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

After all, the party game can not avoid a common question-whether it can ensure a stable popularity after being separated from the blessing of the anchor.

For the Steam platform these two days, 2023 is a great start. According to SteamDB, the number of simultaneous online users on Steam has recently topped 33 million-while the number of players in the game has exceeded 10 million for the first time.

A recently popular party game has made an outstanding contribution to the latter data. Recently, it must have appeared repeatedly in front of you without warning, in the "golden age" of explosion-"goose and duck killing" (Goose Goose Duck).

Like "Among Us" and "Sugar Bean Man" a few years ago, the popularity and snowball of "Goose and Duck Kill" mercilessly occupied the major live broadcast platforms during this period. It also broke the record of "predecessors" and became the party game with the highest online peak in Steam history, and the highest number of people online even surpassed "Apex", giving the gaming world a "little casual game shock".

Yesterday, "Goose and Duck Kill" has exceeded 600000 people online at the same time, and when countless anchors and players regard it as the top casual brand of the New year, people can't help but ask: how on earth did it become popular?

1 the first thing we need to know is that Goose and Duck Kill is not a "peak" game.

As one of the imitators of "Among Us", Goose and Duck Kill began testing in April 2021 and was not officially released until October 2021. Since then, the player data of the game has shown an overall growth trend, but it has always been "insipid", and the relevant content on live platforms such as Twitch is also relatively deserted. It is not until the last two months that the number of games has exploded.

Compared with the current number of online games, the online data of "goose and duck killing" before November can only be described as "close to the ground". Interestingly, there are great differences at home and abroad about the cause of the explosion of "goose and duck killing". If you are looking for clues on the Internet, you may get a somewhat confusing reason-Kim Tae Heng, a member of the bulletproof Cadet Corps, broadcast the game live on November 14, and led by fans, Goose and Duck Kill has become more and more popular all over the world.

But in fact, Goose and Duck Kill quietly stood at the top of South Korea's mobile downloads as early as the first half of 2022, and the game's Steam popularity began to rise before Kim Tae Heng was broadcast live on November 14.

Data source Sensor Tower

The sudden popularity of data source SteamDB plus "goose and duck killing" on domestic live streaming platforms does not show an obvious correlation with the hot timeline of the South Korean market, and it is difficult to explain the unprecedented popularity of "goose and duck killing" in China with "star live broadcast with goods" alone.

However, no matter the origin of the game, in the weeks after December, the name "Goose and Duck Kill" was printed in the minds of Chinese players with a series of witty slogans. " As soon as Diao de spoke, he applied to lead the team, "gather in the canteen, the game is over," and "Lao Ma, Lao Ma" and a series of famous anchor quotes may surround people's ears in the near future, and they will still have "aftersounds" in their minds when they go to bed.

And the developers of "Goose and Duck Kill" are also well aware of the popularity of the "Chinese anchor lottery". As the popularity of the game skyrocketed, a large number of players poured into the game, and the game's server was often down. Officials even hurriedly issued a notice in Chinese promising to solve the problem as soon as possible, while thanking Chinese players for their strong enthusiasm.

On the domestic live broadcast platform, Goose and Duck Kill has even succeeded in breaking down the gap between different regions, making anchors in different regions willing to play together.

For example, the hearthstone partition, which is still experiencing "ups and downs", is because the live broadcast effect of the game perfectly meets the dual needs of viewers from "having fun" to "watching the interaction of major anchors": the cost of understanding is close to zero, and the duration of each game is only a few minutes, coupled with various performances of anchors, so that "every game has surprises" and famous scenes emerge one after another.

For example, the most famous of them can be said to be a team of top anchors such as Big Sima, Xiao Tuan Tuan and eggplant, who have played an important role in the spread of the game. A game born with a performing nature meets a happy performer, and the overall atmosphere is like a large variety show.

For the "duck and goose kill" team, such amazing free publicity can be called "pie in the sky" for a GIF that can "make a sound", and officials soon realized the huge "carrying effect" played by these anchors and tried to throw friendly olive branches to them, not only giving them game currency, but also making their own skin.

Even if there is no time to watch live, each game can be made into a separate slice program, people can go to the video site to go straight to the theme, as a mini-series to enjoy, the fun is still undiminished.

2 from the perspective of ordinary players, the popularity of "Goose and Duck Kill" is once again like an eye-catching spotlight in piles of games, and a large number of players are also in the process of spreading among anchors. joined this "hot myth", now the number of players in the game every day to maintain a steady growth curve.

In addition to the random "anchor with goods" factor, the product design and operation mode of "Goose and Duck Kill" provide a better soil for its popularity. Unlike Sugar Pac Man and Among Us, as a free game, Goose and Duck Kill has a lower threshold to accommodate groups ranging from old Steam players to light players attracted by live streaming.

From the perspective of game design, as a rising star, "Goose and Duck Kill" also has more creativity according to the footsteps of its predecessors. In the previous "Among Us", due to the slow update of the production team and repeated monotonous content, many players began to use Mod to enrich the way the game was played, and "Goose and Duck Kill" learned experience from this aspect, dividing different professions into different professions, different professions have different skills, and even different victory conditions, and the overall playability and content combination is much higher than similar games.

