered together, and "Finished" ushered in a huge fortune.
Entertainment Capital: What experience did you have in promoting "The End"?
There is no mature promotion path for video games. We will invite some game up owners to live broadcast the game, or live broadcast on Douyin.
Entertainment Capitalism: Who is the main audience of "The End"?
In addition to men, users can also turn off dubbing, which takes into account more groups.
Talking about the future of interactive video games
Entertainment Capital: After "The End", who are the main people who seek your cooperation?
After "The End" became popular, there were several waves of people looking for me. In the beginning, I was a person who made film and television content. Those leading content companies thought that I could "sell content to c."
Then there are the people who filmed ancient costume palace battles and house battles. They wanted to turn limited themes into interactive video games.
Then there are the people who make games. Game companies have discovered that men also have emotional needs, and the market is still huge. There are also streaming companies. They bought a lot of public accounts to attract traffic, and they want to create interactive content to attract players to spend money to watch. After
, a brand company approached me to cooperate in producing content. Brand skits are both games and advertisements that can earn money back. The advantage of live-action video games is that the materials are cheap, unlike animated games where a set of art resources costs tens of millions. The appropriate cost will attract more players to turn their attention to the market.
The last ones to find me were technology companies, because character.ai, which was in the United States at the time, was also emerging as an emotional companionship product. Artificial intelligence companies hope that their products can be customer-oriented and bring AI technology + entertainment to a wider market.
Entertainment Capitalism: What impact will AI have on interactive video games?
ai can bring real interactive content. Its fun and danger are both here. You don’t know whether it will change itself and what kind of content it will produce. Players will not be able to distinguish between NPCs, real players, or AI in the game, and their conversations with characters in the game will become more intelligent and have more choices. In the past, when we watched movies, we found resonance from the director’s stories, but now we create our own stories.
