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

This article is from the official account of Wechat: game Research Society (ID:yysaag), author: Okny

Games and film and television are more and more like twins of contemporary entertainment. Whether it is to change the film and television drama into a game, or to turn the game works into film and television, it seems that there has been a small explosion in the past two years.

This does not only mean that there has been an outbreak in quantity, but what is important is that more adaptations have been adapted into the ranks of "able to see" and "able to play" in the eyes of consumers, and will no longer be described as a "spell" as soon as they mention the adaptation. Whether it is the "last survivor" who recently came out of the game, or the "legacy of Hogwarts" that once again dabbled in the game, it can be called an excellent case of film-game linkage, and we have all talked about it.

In this issue of "Games and Film and Television", we have selected several such works and series to try to find out why they have been done and why others are still left behind, and can only continue to be booed for "destroying the original".

A few days ago, Game King OCG (Offical Card Game, the official card game) celebrated its 25th anniversary. In the coming year, this long-lived exchange card game will continue to spread around the world and open a new chapter in the next era.

This year is actually the 24th anniversary, the official 25th anniversary celebration was launched a year earlier as one of the world-famous card games, and the IP of Game King has been extended to this day, thanks in large part to 20 years of continuous official animation.

Needless to say, most people know popular cards such as "Green eyes and White Dragons" and "three Phantom Gods".

In the follow-up series of works, animation has also successfully completed the basic duty of "selling cards", providing a steady stream of ideas for the output of tens of thousands of new cards.

Game King OCG has a large number of new cards from animation, but awkwardly, the animation based on Game King OCG has been closed for more than three years.

Since the seventh generation, the animation series of Game King has deleted the name of the original author Takahashi and Hexi, used new rules and methods of play, and sold a completely different set of card games. Colome deleted most of the familiar content of the audience, but retained the title of "Game King", so as to let everyone know that they were watching Game King animation.

In fact, Game King Animation has been challenging the tolerance threshold of loyal audiences since the fifth generation. Obviously there is a set of mature and formulaic script templates, and everyone likes to watch the most traditional friendship, but the production team still wants to take the edge of the sword and try to get rid of the "shackles" of the old times.

As a result, the recent Game King animations did get rid of many of the old traditions, just the audience along the way, and as these traditions gradually left, they gave up the habit of watching the animation on time every week.

Word-of-mouth overturned, audience loss, from a generation of classics, to halved, Game King series animation, what on earth?

At the beginning of 2000, at the turn of the new era and the old era, "Game King-Monster Duel", based on the original comics and OCG rules, began to broadcast and became the childhood memories of countless people.

The original animation of the game king should be the "Dongying version", but in view of the large gap between the Dongying version and the follow-up works, we will ignore the existence of the Dongying version for the time being. The original cartoon has an average sales volume of one million. A complete adapted animation is only a matter of time, and it is only a matter of time to take over the series of Colome. But immediately, Game King, the IP born from popular comics, was soon in a quandary: the original author Takahashi and Hexi didn't seem to want to write any more.

At that time, the activity of Game King was hot enough to trigger social news. For Game King, which relies on physical cards, how to continue to sell cards when both comics and animation are over has become the most critical issue right now.

In order to continue the popularity of IP and ensure product sales, under the joint negotiation between the animation copyright owner and Colome, the original animation "Game King-Monster duel GX" took over the previous schedule and continued to be broadcast on Tokyo TV. Most of the passers-by audience's impression of the Game King probably stops there.

From the animation title, it is not difficult to see that GX is a continuation of the original animation, meaning "Generation neXt", that is, the next generation. This generation of animation inherits many traditions of the original generation, such as the word "you" in the protagonist's name, the trump card monster damage of the protagonist for 2500 points, three amazing cards in the worldview, and, the animation of the Game King must be a full-length animation with hundreds of episodes.

The alternating feature-length animation of the old and new protagonists was a unique romance of that era. The audience can empathize with the animation characters as much as possible and feel the charm of the work itself in the process of pursuing the characters in a year.

What GX is most interested in talking about is the characterization of the ten generations of the protagonist, who is rare in the whole daily circle, who has gone through a total length of 180 episodes alone. During his three-and-a-half-year animation career, the transformation of characters from confusion to perseverance is the most unforgettable temperament and feature around him.

Also confused with the ten generations visiting the city are the members of the animation group, as well as Colome herself. The low ratings and subtle reviews during the opening of GX have made the position of the film a little embarrassing.

In these three years, the rules of the game king tend to be improved, while Kolomi's conservative strategy makes the game play to a standstill. Other competitors began to catch up from behind, if no changes are made, I am afraid they will be eliminated in the torrent of history.

In addition to the initial generation, the audience rating of the follow-up animation can only be regarded as devoid of everyone. It is under this background that Colome and the animation group gradually find their own position and accurately grasp the relationship between animation and physical cards.

