Not long ago, TikTok, a well-known overseas social media platform, accessed its first platform game “Sway Stories”. As soon as it was launched, it aroused the interest of many overseas players to try out the game. After the first chapter of the game was officially launched, the subscribers of the official game account of Sway Stories soon exceeded 18,000.
For the first time, Tik Tok did not choose the most common ultra-casual category, but aimed at interactive fiction games (also called interactive narrative games or visual novel games), what exactly is the origin of this category?
01
10 billion market size, “small nuggets” for the female-oriented market in Europe and America
NewZoo’s “Global Game Market” report released in 2020 shows that of the 2.7 billion gamers in the world, female gamers account for nearly 45% and are mainly concentrated in the mobile end.
In terms of market share, ironSource’s Greater China account manager Linda has given an industry estimate: in the past year, female players contributed $40 billion to the handheld game market. The interactive fiction category occupies a very important place in the $10 billion female-oriented handheld game circuit.
According to Sensor Tower’s statistical prediction, the monthly flow of head products under this category can exceed $4 million, and according to industry sources, high-quality game platforms with extremely high stickiness of female users and yearly retention rate also have the trend of year-on-year growth.
According to the monitoring of DataEye-ADX overseas platform, the North American market represented by the United States is the main investment place for the interactive novel category, with an average monthly investment of more than 2,000 groups of material for a single interactive novel game, and Facebook and Instagram are the most important media platforms for placement, and also the main social promotion position for this type of game.
Choices: Stories You Play” and “Episode – Choose Your Story” from the North American local market have been on line since three or four years ago, and have been verified by the market, and have become the leaders of this track. Good reputation among players, also easy to get recommendations among players.
However, interactive fiction games, which seem to be labeled as “exclusive to Europe and America”, have also attracted domestic manufacturers to try overseas in recent years. According to DataEye-ADX overseas data, among the Top 10 interactive fiction games launched in the past three months, there are more than 4 games developed and produced by Chinese manufacturers, including Chapters-Interactive stories from Chinese Online, Romance: Stories and Choices from Polk, and Kunlun Wanwei. Choices” and “Moments: Choose Your Story” from Kunlun Wanwei ranked more highly and were more competitive in the ranking of the list in Europe and America.
In terms of game play, whether it is domestic games or local games in Europe and the United States, most of them follow the way of “see and choose” for female players in Europe and the United States, mainly by reading different plot books in the game app, with players choosing to play the main character of the story in the book (usually female, rarely male perspective), and choosing different story branches in different storylines with the main line of In the different storylines with the change of the main line to choose a different branch of the story, and finally arrive at the end of the whole story book, the player’s choice is different, the respective trigger the ending is not the same.
The so-called branching option is also the core billing point of this type of game, according to the ending of different story options, the options are graded according to the best and the worst, often choosing the option with the better ending, the more “diamonds” (points paid for reading interactive novels) need to be consumed. Different game platforms deviate from the billing price, but in general, in such a game platform, all paid to read and interpret a plot novel, the amount needed to nearly 30-60 U.S. dollars (according to similar novel payment estimates, the actual amount paid may also be lower or higher than this range).
In terms of content, interactive novels from European and American markets prefer “overbearing president”, “bloodthirsty urban man and woman” or “vampire”, “apocalyptic “The platform is still dominated by romance genre novels, but in different regions, there is also a preference for specific sexual orientation.
The core game content in the platform is these dramatic novels with different styles. Mature and large platforms such as “Choices”, “Episode” or “Chapters” will seek cooperation with local publishers or writers in Europe and America in terms of content, and some of the more well-known Hollywood film and TV scripts may also be adapted into visual novels on these platforms; on the other hand, the On the other hand, the game itself will also create an internal player creation platform, exclusively for players to create content, and then use the platform tools to carry out similar UGC-type content output, so as to ensure the supply of episodic novels in the game platform.
02
Creative features of interactive fiction games: “eye-candy”, “Mary Sue”, “making choices”
Most of the interactive fiction games use this major social platform to interact with players online and organize them to participate in the creation and improvement of game content. Most interactive fiction games use this major social platform to interact with players online and organize players to participate in the creation of game content, improve it, and enhance user stickiness.
Combined with the overseas version of DataEye-ADX platform, the material creativity of interactive fiction games can be roughly divided into three categories: “eye-catching” exaggerated plot, “Mary Sue” storyline display and “make a choice “creative plot collage. The real human material is small, and the style of painting is mainly European and American, and nearly 70% of the material is about 15s-30s long.
03
North America is the mainstream of the interactive fiction game market, and Brazil and Nordic countries are highly enthusiastic
From the current feedback of the interactive fiction game market, besides the U.S. market, European countries such as France and Germany, as well as other countries represented by Brazil and Spain are slowly accepting this category.
According to the statistics of DataEye-ADX overseas platform, in the past year, the launch volume of interactive fiction games in France, Germany and Brazil have increased rapidly, and new interactive fiction games will also be launched in these regions for testing or will be launched in these regions as the main focus.
In these emerging female-oriented game markets, there are not many categories for female players to choose from, but there are also a lot of emotional and spiritual needs that can be met by playing interactive fiction games.
At the same time, based on the popularity of visual novels, there are also some manufacturers looking at another segment of the track: text-based interactive novels. These games are censored and simplified, similar to domestic online subscription platforms, where players pay to read plot novels on the platform, and the novels in the platform are only pure text renditions, and also set up paid options at different turning points for players to reach different novel plots.
In general, interactive fiction games still have a high potential to attract money in the female-oriented handheld game circuit for the European and American markets, but due to the long payback period and the high requirements for localization of game content, small and medium-sized manufacturers do not have a high potential for development here, while large manufacturers can use it as a useful attempt to enter overseas.
For the teams who are already “fighting” with local manufacturers from Europe and America or other overseas regions in this track, managing the quality of UGC content in the game and continuously improving the overall presentation quality of the game can help domestic interactive novels open up a larger market space.
