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

"call of Duty OL" and "dead" may be more meaningful than "alive".

Not long ago, call of Duty 19: modern Warfare 2 was officially released. It is not uncommon for mainframe manufacturers to launch their New year products every year, but call of Duty 19 is particularly special in this year's industry context.

First of all, call of Duty 19 is the first "call of Duty" series launched by Microsoft after announcing the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and now Sony and Microsoft are arguing over whether call of Duty will be monopolized in European antitrust review in the future. the excellent performance of breaking $1 billion in sales in ten days undoubtedly adds another fire to the struggle.

Second, for Chinese players, the call of Duty series has finally ended its long career as a "lock-in zone" on Steam, which is an indispensable user for both Microsoft and Sony.

In the article "Global Talent gathering, QQ.com Yi Miha Tour competitive console Market", the author mentioned that Tencent and NetEase are seeking further cooperation with Xbox and Sony, and Chinese manufacturers will be in the console game market in the future.

It can be said that the "call of Duty" series is a concentrated projection of the new trend in the global game industry, M & A, exclusive vs platform, subscription system …... Of course, there is also a vivid case of "call of Duty: mobile Games", which changes hands and leads in and out.

The "call of Duty" family has a particularly unique existence-"call of Duty Online". While the other brothers stood in the spotlight, they stopped serving last year.

From the buyout to F2P, just before the launch of call of Duty 19, Enrico D'Angelo, former vice president of Activision's distribution division and now vice president of Roblox products, published an article on Deconstructor of Fun entitled "Call of Duty:Online is dead." Long live Call of Duty:Online! "the article.

The article reviews the process of call of Duty OL from project establishment to development to operation, and describes the difficulties and solutions encountered by the development team, as well as the impact of call of Duty OL on the call of Duty series.

The reason for reviewing call of Duty OL at this point is that it is a typical case of a shift from buyout to F2P, from one-off output to long-term operation, and successful brands entering the Chinese market from overseas markets.

Today, overseas mainframe manufacturers are moving towards the mobile end, while domestic manufacturers are starting to counter-attack the mainframe side. The former has to do exactly what the call of Duty OL has done. For the latter, it is a completely opposite logic, but we can also deduce some experiences and ways from it.

Whether it is changing hands or changing hands, bringing in or going out, Chinese manufacturers will play a key role. Therefore, the case of "call of Duty OL" can be used for reference to the current game industry.

From today's point of view, what the call of Duty series has to do to enter the Chinese market is only some local operation and distribution, and it seems superfluous to make a game for the Chinese market alone.

At that time, the Chinese game market PC players are absolutely the main force, and even many players do not have enough performance of the equipment mostly choose to play games in Internet cafes, the mainframe market is very small and there is no formal channel to sell. At the same time, there was almost no way out for buyout games at that time due to consumer habits and piracy.

Therefore, if Activision wants to successfully promote the COD series in China, it must launch a F2P system of "call of Duty". At the same time, the design of the new economic system also makes the production team need to change the previous development and operation mode in the "call of Duty OL" project.

Interestingly, in the early days of the development of call of Duty OL, it was difficult to find successful 3D free FPS games in Europe and the United States. Therefore, the biggest "rival" of "call of Duty OL" happens to be "Crossing the Line of Fire" also represented by Tencent and "Assault Fire" developed by Tencent.

As for why Tencent launched three similar shooter games in succession, Xu Guang, general manager of Tencent Games shooter products department at that time, said: "the positioning and user base of these products are very different. CF is a more mainstream game, and Assault Fire is more of a very entertaining way to play. The positioning of" call of Duty "is to do the most professional and innovative way of playing."

Generally speaking, the two major challenges encountered by call of Duty OL in the initial stage are the change of charging model and how to differentiate from other similar products.

Similarly, when domestic manufacturers push successful mobile games to overseas PC and even mainframe markets in the future, the first thing to consider is the change of charging mode.

In the article mentioned earlier, the author gives an example of NetEase's plan to transplant products such as "Wild Action" and "Fifth Personality" which are more successful in the Japanese market to the PS5 platform in the future. Of course, tactical competitive games like Operation Wild already have a more mature business model.

What is more difficult is the acceptance of the pay-to-win model in overseas markets. Although overseas players in the field of mobile games have gradually accepted some pay-to-win games, in PC and mainframe, their consumption habits are still dominated by buyout and non-attribute bonus.

However, the current game market is more global, diversified and cross-platform than it was a decade ago, so at the beginning of entering the mainframe platform, the author thinks that mobile game manufacturers are more inclined to build brand fame and acquire users. Its strategic purpose is greater than the purpose of profit.

Especially when the current version number policy is tight, various manufacturers reduce costs, and it is difficult for some teams to set up projects, some game teams do not have new projects to do, so they look for more ways out in terms of channels and platforms. help overseas manufacturers change hands or transplant their own projects to other platforms.

Like some typical domestic pay-to-win games such as MMORPG, after several years of long-term operation, there has been a very sufficient reserve of content and play. When transplanting overseas host platforms, we can consider adopting the system of buyout + appearance charges, so as to form a win-win situation of brand and revenue.

The transplantation of new platforms, new markets and new ideas is one aspect of the work, while developing a new game for the new regional market is another, which requires a fundamental change in development and design ideas.

Call of Duty OL was developed in 2010, but until the end of 2013, call of Duty OL was designed to include almost only paid content in the previous COD framework.

