This year, we reported on Changyou’s new action. This old factory is uncharacteristically conducting game tests frequently.

Moreover, this momentum has not subsided until recently. Changyou has tested 37 games overseas in the past six months.(It refers to the package of the game, including the package that has been removed from the shelf, and there may be different packages but the same content.).

Most of the games tested are light and moderate, and one of them, Covenant of Victory, which is a casual SLG game, looks quite distinctive.

Today I’m going to talk about Covenant of Victory.

At present, it is speculated that this game is still in the stage of gameplay verification.

Its art materials are highly consistent with the previously tested product "Dispute of Homeland", and many explosive games can be seen at the gameplay level.

The Covenant of Victory is special because it mixes a lot of small games. In this game, you can see open boxes, strong chess, merge-2 and other gameplay, all of which are light and moderate categories, or the types of gameplay that are often seen in WeChat games.

Gameplay fusion is nothing new, and the above-mentioned open-box gameplay has also spawned many types of innovative fusion.

Just as mixing wine needs to choose a base wine, so the integration of gameplay also needs to choose a base. In the process of "A+B", no matter how many elements are added later, the core gameplay should not change.

The Covenant of Victory is somewhat divorced from this logic.

Although it still retains SLG’s marching, team matching and other gameplay, it is difficult to define after the experience, whether it still takes SLG as the core gameplay or has been diluted into an open box game.

This game just takes the difficult definition of this experience as the highlight.

The Covenant of Victory mentioned the words "zero waiting time" and "random recruitment" in the game introduction. It is hard to imagine that such an experience will appear on a SLG.

It can be clearly seen from the cultivation of gameplay that SLG is often inseparable from the framework of card games in design.(including the card drawing, training and team matching of military commanders)The card game also determines the common commercialization mode of SLG. No matter how the theme or gameplay changes, the deep cultivation game is always the same.

Covenant of Victory, on the other hand, makes the cultivation of cards more simple. The game gave up the traditional way of drawing cards, but adopted the simplest synthetic gameplay. The same way of playing is rare, which can be seen in crazy games’s Crazy Fight Monsters. This game is now out of service, which means that there has been no successful case of this design.

Merge-2′ s synthetic gameplay is easy to use. Players can get monster eggs by placing hanging machines or paying fees, and instantly generate monsters of different classes. Two monsters of the same class can be synthesized. There is a probability of successfully synthesizing a high-class monster, and there is also a probability of failing to generate a slime. slime can only be used to upgrade the level of other monsters. Simply put, this can only be regarded as a form of casual games.

This kind of cultivating gameplay can be done long enough-there is no fixed synthesis formula in the game, which means that even if the player synthesizes a high-grade monster, he doesn’t know in advance whether it is the one he wants, and the game will rise exponentially. Moreover, no matter whether the player wants to synthesize a monster or obtain a slime, different purposes can only be achieved through the operation of "incubating eggs". The reason why the formation line of the game is longer is simply because of the influence of randomness, which leads to the loss of efficiency of the player’s formation decision.

At the same time, this kind of gameplay does not have depth-the way to cultivate magic objects only retains "upgrade", and designs such as equipment and magic objects are abandoned. Although lightness is the trend of SLG now, if most products work hard on fur to attract players, then "Covenant of Victory" has gone deep into the bone marrow, and even seems a bit dull.

The relatively mild card game also affects the core game of Covenant of Victory, which makes its weight shift from SLG to placing cards.

The cultivated monsters can be matched with teams and play a role in the SLG battlefield. Convention of Victory uses the traditional COK-like framework and still has the characteristics of point-to-point marching and inspection tasks. However, although "Covenant of Victory" has designed legion skills for each monster, the content of SLG fighting in the game has not yet been produced, and the fighting process is only PV video, which has nothing to do with the team in which the player plays.

