i discovered that after several years of struggling in japan, tencent finally landed.

according to the "2023 japanese mobile game market analysis report" released by sensor tower, tencent overwhelmingly became the publisher with the fastest revenue growth in japan last year.

behind this achievement, there is one thing that may be beyond everyone's awareness, and that is that tencent is so strong in japan, largely due to its two-dimensional capabilities.

looking at the data, it is not difficult to find that tencent’s major contributor in japan is undoubtedly “victory goddess: nikki”(hereinafter referred to as nikke). public data shows that more than half of nikke’s revenue comes from the japanese market, and nikke also ranked second among the top 10 games revenue growth in the japanese market last year.

compared with data, the recent tokyo game show（TGS）it can directly reflect the popularity of the product in japan.

nikke's product exhibition area this year was placed into the overall exhibition area of ​​tencent games' overseas brand level infinite. since the first player day of tgs, the entrance to the exhibition area has been mobbed.

at the scene, nikke made a special giant display cabinet to simulate the ten companies of players. what was placed in it was not character figures, but character cosplayers. this mobile device has a strong impact on the scene. even if it is placed in the tgs venue where all the stars are gathered, it is a novel arrangement. whether you are a player of this game or not, you should be attracted to it.

in fact, just one hour after tgs opened, nikke’s event site was already crowded with players.

when kim hyung-tae, the ceo of the developer shift up, and yoo hyung-seok, the producer of nikke, came to the stage to interact with the players, the excitement on the scene was further pushed to a climax. the players' voices came one after another, and the entrance to the exhibition area was surrounded by water.

on the daily tweets, you can also see many players spontaneously sharing what they saw and heard at the nikke booth.

at this time yesterday, i never thought i could be so happy in tgs.i really enjoyed it and thanks again to everyone who made such a place possible! thanks!

i was lucky enough to participate in the real ten company! kim hyung tae actually challenged the real ten companies in front of me! what a blessing!

you may think that it is not unusual for nikke to gain such high popularity in tgs. after all, in offline exhibitions, two-dimensional products with stronger content capabilities always have an advantage, and this is japan with a strong acg atmosphere.

but if you observe the overall history of nikke since its launch in japan, you will find that tencent has mastered some methods at the distribution level, and this is not just achieved by the product itself.

for example, they have put a lot of effort into the overall format and content of live broadcasts, and pay special attention to offline marketing.

recently, the game's 1.5th anniversary broadcast was held at tokyo tower media center studio earth, the largest studio in tokyo, and the topic ranked among the top three trending topics on twitter. during the period, their niconico super conference exhibition and real-life ten-draw device attracted a large number of players at the scene, and the queue at the venue once reached more than 3 hours.

moreover, the game also features shibuya landmarksakita dogthe advertisement has been creatively linked, and the animation of the three nikke characters interacting with the akita dog has been displayed on 7 outdoor screens, and the time is told on the hour. this linkage even attracted the attention of japanese mass media.

the publishing team believes that combining things that users love with real life will trigger strong emotional responses and leave deep memories. although some ideas are already very common online,but putting it offline and combining it with life scenes may lead to more creative ideas, allowing players to discuss it online, and the efficiency and popularity will be much higher.

the event layout of this tgs can also be regarded as a continuation of this overall idea.

in addition to the popular live-action ten-game event, in-game voice actors mao, satomi arai, and yoko hikasa also appeared at the game booth to perform famous scenes in the game. this allowed content-focused japanese players to experience the world view and charm of the game offline.

another advantage of this is that it can continue to maintain the popularity and popularity of the game offline, which can not only increase the recognition and pride of existing users, but also create an atmosphere of "this game is very popular" for players outside the circle. convert them from passersby to potential users.

for veteran players of the game, the team also displayed the works of core creators offline, and many users stopped to check in. those creators obviously also felt the team's intentions, and expressed their gratitude on the daily push, which seemed to be a two-way journey.

nikke’s booth is really great! move!

during this tgs trip, mr. putao also discovered that tencent’s efforts in the japanese market are not limited to the second dimension - in the level infinite exhibition area, they also brought several other models that are completely different from nikke. european and american products, and have also gained considerable popularity.

for example, "exoborne" is a near-future game that focuses on evacuation shooting. because the world view of the game is set in the apocalyptic setting of the southern united states, they built a small yellow bus with representative elements on site to simulate the atmosphere of the game. players can sit in it and experience an immersive audio-visual experience. on the first day of tgs player day, the enthusiasm of players exceeded my imagination. if i wanted to get on the bus, i had to queue for an hour.

for another example, "dune: awakening" created a small movie theater in the dune universe on-site. rows and rows of players sat together and stared at the big screen attentively. it felt like watching a movie premiere.

at first glance, these games may not fit our impression of the japanese market. after all, these categories have nothing to do with the second dimension, and they are all pc products.

but this may just reflect tencent's judgment on the japanese market.

