Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

What is suitable is the best.

In the past two months, the popularity of animated games has remained high.

First, "Cyberpunk 2077" attracted countless new players and old players back with "Cyberpunk: marginal Walkers", dominating the Steam weekly sales list for several weeks. Then the news that the "original God" announced that it would launch animation in cooperation with the UFO Society made the players all over the world excited.

Just last week, "Ark of tomorrow" officially broadcast the first episode of the derivative animation "Ark of tomorrow: prelude to Dawn" on bilibili, with more than 9 million broadcasts as of press time.

In fact, the game to change animation is nothing new, there are many players on this road, and what really stands out is a drop in the bucket.

But when a number of well-known games come up with mature animation works at this node, does it mean that the game into animation has ushered in a new stage of development? And what did they do right? It is worth thinking about behind this.

1, the simplest and most difficult rough view, the current game to change animation methods and strategies can be divided into three kinds: one is to restore the plot in the game; the second is to create stories independently with reference to the world outlook in the game; third, as a supplement to the game world outlook (such as prequel).

However, no matter which strategy it is, the purpose of the game manufacturer to adapt the animation is to serve the game product itself.

For example, "the Ark of tomorrow: prelude to Dawn", which was just broadcast last week, seems to be using the means of reproducing the main plot of the game.

At the beginning of the animation, Amia and the medical staff awaken the sleeping Doctor (that is, the role played by the player), and then rendezvous with Durbin and ACE, who explain the current situation to the amnesiac Doctor (introducing the worldview) and explain the identity of the Doctor and the purpose of Rhode Island action. This is basically consistent with the beginning of the game.

In a short period of 20 minutes, the animation focuses on depicting the character of the heroine Amia, highlights the sense of contradiction that Amia is kind but has to assume leadership responsibilities, and quickly sets up a distinct image for the audience. so that the audience has the motivation to continue to watch.

Generally speaking, restoring the game plot is the simplest but also the most difficult. It is simple because there is no need to rewrite the script, and as long as you restore the plot step by step, you will be able to gain the approval of most players.

The difficulty is that whether it is a game or a novel, it will leave some room for imagination to the audience, while different audiences have different understandings, and animation is presented in a figurative picture. There must be some audience whose imagination has not been satisfied, resulting in dissatisfaction and disappointment.

However, compared with the novel, the animation restoration game is relatively easier, because the game has presented some of the characters, scene design, plot style, players have a consensus on many parts.

Specific to "tomorrow's Ark", "tomorrow's Ark" is a tower defense game, the main plot of the game is mostly presented through text narration, character dialogue and static drawing. Compared with this kind of Galgame-like plot presentation, animation is undoubtedly a more advanced form of expression.

Not to mention many players who have not seen the plot seriously after playing the game for several years, they obviously prefer to understand the story in the game through animation rather than click dialogue in the game. And after having more understanding of the game plot, it also helps to enhance the old players' user stickiness and willingness to pay.

Similarly, the audience of animation is naturally different from the game. Considering the lower touch cost and easier interaction of animation, we usually think that animation has a wider audience than games. Therefore, there are bound to be audiences who will become the fresh blood of the Ark of tomorrow through animation, they also have a deeper understanding of the world outlook of the game, and have a stronger interest and motivation to continue to play, thus bringing more lasting vitality to the game.

On the whole, the Ark of tomorrow takes the way of restoring the game plot to make the animation, first, it has the consideration of production cost; second, the presentation form of the animation itself has an advantage over the in-game narrative of the Ark of tomorrow. Before the story of the game itself is presented more vividly, creating a new story will make players feel that they favor one over the other. The third is to improve players' awareness of the content of the game, and focus on improving the brand reputation and the number of users of "tomorrow's Ark" before the launch of a new project in Eagle Corner.

2. Jumping out of the frame and looking for a new story, "Ark of tomorrow" combined with the characteristics of the game itself, chose a more appropriate animation adaptation strategy, while for those games with narrative as the core or no plot at all, it seems to test the animation producers' understanding of the game and the ability to create scripts.

The most representative works in this category in the past two years are "League of Legends: the Battle of two cities" and "Cyberpunk: marginal Walker". The former is a popular competitive game all over the world, with rich world outlook settings but without a clear main line, while the latter is a RPG game produced by CDPR, which is famous for its narrative, and its story presentation and interaction itself is more immersive than animation.