Now the PVP game of Covenant of Victory is more like inheriting from the open-box game, instead of thinking about moving closer to SLG. In the game, the content of playing cards is made. Players can choose to play a monster and form a two-person team with the Lord. They can play against other players by consuming admission tickets and finally get rewards according to the points ranking.

Similarly, "Covenant of Victory" provides two ways of conscription, and adds randomness to one of them.

One is the combination of strong chess, which is not only the main way for players to recruit, but also the embodiment of randomness. Players will harvest a certain number of dice by hanging up and SLG killing wild monsters, and will randomly get different kinds of soldiers or gold coins after throwing them on the chessboard. It is difficult for a player to get a specified kind of soldiers simply by rolling dice, but he can also use special dice to roll a specified number of points, which may become one of the paid contents in the future.

The efficiency of conscription may be limited, but the benefits will be higher. As players roll dice more and more times, the level of the chessboard will increase, and the number of soldiers won will also increase each time.

The other is to use gold coins to buy soldiers of specified types directly, which also eliminates the waiting link for training soldiers. However, this recruitment method has a limited amount, and only a certain number of soldiers can be purchased every three days. This will not become the main means of conscription, but can only play an auxiliary role.

If you formally join the SLG gameplay, it will be difficult for players to get the arms they want, which also means spending more time accumulating troops. Perhaps the game of strong chess itself is mild, but it will become more severe when applied to SLG game.

In addition, Covenant of Victory changed SLG’s urban construction play into the form of opening boxes, and the play experience also changed from the original macro "strategic management" to the relatively micro "role development".

Urban construction play is the key to control the game rhythm in conventional SLG. Players need to spend time waiting for the building to be completed, and they also need to follow the order to unlock the upgrade conditions. In this process, you can use acceleration props or unlock the construction queue to improve the construction efficiency, which also provides a commercial space for the game.

However, "Covenant of Victory" directly abandoned the concept of "urban construction", and players only need to keep opening boxes to get buildings, thus saving the time waiting for construction.

These buildings are not only functional. They also need to be regarded as "equipment", and at the same time affect the value of the Lord’s combat power, and the Lord’s combat power determines whether the player can continue to advance the task progress.

Just like the box-opening game, players get stronger buildings in the process of constantly opening boxes, and choose to replace them or sell them. After selling the treasure chest, you can get gold coins and upgrade the treasure chest level. Gold coins are the only resource in the game.(excluding paid content)The level of treasure chest determines the probability of high-quality buildings.

"Covenant of Victory" basically restored the game experience of opening boxes, and made the threshold lower, and provided treasure boxes to players through a series of ways, such as hanging up, completing tasks, and killing wild monsters.

In particular, the design of hanging up the machine will not exist in many open-box games, because as long as the process is properly designed, players will not "encounter no boxes to open" in the early stage of the game, and the Covenant of Victory still adds the guarantee measures.

Nowadays, the game of opening boxes has a very high popularity in domestic and foreign markets, and it has also been sought after by many manufacturers. For example, "Seeking the Way", which is a mutual entertainment of Sanqi, has been a great success in the WeChat game, and it has also achieved good results in using the App to go to sea. Recently, it is also preparing to launch a new product "Little Fight". What can be recognized is that this gameplay originated from the WeChat game and has potential on the App side.

Compared with the traditional SLG gameplay, opening a box is likely to extend the player’s online time. In other words, it is difficult for players to have nothing to do. As long as they are willing to spend time, they will definitely gain combat power improvement or resource accumulation, and they will basically not be discouraged by the game control progress. For reference, the producer of "Crazy Knights", which opened the box, once revealed the initial data of the operation, and the average online time of users reached 60 minutes.(It may also be influenced by small game platforms).

The online time of a player may not be the standard to measure whether an SLG is excellent or not, but it often means that it brings a continuous sense of growth to the player, and this more direct and intense stimulation may better retain the player.

In addition to bringing advantages, it also takes a certain price to join the open box game, the most obvious thing is to reduce the weight of resources. This is also very important for SLG. When the fun of resource production, distribution and consumption is no longer provided in the game, players may lose their sense of purpose in SLG gameplay.

