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Author | Akagi Pingzi

Editor | Sugar-fried Hawthorn

Following the #ugly# tag in the music industry, the mobile gaming industry also has its own new tag: #boring#.

On July 4, after the release of the 2D combat mobile game "Zero", #bored# became a hot search topic, and the topic on the Internet was constantly centered around "is it fun?" The evaluation content mainly focused on what was fun/not fun, which became a great spectacle in the mobile game industry. To the extent that many non-Miyou players did not know whether "Zero" was fun or not, the diverse audience of 2D games was once again recognized.

With the support of miHoYo's new game and the summer season, the Internet has given "Zero" enough attention. Before its launch, the number of reservations for "Zero" exceeded 46 million worldwide, breaking the record of "Zero".Genshin Impact》 record, and also became the ceiling of the number of reservations for Eryou before its launch - previously "Collapse: Skyrail》Before the launch, the official pre-order volume exceeded 20 million, and the overseas pre-order volume exceeded 10 million. After the official launch, the download volume exceeded 50 million in 72 hours; a number of game bloggers on Bilibili and Youtube reviewed it; the main topic of Douyin was played 6.6 billion times.

According to Diandian data, from July 4 to July 18, within 15 days of the game’s launch, “Zero” successfully attracted more than 118 million yuan in revenue from iOS channels in China. If viewed through the filter of “Original God” and “Honkai Impact 3rd”, such results seem to be a bit insignificant: According to Gamma data, “Honkai Impact 3rd” was the best performing new game of the month, with an estimated revenue of more than 1.2 billion yuan in the first month.

The fusion of American animation and traditional two-dimensional styles, multiple popular characters, and a unique community atmosphere have all brought positive effects to this new game. However, "lack of momentum", "relaxation to boredom", and confrontations between players from different camps have also made "Zero Zone" the top portrayal of current two-dimensional games half a month after its public beta.

The "boring" "normal attack god of war", is "Zero" no longer able to take on the responsibility?

The creator miHoYo is always the first to be compared with the phenomenal second game "Genshin Impact".

On the one hand, this shows the fault in the two-dimensional game market. The performance of "Genshin Impact" and "Bengtie" led by "Mijia" is always compared with the latecomers. On the other hand, the threshold of the two-dimensional game track is difficult to cross. In addition to strong production strength, it is also important to be familiar with the circle culture and provide players with a communication and creative atmosphere.This is also why in recent years, there have been few "powerful" mobile game products similar to Genshin Impact.

But after "Genshin Impact" and "Honkai Impact 3rd", miHoYo obviously can't give that much.On social media, many players think that the game is not amazing enough, or even boring, and "don't want to play it after a few hours." Some players even call it a "welfare scam": the official benefits are not 180 draws after downloading, but are scattered in emails, level rewards, and various sign-in pages. 70 draws are for the general pool, 80 draws are for Bomb coupons, and only 30 draws can be used to draw the limited shark maid Ellen Joe.

In terms of gameplay, "Zero Zone" incorporates the "grid-walking" gameplay with rogue elements, which has also become a gathering place for negative reviews with mixed reviews. Some players said, "It's very novel at the beginning, but it will get boring after a while."

The entry threshold for fighting games is relatively high, and you can feel that "Zero Zone" wants to use the "0 threshold" to attract more players from different circles.Before the game was launched, producer Li Zhenyu shared his ideas on action game production in a conversation with the producer of "Street Fighter 6": he likened the "entry" of action games from simple to difficult to "three lines", which is similar to the user's learning process.

That is to say, before letting users touch and understand the most attractive, fun and profound parts, "Zero" needs to make more efforts to let players adapt and gain a sense of accomplishment. For example, the most superficial "burst" in "Street Fighter" has only one button, but it can turn defense into offense. In "Zero", "flick knife" is also a similar experience of turning defense into offense.

In the early stages, users may be interested in elements such as Liufen Street, the main city, exploration, art, and music, and may also feel a sense of accomplishment from the strong feedback of the battle. The series of combo skills triggered in "Zero Zone" and the gorgeous attack skill feedback in slow motion may make players feel that they have "done something amazing."

Originally, when we talked about this, the expectation of the game would be that "players start matching characters, forming combat teams, and encountering more difficult levels and more difficult enemies." In fact, many players feel "bored" about the operation of being able to pass a level with just a normal attack, and the combat experience is not very playable, which has become a more resonant item in the players' negative reviews, and the Internet has also produced hot memes such as "AAA God of War".

Li Zhenyu said that the team has been repeatedly studying why players feel that they can't play anymore when they reach a certain stage. The team will conduct special analysis and design curves, and will deliberately separate the early, middle and late stage experiences.

