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Text | Game Value Theory

On July 16, the SLG game "World Origin" developed by Tencent's Northern Lights Studio Group and distributed by Ruyi Jingxiu was launched and landed at the top of the free list.

In the SLG track, a traditional large category in China, an interesting point is that Tencent has been lacking a representative work after "League of Legends". Although there have been many attempts in recent years, the results have not been ideal.

Tencent wants to prove itself, and Northern Lights also wants to prove itself. As one of Tencent's four major studio groups, Northern Lights Studio has always been considered the one with the lowest presence.

But one thing we cannot forget is that in the field of the two-dimensional world, the only product Tencent can come up with is "Light and Night" from Northern Lights.

SLG, Three Kingdoms

The SLG track has always been the most important category in the Chinese game market, whether in the era of PC games, web games, or mobile games.

In the era of mobile games, from the early "Clash of Kings" to later products such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition" and "Rate of War", all have achieved good results in the market.

especially"Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition", a product launched in 2019, has been ranked in the top 3 of China's mobile game best-selling list for many years., even if it has declined slightly now, it is still stable in the top 20,It can be said that the ceiling of the entire SLG category has been raised to another level.

As early as April 2021, data from Sensor Tower showed that the game's estimated total revenue on the global App Store and Google Play had reached US$1.121 billion (excluding Android in China), only a year and a half after the product was launched.

When talking about the SLG category, we have to mention the label "Three Kingdoms", which is not just "Three Kingdoms Strategy Edition".Currently, most of the SLGs that are performing well in the market are based on the Three Kingdoms or have incorporated elements of the Three Kingdoms.

For example, "Three Kingdoms: The Destiny of the World", which was launched last month, is an SLG product launched by Bilibili and has basically remained in the top 10 of the best-selling list within one month after its launch.

Or maybe it’s NetEase’s representative product in the SLG field, “Rate of Kingdoms”. Since its launch in 2015, it has basically remained stable in the top 30 of the best-selling list. It is another representative work of NetEase’s long-term games.

Finally, we have to mention Tencent's "Chaos King", which was launched in November 2017. This SLG, which also has strong Three Kingdoms elements, was once Tencent's representative work in SLG and has long been ranked at the top of the best-selling list.At the time, it was competing fiercely with "Rate of War" and "Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition". At the most exaggerated time, the three games even entered the top 10 of the best-selling list at the same time.

However, compared to the long-term performance of the first two games, "King of Chaos" lacked stamina and declined in the later stages.

After "King of Chaos", Tencent has made many attempts in the SLG category, such as "Red Alert OL" and "Return to the Empire", but they have failed to reproduce the success of "King of Chaos". Since then, Tencent has gradually lost its voice in the SLG category.

SLG sells culture

"World Origin", another SLG work from Tencent.

To be honest, after we experienced it, we can’t say that the product has no highlights. The product has many highlights, including reduced liver and krypton costs, novel themes, and rich gameplay.

Overall it's a good game, but it's not a good SLG.

One question we need to consider is why "Three Kingdoms"-type SLGs can remain popular for so long. From Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms series in the handheld era to the current mobile game era, the Three Kingdoms has always been the main theme of SLGs in the Chinese market.

The answer lies inThe gameplay of SLG determines that what it sells is culture, a sense of immersion in real perception.There are too many people who have infinite yearning for the heroism of the Three Kingdoms era, and the gameplay and game carrier of SLG just meet such needs.

As a side note, there are certainly many reasons why "King of Chaos" gradually lost out in the competition with the other two products, but one of the reasons is that he incorporated characters from various eras into the game in a hodgepodge manner, because this broke the player's sense of immersion and the sense of historical reality.

In "Honor of Kings", I can accept Bai Qi versus Zhao Yun, because MOBA games are about competition and confrontation, but in SLG games, it is difficult for me to accept such a setting because it breaks the sense of culture and prevents players from deeply immersing themselves in the culture of a certain era. The Three Kingdoms did happen in reality, but Bai Qi VS Zhao Yun, that is another dimension.

The Global SLG Mobile Game Market Trend Report released by Diandian Data shows that:In the global game market in 2023, the top three SLG revenues are "Civilization", "Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition", and "Rise of Kingdoms".

in"Civilization", which is set against the backdrop of European medieval culture, is nowhere to be found on the best-selling list in the Chinese market, while "Rise of Kingdoms", which is set against the backdrop of the fusion of multi-national history, has been ranked around 100th for the past year.

This fully illustrates a problem. It is difficult for SLG to make major innovations in the gameplay itself. It can only integrate some secondary gameplay.Cultural background is its biggest selling point.

The biggest problem with "World Awakening" is whether it can sell this modern cultural background.Compared with "Three Kingdoms: The Destiny of the World" which was launched in June, we must of course commend "World Qiyuan" for its courage to break out of the shackles of inherent culture, but the performance of both on the best-selling list seems to indicate that what players still want is a kind of cultural identity.

Two years ago, I talked to a big spender in Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition. He spent several million. I asked him why he spent so much in a game. His answer was,Feelings, the feelings buried in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms」。

From this point of view, I am not optimistic about "World Revolution". Just one day later, it dropped to fourth place in the free list."Three Kingdoms: Conquering the World", an SLG that is still "confined" in the Three Kingdoms culture, has remained at the top of the free list for a week.

Of course, we also need to know thatWhen Northern Lights first entered the two-dimensional world with "Love and Night", no one was optimistic about it, but in the end it did occupy a share of the two-dimensional market.

It is possible that "World Awakening" will also have such a trend in the later stages.

Northern Lights, can we wait until the next 3A project is established?

Regardless of "World Revelation", this is another attempt by Northern Lights.

In the past two years, when people talk about Tencent’s four major game studio groups, Northern Lights, based in Shanghai, is always the one that is most easily forgotten. Especially in the past two years, with the strong rise of the Magic Cube Studio Group, Northern Lights has become a transparent existence when people mention Tencent.

This is indeed true. Compared with the brilliance of Tianmei and Photon, and the latecomer of Magic Cube, Northern Lights is indeed a bit lacking in product performance. Apart from the above-mentioned "Love and Night", the only product that can be mentioned is "Tian Ya Ming Yue Dao Mobile Game".

Compared with the mediocre product performance, what is even more embarrassing for Northern Lights is that this magical place, Shanghai, has given birth to a number of new generation game companies such as MiHoYo and Lilith, among which Lilith’s initial team all came from Northern Lights.

This gave rise to a new problem.Northern Lights is not attractive enough, whether it is within Tencent or in Shanghai, in terms of resources allocation or talent flow., this may be the dilemma that the Northern Lights is facing now.

In addition to this dilemma, the overall development direction of Northern Lights is not particularly clear. I used to think that Northern Lights’ internal positioning within Tencent should be responsible for 3A.

After all, many people at Northern Lights, including the boss of the studio group, have a background in Ubisoft, and they did make a "Ring of Elysium" game a few years ago. From our experience at the time, this game was actually very good, and it used the independently developed engine Mercury Engine.

However, Ring of Elysium did not achieve the corresponding success, and everyone in the gaming industry knows how expensive it is to make such a game.

This is also the reason why after "Ring of Elysium", Northern Lights has been stuck in a state of unclear direction for a long time, because it is difficult for Northern Lights to launch another 3A project.

If a money-making SLG like "World Origin" can be made, Northern Lights may have the capital to try again.