For example, the professional "pelican" can swallow other players, but the players will not be out immediately, but can chat with the pelican in the "belly" of the pelican, thus giving birth to many fancy tricks and routines of torturing the pelican. it's interesting.

There is even a special song list, but this does not mean that "Goose and Duck Kill" has no threshold at all. on the contrary, as a PVP game with the core of "werewolf Kill", the user feedback of "Goose and Duck Kill" also proves to some extent that "great ornamental value" is not the same as "stable happiness".

In many board games, "werewolf", as one of the most widely spread board games, also has a certain influence in the live broadcast circle, but it also unwittingly erects a barrier. A wide variety of terms, fixed gamification routines, spread widely, but also make the quality level of users uneven, whether offline or online, if you are not a veteran, make sure that the psychological line of defense is strong enough before entering the game.

Games like this, such as goose and duck killing, do give players who want to experience "identity reasoning" a different possibility. The behavior of players can be more diverse, not purely limited to verbal debate, reducing some of the frustrating "frustration", but if not with friends and relatives, it is still inseparable from the nature of PVP games-happiness is based on the sufferings of others.

The party game of family fun, or the reasoning game of winning or losing, the mentality is different, the experience of playing will be completely different. Sometimes, when some viewers watch the anchors play games, they may be angry half to death when they are out of the screen, just like the uncle who likes to point and play chess, but when it is really their turn to open the game and be the "incumbent", they are inexplicably "stabbed" or "thrown". It is inevitable that they will lose their mind directly and even abandon their quality and "stable personality".

For this reason, the need to find fixed small groups to ensure the stability of the game experience arises at the historic moment.

At that time, when the "double trip" spread in a broken circle, the conditions of "two players" could make many players sigh that they were "too demanding", but now "goose and duck killing" needs at least five people, and for a fuller game experience, it is better to have more than ten people, so when you search for "duck and goose killing" in various communities, you will see all kinds of invitations to find fixed small groups. It can be said that the social nature of the game is not only reflected in the "intrigue" within the bureau, but also in enabling people to bravely meet more strangers.

This partly explains why people prefer to watch "interactive Reality Show" between anchors, because this can skip most of the uncertainties in the game, and viewers sitting outside the screen hardly have to bear any negative feedback that the game may bring, and it can even be fun to watch anchors get angry.

3 "Goose and Duck Kill" is very lucky to win the "flow lottery" prize, but what is more curious is how long this "lottery ticket" can be cashed.

From a purely design point of view, Goose and Duck Kill does add up to "Among Us", but these changes can hardly be seen as the key to the game, and the progress in these mechanisms is more like an "accelerant" of game popularity.

Like their predecessors with similar popularity paths such as "Sugar Pac Man" and "Among Us", party games can not avoid a common question-whether they can ensure a stable popularity after being separated from the blessing of the anchor. According to the data, many games promoted by anchors have experienced a "rapid decline" after a roller coaster.

"Among Us" has been a popular game for a long time. "Goose and Duck Kill" is also different from previous popular party games: the low threshold of "free" brings it a huge DAU, but it also means that the game can't be compared with paid games in terms of monetization and user stickiness. Steam's payment data are not available, but according to AppStore, although Goose and Duck Kill is in the top 10 in many regions, even in Asia, where users have a large number of users, the overall domestic purchase revenue ranks close to 100 in the "strategic category".

Of course, the future of "Goose and Duck Kill" data party games on AppStore's best-selling list in all regions will not stop here, and there will be more "popular games" waiting to become the next "new toy" for anchors and viewers. So one day when viewers start to get tired of the Goose and Duck trick, anchors will naturally leave mercilessly and turn to the next popular cake that will attract viewers.

Such a consequence could be a chain reaction, as games such as "Among Us" have encountered. The departure of anchors will be like a signal that the game is beginning to be "out of date". Success will be social, and failure will naturally be social. When players in small groups leave one by one, the party game based on "social" will naturally dim.

And such an unstable retention relationship may further affect players' willingness to spend-lack of interest in the internal purchase of the game, or rather "lack of confidence", if the game is not stable. No one wants to invest in an asset that may be worthless at any time.

At present, the only answer left to the official for the time being is to constantly update the content to ensure the freshness of players, but whether to increase investment and spend energy and financial resources here is undoubtedly a question that the production team needs to consider carefully.

At present, the criticized server, and the uneven "passerby" experience is still the biggest problem, after all, as far as players are concerned, the nostalgia for a party game will not be very deep, and "can afford it and let it go" may be the most realistic description. As a sketch-level casual game, there is almost no "sunk cost", and even similar competitions will emerge one after another soon.

However, judging from all kinds of official feedback, Goose and Duck Kill has shown great importance to Chinese users, both from the tips on the account registration page and the continuous Chinese announcements on the Steam discussion forum. After the number of people online exceeded 500000, officials immediately announced that they were looking for agents in China, trying to win the support of more Chinese players.

It is a pity that the trademark of "Goose and Duck Kill" has been registered, although the authorities have begun to take an active step towards the Chinese market, it is unknown how long this step will take under the special domestic environment, and when that day comes, which game will be popular among players, this is another unpredictable story-- for example, You can now see a lot of fake "goose and duck kill" games in WeChat moments ads.

Of course, click in and you will find that it has nothing to do with "Goose and Duck Kill" or even party games. This article comes from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag). Author: Leon45.

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