It is understandable that "Zero" wanted to be an easy-to-understand combat product in the two-dimensional game, but in the end it seemed to have a "failed to bear the heavy responsibility" start.

Players want to "cut off second-tier games", and miHoYo wants to make a "family bucket" of second-tier games?

After "Genshin Impact" became a phenomenal product, game manufacturers rushed to compete in the two-dimensional game track, which is essentially a competition for young users.

However, as the content of the two-dimensional industry continues to innovate and attract fans from across circles, two-dimensional games have become a double-edged sword.The scale of domestic two-dimensional games continues to expand, and the resulting "fan circle" culture and circle culture are also constantly stirring up the two-dimensional game community, with miHoYo being the first to be affected.

On the one hand, strong dependence forms a group of fans of their own game products and even companies.For example, one of the names of supporters of miHoYo games is "Mi Guards", and this name has gradually transitioned from fanatical fans to self-deprecating among ordinary players.

On the other hand, such strong correlation and high emotional dependence may not only trigger some ACG game players to engage in online verbal wars, but may also lead to "collapse" incidents with severe consequences. For example, the "Bunny Girl Incident" on the overseas server of the "Honkai Impact" series has previously triggered social cases of players' excessive offline behavior.

To some extent, it is not an exaggeration to use the "black and red" characteristics to describe miHoYo.This is naturally related to the plot and character creation that MiHoYo has always been good at. "Sometimes, players don't like the characters in MiHoYo's games when they watch the actual game, but they like them after watching the PV," said a player.This also helped it to develop a fanatical atmosphere similar to that of a "fan circle".

So there was a small-scale "cutting off 2D games" incident in the MiHoYo community in June this year. Simply put, in view of the constant incidents of inciting conflicts and cross-dressing, MiHoYo no longer stands with 2D games as a united front, MiHoYo ≠ 2D games, and players call for cutting off the 2D game circle to purify the gaming community environment.

Interestingly, there are not only non-miHoYo players, but also internal players who "love the game too much and criticize it too harshly" and "run away". For example, in the comments section of "Honkai Impact 3", the only PC product of miHoYo on Steam so far, more than 11,000 reviews are "mostly negative". The top popular comment "I have been playing Honkai Impact 3 for four years and forgot to give a negative review on Steam" received 367 likes.

As the game territory continued to expand, miHoYo itself did not stop because of various negative feedbacks.On June 15, miHoYo's "Honkai Impact 3", "Genshin Impact", and "Honkai Impact 3: A New Era" simultaneously announced that the corresponding game PC launchers will be updated to miHoYo Launcher, and maintenance and support for the old PC launcher will be stopped. On June 17, the "miHoYo Launcher" was officially launched. Currently, miHoYo Launcher has integrated "Honkai Impact 3", "Genshin Impact", "Honkai Impact 3: A New Era", and "Zero Zone", which is very similar to the Battle.net that players are familiar with.

Blizzard's Battle.net, which was originally a stand-alone PVP platform, carries itsWorld of Warcraft》《Heroes of the Storm》《call of Duty》《Hearthstone》 and other Activision Blizzard "family buckets", the establishment of its own game platform can obviously better receive player feedback and cultivate a free ecosystem. In addition, miHoYo has also launched a community product, miHoYo Club, which includes its game official wikis and community channels such as fan fiction and cosplay.By integrating its own popular games into its own launcher, miHoYo's ambition to create a "family bucket" of 2D games is obvious.

The entertainment market this summer is slightly sluggish. The "2024 Summer Game Trend Report" jointly released by Weibo and Crawley predicts that the summer of 2024 will be the "most epic game battlefield".Black Myth: Wukong》has become a representative of long-term operations that incorporates the manufacturer's years of hard work.

Now it seems that the highly anticipated "Zero" in the summer has mixed results, while Kuro Games' "Naruto" has performed well overseas. Sensor Tower data shows that as of July 12, the cumulative global revenue of "Naruto" has exceeded 85 million US dollars. Thanks to the significant growth in revenue in popular markets such as South Korea, Japan and the United States, it has become the two-dimensional mobile game with the highest revenue growth in the world in June, and won the Korean two-dimensional mobile game revenue championship this period. "Naruto" is therefore regarded as the new dark horse in the two-dimensional game industry. In the relevant game comment area of ​​miHoYo, it is easy to find the presence of "Naruto" players.

The summer season for second-tier games is still going on. While we are impressed by the vitality of young second-dimensional players, we also have to think about how to arouse players’ curiosity and boost market enthusiasm after second-tier games enter the stock era.