In early November, "It's Finished!" which combines live-action short drama with game mode. I'm surrounded by beautiful women! "After it crazily dominated the Steam rankings, the short drama "The Boss" with strong Chinese genes also became a hit in the United States.
Recently, a short drama app called reelshort has ranked among the top three in the Apple Store, even surpassing TikTok, which has dominated the list for many years, and risen to the top of the entertainment list.
After opening this app, you will find an inexplicable "earthy familiarity" with various "Mary Sue" titles: "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband", "I Kissed My Husband Who Was a Vegetative" , "The Daughter of the Werewolf Family", etc... The themes include grievances between wealthy families, werewolf taboos, etc. It can be said that the content of "Boss" exceeds the standard.
However, these seemingly "unfashionable" works have triggered heated discussions among local audiences overseas. Many people even said, "I spent money to watch the entire drama."
relies on these Western-style boss shorts that are densely packed with cool points. Since the drama reelshort was launched in August 2022, the total number of dual-end downloads on Android and Apple has reached 11 million times, and as of November 2023, the net income has exceeded US$22 million.
It can be seen that this wave of "Mary Sue" culture exported to the United States is very successful, and it has really made a lot of money in the United States. "The Economist" also published an article saying, "reelshort represents China's cultural export and once again conquered the United States."
It is worth mentioning that the company behind reelshort - Chinese Online's overseas subsidiary Maple Leaf Interactive (crazy maple studio), this year Since last month, Chinese Online has been making rapid progress in the A-share market, with an increase of more than 100%. How did
’s “short drama” become so popular in China that it broke through language and cultural barriers and successfully made European and American users earn money?
" boss loves ", 2 minutes 1 beautiful knife
Open the reelshort app. Users can see that the above short play is starred by overseas actors. It is based on Western themes and integrates "female characters" in Chinese online texts. "Revenge of the Lord", "Grudges of Rich Family", "Forbidden Love" and other classic "overlord" earthy elements are mainly aimed at the North American market, with middle-aged women as the target audience.
These short plays are basically within 3 minutes, mostly 1-2 minutes. The content is illogical and only depicts the word "cool". I wish I had three reversals in two minutes.
Currently, there are dozens of live-action short dramas on reelshort. Just take a look at the titles of the dramas on the reelshort homepage. What are they called:
"Destined Forbidden Love"
"The Werewolf Family's Daughter"
"Discovered after the Divorce" Wife is a Billionaire"
"Goodbye, My CEO"
reelshort The title and header image of the short drama are all familiar |reelshort
Themes cover rich families, revenge, underworld, werewolves, vampires, forbidden love, contract marriage, etc. . ÍScroll down for more detailed categories: Marriage first, love later, boss area, revenge area, etc...
borrows the popular drama "Destined Forbidden Love" to popularize the world view of this type of drama. Determination: "Selene, the orphan heroine, has been living a life of dependence on others. At the age of eighteen, she unexpectedly became destined lovers with two werewolves." After
users download the app, they can watch a few episodes for free. If they get to the top and want to continue watching, they need to pay gold coins .
The source of wealth in short plays - krypton gold | reelshort
Each drama requires a different number of gold coins, usually 60-70 gold coins per episode, and the purchase price of gold coins is US$9.99/1000, that is to say, each episode The price of the set is approximately US$0.1-0.7. Each series has about 60 episodes. If you want to watch the entire series, you have to pay at least US$10 (equivalent to RMB 70). For longer episodes, you'll have to pay $25-$50.
For example, if you need to pay 72 gold coins to watch one episode of this short drama, there are 50 episodes in total, and each episode is 1.5 minutes, then the entire 75-minute drama will cost about 250 yuan.
There are three main ways to obtain gold coins.
users can watch ads in exchange for gold coins, but they can watch up to 20 ads per day.In addition, there are daily tasks on reelshort. Users can get a corresponding number of gold coins as rewards for completing the tasks. For example, if you log in for a week continuously, you can be rewarded with 165 gold coins.
Despite this, the total number of episodes that users can watch for free is still limited, which requires users to recharge and pay. This is also the monetization model of reelshort.
Of course, reelshort will give a certain discount to users who purchase gold coins. You can buy one get one free at most, which is equivalent to 50% off the price.
For example, the hit hit "Never Divorce a Secret Billionaire Heiress" costs 0.52 euros per episode, with a total of 55 episodes. Calculated at a 50% discount, it costs about 110 yuan.
"The hit short drama "Don't Divorce the Hidden Billionaire Heiress""｜reelshort
In fact, this payment method is higher than the unit price of going to the theater to watch a movie, or the unlimited monthly Netflix subscription.
But the user is addicted to CP and cannot stop at all. Data shows that at reelshort’s peak, the global double-end daily turnover was around US$270,000.
Netizens in the video comment area left messages saying that the more they watched, the more excited they became, and they were addicted｜Image source: reelshort
Some people must be curious about what kind of company and team can so successfully export the earthy short dramas that have become popular on Chinese short video websites. Going to the European and American markets to harvest overseas leeks like crazy? With the blessing of
ai, the company behind the short drama production blowout
reelshort is crazy maple studio (Maple Leaf Interactive) headquartered in Sunnyvale, USA. Even though this company has an English name, it is actually an out-and-out Chinese company.
In fact, crazy maple studio (Maple Leaf Interactive) is a division of chineseall usa, and chineseall usa is a company under Beijing col (Chinese Online) Digital Publishing Group. Founder joey jia established crazy maple studio in 2017.