However, they all chose to set the strategy of creating stories independently with reference to the world outlook in the game. The biggest advantage of this adaptation is that there is a freer creative space. The audience is unknown about the direction of the plot and will not be affected by the plot in the game. Sometimes it can even play the effect of 1: 1 > 2.

Of course, this puts forward very high requirements for the production cost and level of animation. For example, the Battle of the two cities is a fist game and Fortiche Production that took six years to produce. The series uses the world's top three-by-two technology, with more than 7000 shots and tens of thousands of hand-painted original paintings.

And behind this, there is "League of Legends" strong ability to attract money and Tencent as a support. And facts have proved that this time and capital dual investment is valuable, in the EDG championship of the game's hottest node, "Battle of two cities" broadcast so that more non-game players come into contact with "League of Legends."

At the same time, Jin Kesi, the protagonist of "Battle of two cities", is also the icon of "League of Legends Mobile Games". The popularity of the series and e-sports events have attracted more new users for the rising "League of Legends Mobile Games" and laid a more extensive user base for the follow-up development of League of Legends's IP.

"Cyberpunk: marginal Walker" also had an immediate effect on "Cyberpunk 2077". After the animation was broadcast, "Cyberpunk 2077" had 1 million active players for four consecutive days and sold more than 2000 million copies.

Some players even commented that if only the animation had been released before the game, all it needed was "you can beat Adam's sledgehammer in the game" and no other slogans were needed. (Adam sledgehammer kills the audience's beloved Rebecca in the animation, so countless players pour into the game to avenge Adam sledgehammer.)

"Cyberpunk: marginal Walker" is indeed planned and produced before the game is released, which shows that CDPR has planned a vision of creating multiple forms of work around the IP from the very beginning.

In October, CDPR unveiled a number of future projects, including a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. PawelSasko, mission director of Cyberpunk 2077, also posted a message to thank everyone for giving them a second chance, and this is also the opportunity that animation gives them. Given the timing of CDPR's announcement of its plans, it may be the popularity of animation that finally made CDPR make up his mind to continue to do cyberpunk.

From this point of view, excellent independent animation is not only a derivative of the game, it will become a part of the game and have an impact on the plot, style, play, operation and other aspects of the game.

And another way to be part of the game is to have a strong enough connection with the game story.

3, strong connection reached 1: 1 > 2 after the release of the "original God" animation promotional film, many players use the "microscope" to analyze the picture frame by frame, trying to find some clues.

According to the difference between the simultaneous appearance of Gemini and the landscape in PV, some players combined with revelations to guess that the animation of the original God is the prequel of the original God, that is, the story of the War of the Devil, the Gemini traveling to Tiwatt and the downfall of Caria.

Of course, there are some similarities between this way of prequel and the second category, after all, "Cyberpunk: marginal Walker" can also be counted as a prequel to the game on the timeline. Perhaps the difference is that the "cause" of the prequel should give a detailed and reasonable explanation of the "effect" of today's game world, that is, the difference between weak correlation and strong correlation.

In terms of the plot content of "the original God", it has a very long time and wide geographical span of the story content, based on the age of the rock god, it can be traced back to nearly 6,000 years at most, and the story also involves seven countries. Although many Tiwatt small colored eggs are buried in "the original God", most of them can only be presented in text form, and if the in-game narrative is used to present the past story completely. There is no doubt that we need to make another "original god" investment.

It is worth mentioning that the design which has been criticized by some players for not having the function of skipping the plot has played a role at the moment, and almost every "original god" player has a rich understanding of the plot. therefore, it is a bit cumbersome for players to reproduce the original plot.

In terms of the current volume and influence of "original God", the production of short independent stories does not accord with the current brand positioning of "original God", which also takes into account the problem of how to "level" the length and time of each character's animation.

Taken together, as players guessed and revealed, prequel seems to be the most appropriate choice for the original god. However, whether it is a prequel or not, animation is likely to have a strong content linkage with the game itself, and the audience of the two types of works will usher in a great integration, which is also a key step in the development of Mihayou from a game platform-wide strategy to pan-entertainment.

Conclusion: as an interactive carrier, the game itself has a stronger interaction, and changing the game into animation has some meaning of "experience degradation" to some extent.

However, different types of games and animation also have different narrative methods, manufacturers need to choose the appropriate strategy according to the situation of the game in order to achieve the effect of 1: 1 > 2.

Nowadays, the game industry is gradually moving closer to the pan-entertainment industry, which is expected to reach more audience groups, and will gradually become an important means of management and IP concept for game companies. Game animation will be a good opportunity for transformation.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:Coreesports, author: Qian Hongyan

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