The game industry’s 2019 started with a smell of gunpowder.

From the popularity of "Dota Auto Chess" in early January to June 13, when Valve worked overtime to push the stress test of "Dota Underlords", in just 6 months, Auto Chess, a new gameplay This set off a cross-border, cross-platform, and cross-category battle for the beach.

According to Youfan Research statistics, in the past six months, 65 new auto chess trademarks have been added in China alone, and nearly 50 related games have been launched for testing.

After seeing this situation, the planner Lao Z, who had just resigned from a certain "auto-chess" mobile game project team, laughed at himself and said:

"I think there will be a chicken in 17 and 18." The biggest contribution of the trend is to let us learn how to grab the hot food and eat it in more ways.”

Indeed, after the education of the battle for chicken, game developers are very hungry for new gameplay. The speed and intensity of entering the game have improved, but the eating phase is still not worth mentioning in the face of the so-called advantage.

Many times, we only use "get" to satisfy our desire for the new, but forget the definition of old and new itself.

Any new thing is already old as long as it is not changed after the moment it is discovered and acquired.

Faster and Stronger

The "Dota Auto Chess" project was launched in 2017 and was led by Ah Xia, the founder of Giant Bird Duoduo Studio. The initial design concept was probably "ARITIFACT" "Mahjong is not tiring, fun, and has the blessing of "DOTA2".

Because there is almost no engine or server pressure, the development limit of this kind of self-propelled chess game is far lower than that of hundreds of people playing on the same map and highly realistic chicken-eating games. Therefore, in this wave of competition, enter the game. The player is faster, more powerful, and more organized.

For example, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" was launched in March 2017, and its popularity increased. Only in July did Tencent, NetEase, and Baidu bid for the agency. Most similar self-developed products from major manufacturers are launched in August, and small products will be launched in April and May next year.

When it comes to auto chess, the pace is much faster.

In December 2018, when "Dota Auto Chess" was still in the creative workshop, its popularity began to soar. During the same period, it was immediately reported in the industry that Long Yuan had obtained the mobile game version. News of the agency rights was later confirmed in February 2019.

Later, "Dota Auto Chess" was launched in Dota 2 on January 3, 2019, and the number of online users exceeded 100,000 on the 13th.

According to registration information on the China Trademark Network, Longyuan and Dianhun registered the "Auto Chess" trademark on January 14, and Beijing Mida Technology submitted a registration application on the 15th.

In the following more than a month, Tencent successively registered five trademarks: Auto Chess, Tiantian Auto Chess, National Auto Chess, Happy Auto Chess, and Tencent Auto Chess. Changyou also registered two trademarks.

As of June 27, game manufacturers in mainland China have registered 65 "Auto Chess" related trademarks under the category "41" (education and entertainment).

In addition, the project establishment and research and development work of various game companies also came earlier than in the chicken-eating trend.

According to Dianhun employees, there were discussions within the company on the establishment of related gameplay products in December 2018. In mid-January 2019, mature products such as "Dream Tower Defense" and "Dream Three Kingdoms" were launched. The research and development work on the implantation of chess gameplay has been officially launched.

In addition, NetEase and Changyou also have similar actions internally. They collect intelligence, analyze the market environment, copy, wait for market verification, rush to register, and make products by hand, all in one go.

This kind of speed and skill makes people happy or sad.

The big manufacturers are confident 1 1

Also because of the different product characteristics and the experience of the chicken-eating wave, the leading big manufacturers have not left this wave of competition. Agents can no longer get together to produce new products. Instead, they can directly add gameplay to mature products and initiate self-development projects at the same time.

Among them, V Club, which is closely related to Giant Bird Duoduo, has A-brand development experience, and can talk about "DOTA2", was the first to take action.

In February 2019, Valve and Duoduo failed to win the agency rights for "Dota Auto Chess", but they got a result of "each independently developing the game and giving each other maximum support".

In the next three months, G Fat achieved perhaps the highest development efficiency of Valve in the past three years. On May 22, it announced independent production news. During the same period, the project team worked overtime to catch up on work. In June On the 14th, I took out the complete "Dota Underlords" (terrible Chinese title).

