From IP to culture, the end of the "small universe" is far more than the "universe".

65438+In early February, Mini World's virtual idol flower house, QQ music and Xu Mengyuan's virtual concert, I believe, made many players shine at the moment-whether it can support 300,000 people to dance online at the same time or the scene that automatically changes with the song switching, it is a unique experience different from other online and offline concerts.

From the point of view of Huaxiaolou itself, as an important part of the diversified layout of mini IP, it has become a major starting point for mini creativity to realize its future strategy. The identity of virtual idols has inherent advantages in exploring the possibility of "virtual interactive scenes"; The achievement of 20 million fans and over 5 billion related videos on the whole network is the basis for the continuous cross-border linkage of Huaxiaolou.

And if you zoom in to the entire ecology of IP in the mini-world, the achievements of virtual idols may be just one of their many achievements in the IP field. The layout of mini-IPS such as Chaozhou Opera, Animation, Movies, Comics and Books. It seems to have improved a lot. At the 20021China Game Industry Annual Conference, the mini IP craze "Mini Universe Girl Group" also won the "Most Popular Creative Product Award" awarded by Jin Mumian.

This seems to be a general trend in today's game industry-large-scale games are not satisfied with just making a game product, but have embarked on the road of building IP, feeding back the long-term operation of the game and becoming a super IP with multi-field influence.

A little universe with many flowers.

According to the data of "20021China IP Game Research Report", the scale of China IP game market has exceeded 1000 billion yuan in 2020, with a year-on-year growth rate of 25.95438+0%. Some industry analysts pointed out that the domestic game market is entering the expansion period of IP value of self-developed games. A healthy game market needs a real "game IP" and becomes a cultural symbol recognized by players and the public.

Yang Zhiyong, co-founder of Mini Creative and CEO of Star Articles, once said that the game is slightly weaker than animation and literature in story and emotion shaping, but it can be used as an IP carrier to deepen the connection between brands and users by shaping IP derivative works. This is an emotional derivative, and it is also the original intention of mini creation to create a "mini world": to give users more companionship outside the game.

The birth of "Mini Universe" dates back to 20 18 years. Taking the sandbox creative platform as the breakthrough point, MiniWorld has accumulated a large number of users and high-quality UGC content on 20 18, and has the capital to explore different content forms of IP. At present, the monthly users of Mini World have exceeded 1 100 million, and the number of creators has reached 70 million. Brand influence has been significantly improved, and IP products and works in the cultural and creative fields are more diverse.

Yang Zhiyong mentioned their idea of a "mini-universe"-"It is not a game vertical IP, but a cultural and creative product that allows a wider audience and players to participate in * * * creation and accompany users."

Looking at its products, the most outstanding one should be the series of "mini toys". Wan Chao is a major feature of IP industry development in China, mainly for Z generation, which is quite consistent with the user attribute of mini-world.

MINITOYS has several product lines, such as Mini Universe Girl Group, Mini Lianmeng Series and Fairy Tale Series. Products have covered most domestic online and offline sales scenarios. Yang Zhiyong revealed that at the beginning of the layout boom, they just wanted to materialize the virtual game image, so that it could not only be used on computers or mobile phones, but also give users a more lasting companionship in reality.

According to the latest data, the trendy product "Mini Universe Girl Group" sold more than 3 million boxes a year, and was successfully selected into Tmall's high-end trendy blind box list TOP2. 40% of non-mini world users bought mini IP trendy blind boxes.

Mini Wan Chao's latest first "Elf Bobo" series of big dolls is positioned in the high-end market, which is different from the previous blind boxes in size and price, but it also sold out quickly at the beginning of listing. This can be said to be the best proof that "mini toys" have insight into and meet the diverse needs of users in different circles and sell well in the tide play market.

If the "Mini Universe Girl Group" to be launched in 2022 can maintain or exceed the sales performance of "Spirit Wave", it will also confirm the popularity of "Mini Toys".

At present, the 3D animation "Flowers Become Stars" has been released for three seasons, which is another great achievement in the field of "mini universe" cultural creation. Hua Yu Cheng Xing is a martial arts comedy with an adventure theme. Taking the virtual idol Huawei as the protagonist, this paper tells the daily life stories of two brothers and sisters, Hua and Cheng Jinyi, who are in trouble but still optimistic.

In character design, the square face and big head of the game are quite different from the common animated characters, but it also sets off a sandbox game & a brand-new secondary trend-in the first three seasons of Huayu's star, the broadcast volume of the whole network exceeded 1 1 billion. The fourth season, which will be broadcast in the Spring Festival, may bring you more surprises and possibilities.

The accumulation and achievement in the field of animation seems to have become the confidence and cornerstone of the test film "Small Universe". This year, Mini Creative announced the release of the 2022 big movie project "The Awakening of the Mini World" and released the first movie preview. Overseas trailers cover 45 countries and regions such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Brazil and Spain, and their ability to go to sea is evident.