Image source: Chinese Online official website
This is not difficult to understand. Many of reelshort’s operating methods are exactly the same as those in China.
Initially, in August 2022, reelshort translated domestic short plays and directly launched overseas. After several months of operation, the app has been tepid, and its dual list ranking is basically outside the 1,000th place.
Therefore, the reelshort team changed their strategy. The actors, scenes and scripts were all based on local materials. Most of the scripts were adapted from the popular overseas Internet test article ip. The duration of a single episode was limited to less than 3 minutes. As a result, it suddenly hit the "old American" Pain points".
At that time, reelshort only had English content. Later, Indonesian, Spanish, Thai, German, Portuguese and other versions were added.
At the same time, reelshort began to use the large AI model "Chinese Xiaoyao" to generate scripts or optimize scripts, accelerating content production on a large scale. Since then, continuing to output targeted mass-produced content has become reelshort’s way of survival.
In July this year, reelshort had two short dramas that became hits: "fated to my forbidden alpha" and "never divorce a secret billionaire heiress". reelshort also frequently appeared on entertainment application lists in various countries. At the forefront of orders, the number of downloads has also experienced explosive growth.
At this time, the team began to increase investment, using tiktok, instagram and youtube as promotional areas: uploaded some short play clips, and then directed users to the reelshort app to watch . In addition, the team also invested heavily in buying and selling, mainly investing in the android version, and it was ranked among the top 30 in the non-game distribution list in one fell swoop.
According to statistics from the data company Sensor Tower, reelshort had about 2 million new downloads every month from July to October.
On tiktok, reelshort has 370,000 fans, the three top videos alone have 62.6 million likes, and the topic #shortdrama# has been viewed 722.7 million times.
In addition, since the beginning of November, col (Chinese Online) shares have hit a seven-year high, and their market value has more than doubled to $3 billion.
Despite this, according to a survey of overseas social media by the Financial Associated Press, reelshort does seem to be popular on the overall list, but the discussion in overseas social media is not high, and the number of short plays is not much. Therefore, it is still This triggered the suspicion of reelshort’s “purchasing to increase the ranking”.
In fact, long before reelshort, crazy maple studio (Maple Leaf Interactive) had launched two novel products: "kiss-read & write romance" and "chapters: interactive stories".
Image source: chapters: interactive stories official website
The former was launched in August 2020. It focuses on the immersion of stories and provides a pure reading experience. The novels released include love, fantasy, suspense, LGBT and other themes. The latter emphasizes "a sense of immersion" and has always been at the top of the revenue list of Chinese books and comics overseas. It currently ranks 14th in the app store book category and has become one of the important sources of subsequent reelshort scripts.
chapters had more than 15 million registered users as early as 2019. In view of this, it has adapted web articles into interactive games. In 2020, its monthly revenue reached US$14 million.
Screenshot of "Chapters: Interactive Stories"｜Image source: apple store
The format of the game is simple: choose your story from chapters of contract marriage, pirates, alpha wolves, aliens, science fiction, reality shows, and TV series. In most cases, the male and female protagonists are trapped in a bloody sadomasochism, and you decide the direction of the plot through choices (falling in love, discovering secrets, or uncovering deep mysteries, etc.) and get different endings. Of course, some options come with a fee.
is such a "game that doesn't look like a game." Since its launch, its ranking on the best-selling list in the United States has been rising, and it was once close to the top 20, with annual revenue reaching hundreds of millions of yuan.
Regarding this, Jia Yi, the founder of crazy maple studio (Maple Leaf Interactive), mentioned earlier, "They are making games according to the publishing idea, that is, they do not emphasize the gameplay and focus on the story and rhythm. In this way, they are different from competing products. They have formed differences and stood out. So "Chapters" is not so much a game as it is a content platform."
It can be seen that crazy maple studio (Maple Leaf Interactive) almost includes short dramas and websites on the IP derivative chain. There are three major categories: literature and interactive novels. Now, it has begun to try the "synergy effect" between different content apps. For example, in August this year, it launched a movie called "fatal temptation between two alphas" simultaneously on the three platforms of chapters, kiss, and reelshort. work.
Short plays "going overseas", the track is crowded
In fact, Chinese Online is not the only company that produces short plays abroad. This year, manufacturers such as Xinyue Times, Changdu Technology and Jiuzhou Culture are eager to try their hand at overseas short play markets. Have a blast.
The popularity of reelshorts has also led domestic short drama platforms to focus on overseas markets.
According to statistics from relevant media, more than a dozen Chinese short drama apps have flooded overseas in September. As the number of entrants continues to increase, the traffic competition on this track is rapidly becoming fiercer.
Despite this, analysts from investment institutions said, "reelshort still has problems such as difficulty in making a profit in its business model and low content content."
In the Apple Store and Google Store, users' reviews of reelshort are also mixed.
Many users said that although reelshort's dramas are all performed by amateurs, the overall look and feel is still good. In addition, there is no compulsion to purchase membership, which is worthy of recognition.
However, some users said, "They would rather pay for a subscription, and advertising should be more restricted." In addition, many people complained, "There are very few dramas that can be watched for free by watching advertisements, and the overall charges for the dramas are still a bit high. ."
In short, the business model of short dramas may be best summarized by Musk's words about TikTok, "Short dramas are using the power of human nature to make money."
After several years of development, domestic short dramas have achieved a stable user base, and the profit model of short dramas has gradually become clear. However, overseas, short dramas are still an emerging industry. Whether short dramas can "run" overseas is still unclear. to be observed.
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