"ARITIFACT", which is also a derivative strategy card of "DOTA2", has been delayed for more than two years.

In contrast, major domestic manufacturers are not so particular. Most of them directly use the classic "1 1 = 1" formula, that is, my game, your gameplay = the new version of my game, directly in Apply the gameplay to mature products for experiments, and then look at the results to calculate the resource scale for new product development.

(In fact, the type of auto chess does not really need the help of big manufacturers, and the efficiency of domestic version numbers is also a problem.)

Among them, the first wave of players who learned from the gameplay 1 1 It’s NetEase, starting with the RPG genre.

On March 20, major games including "Backwater" and "Fantasy Westward Journey" added the auto chess mode in the form of limited-time activities or new versions of gameplay, and renamed it "Heroes War Chess" and "Time and Space". "Secret Realm" and so on, focusing on the story bonding gameplay of various characters.

According to employees of the relevant project team, NetEase was the first to do "combination" because it has many RPG games and rich operating experience, which is suitable for testing self-propelled games on resources with multiple characters, multiple skills, and multiple stories. The market value of chess pieces.

The second wave is Hero Interactive Entertainment and Electric Soul, ranging from strategy categories such as SLG and tower defense.

In early April, Hero Interactive Entertainment’s “Red Tide” and E-Soul’s “Dream Tower Defense” successively launched auto-chess gameplay. The former emphasizes strategy, while the latter is more casual.

Before the beta of "Dota Underlords" started, these two "1 1" mobile games and Duoduo's genuine "Duoduo Auto Chess", which also started beta testing in April, were the choices of most domestic players. Now , on the verge of being abandoned.

The third wave is Tencent, which returns to the roots of Dota Auto Chess and introduces MOBA games of different sizes.

In early June, "League of Heroes", "League of Legends" and "Honor of Kings" successively announced the auto-chess gameplay. Among them, "League of Legends" and "Teamfight Tactics" have been tested on foreign servers, and the response from players has been average. (At the same time, NetEase's "Decisive Battle! Safe Beijing" also released related gameplay)

In fact, judging from market performance, this type of add-on product has been successful.

Because they have built-in basic users and roles, skill recognition foundation, and more mature operation methods, most 1 1 products have gained considerable popularity and evaluation in the early stages of their launch.

Among them, the TapTap score of "Red Tide" Auto Chess was once as high as more than 8 points. During the same period, "Duoduo Auto Chess" was around 6.5. Benefiting from the advancement of Auto Chess gameplay, "Red Tide" had a high score in May and June. During the period, the AppStore rating increased by 0.5, and the average online time spent by players of "Backwater Cold" also increased significantly.

They mainly attract two types of players: early adopters of light auto chess and heavy players who are waiting for "Dota Underlords" and the more mature version of "Dota Auto Chess", although some players will continue to play in the community. Talk about plagiarism, but the people who should be playing are still having a great time.

Compared to large companies with mature products and methodologies, small companies and individual developers have worse outcomes.

Small Workshop Mobile Game Melee

Just like the battle for chicken, the first few months when the gameplay became popular were the best time for small workshops and individual developers to harvest novice users with copycat products. Good times.

From January 2019 to now, there are more than 20 auto chess-related mobile games in the AppStore, and there are even more Android beta versions, with more than 40 models.

Excluding "serious" products such as Duoduo, Dota Hegemony, Crimson Tide, and Dream Tower Defense, products that offer true auto-chess gameplay rely more on their names and game scenes to force themselves. A skin-changing product for playing chess.

This type of product follows the routine of applying models and adding elements, such as Auto Chess Three Kingdoms, Auto Chess 2D, Auto Chess European Mythology, etc. Anyway, they are all fake IPs that do not require copyright. .