according to data from the "famitsu game white paper 2024" released by japan's kadokawa ascii research institute, in japan's online game content market, although mobile games still account for 71% of the market share, they have declined for three consecutive years, while the market size of pc games has exceeded last year it expanded by 24.9%. in the past four years, its share has gradually increased to 14.5% of the overall share, making it the fastest growing game market in japan.

at the same time, according to statistics from the japan electronics and information technology industry association, japanese pc shipments increased by 19.5% to 523,000 units in august 2024 compared with the same month last year, showing growth for the second consecutive month, with an increase of more than 10% every month. the size of the japanese pc market has doubled for three consecutive years. and with growth, there are new opportunities.

based on this premise, it is not surprising that level infinite brought "exoborne" to japan for release. it is also a competitive shooting game based on pvp, and it is only available on pc and console. the game will undergo more testing at the end of this year and is scheduled to be launched in 2025. this game can also be regarded as a continuation of the idea of ​​​​"3a quality long-term operation games" that tencent has been doing.

brynley gibson, executive producer of "exoborne", told grape jun that compared with similar products, the differentiating highlights of "exoborne" are the exoskeleton armor and weather system. the former allows players to make customized adjustments according to their own strategies in each game, while the latter is not only a visual impact, but also actually affects the game, so players must take weather factors into tactical considerations.

the combination of the two ensures the richness and fun of the core combat of the game. coupled with the mixed gameplay of pvp and pve, they together constitute the differentiation of the game.

"dune: awakening" is a soc(survival construction), is also one of the most popular game types on steam, such as "conan exiles", "ark: evolved survival", "temple of valor"...you can think of many games.

unlike mmorpg, although soc also has multiplayer social elements, the pressure is far less than that of mmo, and the relationship between players is not so closely connected. even if it is a single-player game, the game gives players room to grow and is not tightly tied to social gameplay. therefore, soc is also a frequent visitor on the best-selling list of steam japan.

in order to allow japanese players to understand the game more quickly and intuitively, level infinite directly invited a large number of developers to the scene to communicate directly with players on the stage.

for example, "dunenills and farah, the two producers of "awakening", both came to the scene and chatted about everything about the company and the project. they said that funcom was founded in the early 1990s and has been involved in the mmo genre for a long time. to date, it has produced more than 25 games.

at the same time, they also told everyone why they were doing it and how they planned to make it. now "dune: awakening" has been developed for three years, including a series of contents such as production system, building system, cooperation function, free trade, political factions and so on. farah said he really liked the sand dunes and even went to the sahara desert several times to make sure the sand felt real.

when the developers expressed their feelings on the stage, the players in the audience also gave enthusiastic feedback. they would ask questions and suggestions, hoping that the developers would make a more localized mmo design based on the playing environment and habits of japanese players. . to some extent, these exchanges have already transcended cultural barriers.

in the past, we have talked about tencent’s overseas expansion many times.

since 2019, tencent senior vice president ma xiaoyi has repeatedly emphasized to putaojun that they do not want to rely on large-scale purchases and low-added value-added tactics, but hope to rely on core gameplay and basic quality to achieve success on different platforms. , different regions and different categories have achieved success, eventually making overseas revenue more than half of tencent’s total game revenue.

of course, achieving this goal is hellishly difficult. looking around the world, there may not be any game company that has truly achieved this. this takes a lot of time and goes through an extremely complicated process.

judging from this year's tgs scene and tencent's japanese revenue in the past two years, they have at least completed the infrastructure work in the japanese market.

from a category perspective, they have achieved a good performance in japan’s mainstream two-dimensional market. in addition to mobile games and two-dimensional games, they are also exploring the ability to expand horizontally.

more importantly, in various cases, the team's japanese distribution strategy has also been improved: what kind of products require what kind of distribution methods and resources, how to hit the rankings with daily push, who should local kols find, and what kind of operational activities how to allocate local resources when it is popular with japanese players and has a limited budget... faced with these questions, the team should already have a set of answers in mind.

in order to help developers solve more problems, level infinite has also been accumulating its own middle-end capabilities in the past few years. for example, the operational tools they are building will be based on the goal of adapting to cross-platform, cross-business model, and cross-regional distribution, and will provide localization, content production, distribution operations, marketing and promotion support for cooperative projects, including aigc technical tools, game safety(such as anti-cheating)waiting for such technical support.

jin hengtai said that level infinite is a very good partner. global distribution can be left to the more professional level infinite. they can only focus on the game development itself.

"exoborne" executive producer brynley gibson also told grape jun that they now have about 400 employees around the world, with branches in london and sweden. but they are relatively unfamiliar with the east asian market, such as the japanese market, and they really want to communicate with japanese players in person to understand their real needs. in this regard, with the help of tencent, they can get twice the result with half the effort.

level infinite's japan and south korea regional distribution manager kaikai also said that returning to tgs this time, they hope to work with global cooperative studios to bring richer game content to japanese players.

to a certain extent, level infinite's participation in tgs this time is not only a summary of the stage, but also a sign of preparation for the next new stage in japan. in the next stage, they may no longer be just newcomers to challenge existing head categories.(such as two-dimensional), but as a pioneer, using the global system and advantages to explore more possibilities in the japanese market.