In tests at the time, the production team found that players did not like the PVE mode of call of Duty OL. Perhaps because of the influence of CS and CF, Chinese players still prefer the rich mode of PVP play.

Although it is true that COD is based on the PVP experience, it is essential as part of a single-player campaign when making a buyout game. When it comes to F2P, games need to attract players more quickly because of the low barriers to entry, and the lengthy and complex PVE model is difficult to be accepted by mass players.

As a result, call of Duty OL ultimately chose to present PVE content as a novice task, and allowed players to use all characters, weapons, accessories, and Passive Skill in any mode (PVE and PVP modes were independent in previous COD series), which also had a huge impact on the later design of the COD series.

On the other hand, the operation of an F2P game requires the production team's production capacity, which needs to launch activity content and marketing periodically like other games to ensure game popularity and user retention.

In the process of turning to F2P, call of Duty OL still adheres to the principle of not doing pay-to-win design, and rejects the design ideas such as leasing props and high-priced weapons. But in the Chinese game market at that time, the paid content without real attribute bonus could hardly arouse the desire of some players to pay, which may be one of the reasons why call of Duty OL was at a disadvantage in terms of revenue.

At the same time, in the process of localization, the production team also found that more exaggerated and gorgeous decorative effects can more effectively attract Chinese players to pay, although this is contrary to the principles of the COD series of hard-core competitions, it is indeed an effective way to improve the length of time and fees for players.

Enrico said bluntly that now, "call of Duty" was not very suitable for the Chinese market at that time. Whether in terms of vision, plot or play, call of Duty does not quite conform to the aesthetics of Chinese players and the rhythm of the game they are familiar with.

"generally speaking, the closer a product's culture is to the market, the more likely it is to succeed, but on the other hand, if a product needs to undergo a lot of changes to succeed in a particular market, it may not be suitable for that market at all." Enrico said.

Although call of Duty OL has not been an unprecedented success in China, it has made Activision realize that Chinese players want to be part of the global community of the COD series and want to experience what other overseas players are playing. This also inspires us the importance of building products by targeting the global market at the moment.

At the beginning of this year, the author interviewed the product team of a large factory. At that time, the production team told me that their products are mainly domestic and support dual-end, but the mobile end users are still the most mainstream. After waiting for the edition number for more than half a year, they still haven't heard from them, but now they have begun to test in overseas markets, which is bound to make some changes to the original products.

For the head of manufacturers, only for a single market, a single platform project ideas have begun to be difficult to adapt to the changing form of the market. If you want to come up with a blockbuster product that is hard enough, you need a more global, platform-wide consideration when setting up a project.

For example, what are my main target markets? What kind of paid design can be accepted by most target users? How to balance the play design of PC and mobile phone? Is the way content is produced in an one-off or continuous manner? Will sticking to the style of the game greatly affect its acceptance in the mainstream market? Whether it is possible to adopt different paid designs on different platforms.

In the face of new platforms and new markets, we must dare to put forward new ideas and break the existing framework in order to stand out in the global game market full of strong players.

Different products look for different positioning the title of this article is called "call of Duty OL is dead, call of Duty OL lasts forever!" ". The author chose this title because call of Duty OL has not become a phenomenal game, but many of its concepts, designs and frameworks have deeply influenced the development of the follow-up works of the call of Duty series.

Such as platform, tactical competitive mode, dynamic hall and winner circle, breaking through mode estrangement, season design and so on. There is also a very important point, that is, the development experience of call of Duty Online has greatly affected call of Duty Mobile Games.

You know, call of Duty Online was not officially tested until 2015, when Crossing the Line of Fire: the King of gunfights began a large-scale test for players and was officially launched in early 2016.

Because of its experience in making mobile games, Activision believes that Tencent will be an excellent choice for making "call of Duty Mobile Games". Timi and Photon are both interested in "call of Duty Mobile Games" and have developed two highly completed prototypes in less than a month.

It is worth mentioning that Timi chose to make a multiplayer mode demo, while Photon chose a single player campaign. Combined with the experience of "call of Duty OL", Activision finally chose Timi to produce "call of Duty Mobile Game".

Also because of call of Duty OL, Activision and Timi decided to create call of Duty Mobile Games in the framework of call of Duty OL, with no single player campaign, completely focused on PVP mode, and did not bundle call of Duty Mobile Games with any subseries of COD.

This choice allows the production team to break free from the shackles to create customized content for players in different countries and regions, and can even be used to promote the launch of the COD series of games. Timi even directly transplanted the tactical competitive mode of "Crossing the Line of Fire: the King of gunfights" to the "call of Duty Mobile Games".

The result is obvious, "call of Duty Mobile Game" designed according to the operation idea of "call of Duty OL" has not won the performance of "Crossing the Line of Fire: the King of gunfights" in the domestic market, but it has achieved great success in the field of going out to sea. And "call of Duty Mobile Games" also acts as a similar platform in the whole series, and more players will come into contact with the whole series and become fans through "call of Duty Mobile Games".

This also gives us the idea of creating a series of products, sometimes when designing cross-platform games, it is not necessary to ensure that the game content is exactly the same. For example, mobile games provide a lighter and more casual experience, while relatively deep content games can be designed to the host or PC.

With the division of work and cooperation between different platforms, the mobile side expands the breadth of users, and the host and PC side show the depth of play. In the same IP, each product does not necessarily have to use a different game category, but to make differences in content is sometimes a very cost-effective solution.

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

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