According to individual developer Mante Liu and independent developer Hei Yan, who is working as an art outsourcer for a small workshop, the development cost of self-propelled chess mobile games is low, and the coordination and harmony of art, music, and gameplay are not taken into consideration when deleting them. Under the standard, an individual or a small team of 3 or 4 people can spend tens of thousands to buy a "core model" and do secondary development on top of it. If they work hard, they can produce a version for testing within two months. , if you can successfully harvest a group of users in the first few waves, you can make a small profit just by selling advertising money.

Of course, the lifespan of such products will not be too long. Among them, the 300 series and Three Kingdoms Auto Chess do have similar gameplay, but the production is rough and they are surviving as low-scoring backups.

In addition, "Realm of the Gods", "Hegemony of the Gods" and "Three Kingdoms Auto Chess", which were temporarily renamed and put on the shelves, or were produced randomly in two months, have been removed from the shelves due to poor reputation and too many reports. .

In addition to mobile games, auto chess product developers on WeChat and Douyin mini-game platforms have appeared in Beijing, Yunnan and other places. They use mobile game models as a basis to further weaken art and music. Under the premise of being controlled by the version number, it is not only subsidized by the platform, but also directly monetized. It can be regarded as a "fast and good" small business.

Is it too late to get involved?

Is it too late to start playing auto-chess now? The opinions of two listed companies’ self-research projects on Auto Chess and many individual developers are: “Don’t get into PC, it’s a little late for mobile games.”

To expand, there are five main points:

1. The plate is small.

At the market level, a listed company’s user scale for the Auto Chess game project is “hundreds of thousands of core players in the large and millions of mass users in the small”. This is not done by everyone. A plate that everyone can eat.

2. PC share is basically saturated.

Because PC game users are more sticky and the development cycle of new PC games is longer, it is difficult for the PC market to have a share other than "Dota Auto Chess" and "Dota Underlords".

3. The mobile game market is immature, and there are still opportunities for new games.

Considering that copying gameplay is not "necessarily illegal" in China, and "flagship products" such as "Duo Duo Auto Chess" are currently immature, "Dota Underlords" is only available on Android, and Facing a series of problems such as network, censorship, and copycats, there is indeed a chance for the latecomer auto chess mobile game.

4. "Curious Baby" has been divided, and now you have to face comparison when entering the game. You must have newer things.

5. Unfortunately, it is difficult to innovate the gameplay of auto chess.

This is a turn-based, subdivided gameplay within the grid war chess.

Because it is detailed enough, the game content is not much, and the gameplay is relatively simple. Its learning cost is low and the operation intensity is low, which can provide guarantee for the user scale.

Because it absorbs many elements, matches them harmoniously, and has complete rules, it is highly strategic and has a lot of room for expansion of other elements besides the core gameplay, such as characters, skills, scenes, etc. This is for long-term operations. Base.

But correspondingly, being detailed and complete enough also determines that this category has little room for innovation in core gameplay, and is also easily affected by word-of-mouth among the core user groups.

Judging from the "learning ideas" of domestic manufacturers, there are currently only two conventional operations for innovation in Auto Chess: combined addition and refinement and expansion, both of which are not healthy.

The former is an auto-chess mode. MOBA combines character characteristics, adds maps and bonds, and weakens the story background; RPG combines story background, also adds maps and bonds, but weakens the strategy.

But in fact, excluding RTS and MOBA, for completely new products, there are not many categories that can be perfectly combined with auto chess. Forced combination will weaken both the gameplay and the fun of the category itself.

The latter is also an old method, just like choosing "DOTA" from "Warcraft" or "PUBG" from "H1Z1", find an interesting point and strengthen it.

At this point, not to mention whether there is any point in refining the gameplay such as auto chess that is worth developing separately. Even if it is, it is difficult for any manufacturer to enhance it into an independent gameplay. , reaching such universality.

Late at night on June 25, Lao A, who has 12 years of experience in turn-based game development, published an article titled "Auto Chess Entrepreneurship Secrets" on his personal public account, with only three words in the text. :

"No, do it."

In the eyes of those who really love games and the game industry, if they are copied and re-innovated, they cannot continue to promote the development of gameplay and industry. , it would be better to stay out of it and feel at ease.