It is reported that "The Awakening of Mini World" is based on the characters "Kaka" and "Nini" that players first contacted, and the script and story structure have been carefully polished-it took three years before and after, and it has been revised countless times.

This is also the limitation of sandbox game, which lacks the support of linear plot. The film needs to provide users with a sense of substitution and immersion from the audio-visual dimension in a limited time. But on the other hand, it also tests and exercises the story creation ability of the mini-creative team-you may be able to judge the quality of the film from the enthusiastic feedback of the players.

Speaking of going to sea, the "mini universe" is also promising in the field of comics. In 2020, the single-platform popularity of the comic book "Ryuta Xiangxiang" exceeded 654.38 billion, and a large number of fan works appeared. In 20021year, "Ryutaka Xiangxiang" landed on the Korean comic platform, and also successfully gained the love of many Korean users.

Radio dramas, including book series, are classified under the IP product line of "Mini Lian Meng", aiming at cultivating users' creative thinking and adventurous spirit. It can be predicted that there will be more explorations in the series of "Mini Lian Meng" in the future-the animated cartoon drama "Mini Lian Meng" is going to meet you next year.

This not only means that they have given players more companionship outside the game through these vital and influential ip cultural and creative products, but also established the saying of "universe", reaching a wider circle of users and having great influence.

While the iron is hot, you need to be hard.

In fact, it is not easy for a game IP to jump out of the game and build an IP universe. They always encounter all kinds of problems. For example, which presentation form to choose, whether there is an extensible world outlook, how to convey unified values, whether to tell one story after another, and so on.

Looking at the game IP on the market, there are very few games that can build a grand and high-quality IP universe. Especially for a sandbox game like Mini World, it emphasizes survival, exploration and construction, and there is no complete and linear story background to support it-this is a problem that cannot be easily solved even if the monthly life exceeds 654.38 billion.

How to find a breakthrough in mini-creativity? Since May of this year, they have tried to introduce a brand-new worldview in the new version, extending around the characteristics and user attributes of IP itself.

For example, "Mini World" has no main plot, but it can build a huge world view based on the game characters: 64 star fields, 1024 planets, and the characters can be infinitely expanded. "There will be countless connections between the characters." They can create a full-fledged personal design on the basis of the role image, and then implant it into various content forms and penetrate into public life.

The same is true of mini-ideas. Including virtual idols, animations, movies, etc. , all around the role to create content. Yang Zhiyong also mentioned that the original intention of the IP team was to provide users with more educational and healthy entertainment content, tell wonderful stories behind their favorite characters, and convey positive values, so that these energetic and influential IP works can give users more companionship outside the game.

Including they will launch a worldview website and open a community platform for * * * creation, in order to enrich the worldview and stories with users with the power of * * * creation and make this IP universe more dynamic.

It solves the problem of strategic direction, and basic capacity building is also a very important part of building an IP universe. How to ensure the stable output of high-quality content across industries and fields? Much depends on whether you have a good team.

There is such a powerful pillar behind mini idea-Star Jump, Cultural Creation, and All-the entertainment ecological platform of ——IP industry chain. Star article creation can be said to be the crystallization of Mini creativity accumulated on the road of entertainment and entrepreneurship. As a wholly-owned sub-brand of Mini Creative, it has a perfect industrial chain integrating IP R&D, distribution, production, sales and animation professionals.

All of the above are important reasons why mini IP can continue to carry out differentiated production.

At this point, it is not difficult to understand why mini-IP can transcend objective factors such as age, gender and country, and realize culture going out to sea. Yang Zhiyong said that Mini World was initially positioned in the global market. "Product design, artistic style and creative content are all laid out from a global perspective." Stable IP industry production chain, high-quality content and unified globalization strategy are the cultural self-confidence and self-confidence of mini IP going out to sea. We need to wait and see how much they can contribute to the exchange and mutual learning between China culture and world civilization in the future.

label

From games to IP universe to a cultural phenomenon, "mini" contains more and more powerful energy. This may also be a major reason why "mini play" has been upgraded to "mini creativity". Leaving aside the national creative system and "mini-programming", the concept of "play" cannot even continue to cover the growing "mini-universe". They have already changed from "players" in the game industry to "content providers" in the creative industry. What they need is to constantly exert their creativity and imagination to ensure that the "mini" is flourishing.

As for the direction in which this big tree will grow-from the perspective of the entire game IP industry, in the past, it was very common for games, online texts and film and television dramas to be adapted from each other. Nowadays, tide play, radio drama and animation are everywhere, and the IP gameplay of games is becoming more and more diversified and innovative. In terms of quality, it has gone through the "enclosure" stage with traffic as the core, and the quality and standardization of IP products have also become a common phenomenon recognized by the public.

These are the general trends of the whole game IP industry, which can be confirmed by the case of Mini Universe. It is foreseeable in the future that they can not only choose to keep up with the trend, carry out more IP cross-border cooperation and empower each other with traditional culture, but also break through the existing forms, make more attempts and land, and broaden their boundaries.

After all, the universe+creation has a lot of room for imagination.