Since the third book of the series, "Game King 5D's", each animation will be changed in line with the innovation of real card, with a limit of three years. Every three years, the game king will introduce new rules and methods of play, and the length of the animation is properly controlled at about 150 episodes, fully filling the three-year period. When the next three years is coming, it is a brand-new animation and a new change of play. While ensuring the freshness, we can achieve a state of homology between animation and real cards and achieve a virtuous circle of self-sufficiency.

In addition to the nature of advertising, "Game King 5D's" is also an excellent animation. In the S1 forum with a relatively strict scoring system, this work was lucky enough to squeeze into the top 50 in history, but at this time, the problem of Game King animation really emerged: 150 episodes of long original animation, it is difficult to attract new audiences. Apart from the most loyal card guys, will anyone else be willing to watch this large-scale card advertising program in front of the TV on time? In other words, is there really a passer-by audience watching the animation adapted by TCG (Trading Card Game)?

2TCG adapted animation, in the past decade, there is only one successful case: "choose infected WIXOSS".

"choose the infected WIXOSS" is an alternative TCG animation that began in 2014. To some extent, this film draws lessons from the form of "Magic Girl Xiaoyuan" and carries out the most popular "Black Deep disabled" story model in the anti-traditional and anti-routine horror film style. The unease, depression and suspense settings at the end of each episode are all enough to satisfy the audience's appetite. So that at that time, in addition to the game king, keywords such as "card battle" and "animation" often only pointed to "choose infected people".

Before that, TCG animation also had word-of-mouth masterpieces such as "Battle Soul Brave", but in terms of the degree of out-of-circle and commercial value, "choose infected" is better. The producers of this film are clearly aware of the threshold limits of TCG animation. in order to attract more new audiences, they have weakened the rules of card playing (even most viewers don't know how to play cards after watching a season of animation) and split the 52-episode animation project into several 12-episode seasons.

The miracle of "choosing the infected" cannot be replicated. In recent years, both the rising star "the limits of creation" and the veteran TCG "Card Battle Forerunner" have been consciously reducing the number of animation episodes to cater to market tastes and lower the threshold of watching.

Bushido, which made its family rich by animated IP, wrote the guidelines of "using MyAnimeList and other overseas animation communities to promote its own TCG" in its financial report, in an attempt to attract audiences from all over the world. Unfortunately, as a result, overseas audiences don't seem to like their "Card Battle Forerunner" animation.

Bushido also assiduously carries the new animation of "Card Battle Pioneer" in bilibili, but there are only a few thousand broadcasts per episode, and there are many reasons why TCG animation is not as popular as expected, but whether the animation itself is interesting or not is probably the fundamental factor that distinguishes this kind of animation from other animations.

Out of commercial considerations, most TCG animations take "promoting and selling cards" as the focus of the animation project. As long as the most basic space is used for playing cards, the protagonist can shout out the name of the cards, and other parts can handle things even if they are in good order. After all, the original intention of these animations is to sell cards, which is why the intentional and interesting script "choose infected people" can be so prominent.

In fact, Game King Animation used to be very "interesting" in those years. For example, the fourth generation of "Game King ZEXAL", under the premise of ensuring the look and feel of the script, with super-standard production and handsome people, has captured a large number of fellow women outside the circle. Although it was not the intentional action of the writer, the high concentration of Brotherhood still led to a number of special creative works, which made this work a sharp alternative in the whole series.

Recently, many virtual anchors have been watching Game King Animation, especially ZEXAL anchors, but the "interesting" Game King Animation has come to an end in the fifth generation. "Game King ARC-V" is so bad that I believe friends who have a certain Internet age will have an impression. To put it simply, before the broadcast of "Beast Niang Zoo 2", this work could reverse the list on the Japanese bullet screen website Niconico and fill the top 20 of the bad rankings. Passers-by must have stayed away from such embarrassing results.

Tell a joke: this film I chased "Game King ARC-V" in one episode is not the only one in the whole series. After that, the sixth generation of "Game King VRAINS" is not so good either. This work shoulders the promotion of the new master rules and the mobile game "duel link", but constantly erodes the fans' motivation with the tasteless plot, and the unusual length of 120 episodes is suspected of halving halfway.

Bad previous works will directly affect the attention and popularity of follow-up works. The popular animation "Shadow Poems F" is a typical example. "poem of Shadow F" itself is a high-quality card animation, but the boring, childish and illogical script has greatly hurt the enthusiasm of fans, even if "poem of Shadow F" has outstanding word-of-mouth, it can not set off many topics in the circle. I'm afraid the newcomers drawn by the animation are not as good as those brought about by the suspension of the hearthstone Legend next door.

The well-known game king UP owner spontaneously promoted two consecutive animations for "Shadow Poetry F", which triggered a crisis of trust among the game king players. During that time, whether it was animation reviews or physical cards, Game King was at an unprecedented low point. Everyone knows that this series is in urgent need of a change to absorb more fresh blood and recover the decline of the past few years.

However, what happened after that seems to be a little different from what people think.

At the end of 2019, there is another triennial Game King animation changeover. At JumpFesta Comic-Con, Kelome unveiled the seventh generation animation "Game King SEVENS" of the Game King series, as well as the brand-new card game RUSH DUEL.

Studio Gallop, the company that has animated Game King for decades, has since left the series different from the traditional King OCG play. RUSH DUEL has a separate set of cards and very different rules, and can be seen as two different card games. Of course, the series of orthodox animation "Game King SEVENS" is not the familiar way of playing, but the launch of RUSH DUEL.

The emergence of "Game King SEVENS" marks the shift of the focus of Kelome's operation. This time, they are targeting younger users, with a younger painting style and easier operation, combined with the influence of Game King, to further expand the possibility of this IP.

From the point of view of the time node at that time, I am afraid that the attempt of "Game King SEVENS" and RUSH DUEL is helpless. Animation has failed for several years in a row, and the expansion of the game king's own style of play has been stretched. The accumulation of cards and the stacking of play have made the threshold for entry to this card game getting higher and higher. In fact, there is nothing wrong with opening up a new track from scratch.

As a test of the waters, the performance of "Game King SEVENS" is OK, and although the appeal and impact of animation has declined compared with the previous series, it has barely finished a complete story, at least an improvement over the previous two generations of word-of-mouth overturns.

Unexpectedly, the dividend received by RUSH DUEL was soon erased, and the eighth generation of animation "Game King Go Rush", which began broadcasting in 2022, also used the RUSH DUEL method, but after the novelty was over, the number of viewers, console game sales and other intuitive data have declined significantly compared with previous works, making people can't help but worry about whether Colome's choice was right or wrong.

A year ago, the RUSH DUEL game sold 100, 000 copies in its first week. at the same time, the traditional game king OCG, which lost its animation promotion, is getting better and better.

According to the data provided by the manager of the Japanese TCG industry, the revenue of Game King has grown for four consecutive years, breaking away from the trough of a few years ago. In the recent financial results of Kelome, a number of products related to Game King are being promoted together, and the future is quite optimistic.

RUSH DUEL is calculated separately from Game King, sales are roughly only 1/10 of Game King OCG's improvement, of course, there are many factors behind, such as the revision of the new master rules in 2020, the unusual growth of the TCG market since the epidemic in Japan, and so on, which are limited by space here.

Only in terms of animation, the RUSH DUEL with animation blessing is gradually cooling down, and the game king OCG without animation promotion is warming up year by year, which may be contrary to common sense, but the propaganda effectiveness of TCG adaptation of animation is actually a topic worthy of discussion.

4 in December last year, the animation series of "Bao Ke Meng" released a big message: Xiao Zhi, who has been with you for decades, will no longer be the protagonist of the next animation.

Xiao Zhi's retirement was downright bad news for many fans of the series, most of whom were bad-mouthing the future "Bao Ke Meng" animation, thinking that the series was about to die an epic and that the ratings would hit rock bottom.

It's just that before that, the ratings of "Pokemon" animation had been ugly enough. Some people have even studied why Tokyo TV is still maintaining this animation series with such low ratings.

The gap between the average audience rating of 3% and Game King animation is not as big as Game King. The popularity of Bao Ke Meng IP has been difficult to promote by the animation with poor ratings. Today's animation has long been far from the promotional purpose at the beginning of the project, and television is no longer the only way for children to get information. The continued release of a new animation which has been serialized for more than 20 years is not news. For a game without official animation for more than 20 years, it may be considered news to suddenly announce that animation can be made.

Wanzhi's animation trailer is already the most watched video on Wanzhi's official account. It seems that people mistook this new card bag's promotional video for the official animation trailer for today's TCG adapted animation. In a sense, it is more like an animation specially made for fans. These works are born with a threshold that shuts out passers-by. There are so many interesting animations every quarter, so why bang on this card ad, which needs to remember the basic rules to watch smoothly.

In the end, fans amuse themselves and enjoy themselves, and the propaganda effect of animation is probably not as useful as some magic creative.

Game King's related two creations, the degree of out of the circle may be higher than the serious animation, on the other hand, gave up the game king OCG animation Colome, found a new way to make money. Flash knife, a popular theme card group among the player group, was awarded the treatment of comic series last year, and maybe in the near future, everyone's wanted "orthodox" game king animation can be revived by this comic book.

Flash knife Ji cartoons sold only 17000 copies in the first week, and if Colome doesn't sponsor it, it's not just Game King, but most other TCG players want to see the stories written in the card background settings "move". Compared with the story of a group of high school students playing cards to save the world, the protagonist of the card game, "Card" itself, can support a magnificent journey of ups and downs, but none of the manufacturers seem to have figured this out.

In the final analysis, the core competitiveness of animation as a carrier has to be "interesting". Whether it is selling cards or publicity, making the animation good enough is the hard truth on the road of breaking the circle.

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