Generally speaking, the Covenant of Victory is still a product in its infancy, and the game experience focuses on single-player play.

However, don’t forget that when the open-box game is in the fierce competition of innovation, when everyone is thinking about how to use the open-box game as the base, few games have used it as an auxiliary game so far. As for the feasibility of this innovative direction of integration with SLG, it remains to be seen.

Image source @ vision china

Wen | New Consumption of Tide Watching, Author | Xinyi, Editor | Eucommia ulmoides Oliv.

In recent years, China’s beauty industry has ushered in Shuang Sheng in scale and growth rate, which is an important evidence of the rise of "national tide".

As for the important factors that lead to the rapid rise of many new domestic beauty products in the past few years, based on the supply side, domestic beauty suppliers have served international brands for many years and have accumulated enough experience in technology and mode, and the efficiency of China’s beauty supply chain is leading the world.

Based on the consumption side, the economic situation of the new generation of consumers has improved qualitatively compared with the previous generation, and they also have more time and energy to study and invest in the "beautiful cause".

This is the big background.

Besides, there is a rare opportunity that belongs to China’s beauty industry, which we call the "functional/ingredient era".

When a beauty manufacturer shared it before, it was mentioned that the so-called "function/component" concept was not put forward by a professional research institution in an industry or a so-called core enterprise with the right to speak in the industry, but a concept put forward by the market.

That is to say, consumers "force" the beauty industry to continuously deepen their understanding of functions/ingredients based on their emphasis on functions/ingredients. We seem to have seen the arrival of the "era of consumer sovereignty".

How did this era come about?

We believe that on the one hand, technology itself is improving. People’s pursuit of beauty and health is engraved in their genes, so that the beauty industry has been cracking the password of "eternal youth" through technological innovation for so many years.

With the efforts of the R&D end, the proven more effective raw materials and processes will replace the previous solutions. For example, if we lengthen the time line, we can see that China’s beauty has evolved into a functional era step by step, and the core driving force must be the technology itself.

Source: Fengrui Capital

On the other hand, the era of efficacy has become an industry consensus, and it also depends on the rise of social media and corresponding digital means.

With the help of developed information channels, "rich and leisure" consumers have established an unprecedented understanding of beauty products and even the industry. They know exactly what they need and are more capable of judging truly valuable solutions.

Functions/ingredients based on advanced technical capabilities have also become the most recognized beauty concept in the market with the help of new channels.

With the help of new channels and new marketing, an unprecedented high-efficiency bridge has been built between brands and consumer markets, and the efficiency of product market verification has been greatly improved.

Based on the above background, it is not difficult for us to understand the significance of today’s technology to the beauty industry in China. We will also start to sort out and show the scientific and technological innovation of China’s beauty industry around the key words of science and technology.

From the beginning of research and development to the terminal-oriented, the beauty industry relies more and more on scientific and technological strength in each core link. Based on market observation, we summarize the current mainstream technological innovation methods in each link.

• The research and development end is mainly the technological innovation of raw materials and processes. From the perspective of raw materials, more and more "local raw materials" are attracting market attention;

• In the field of packaging, environmentally-friendly packaging materials driven by the concept of sustainable development are becoming the focus of the field. In addition, the technological innovation of packaging is also directly empowering the product itself. For example, through special packaging to maintain the activity of ingredients, reduce the emulsification reaction that may lead to allergies, reduce the irritation of some ingredients, and help control the proportion of ingredients to achieve the best results;

• At the channel level, no matter which channel the brand is exerting its strength with traffic bonus, digitalization is a technological innovation link that cannot be avoided by reducing costs, improving quality and increasing efficiency. Building a new "people and goods yard" through digitalization is always the goal to be achieved in the process of channel reform;

• The same is true in marketing. Digitalization makes the connection between channel marketing closer and closer, thus creating an increasingly smooth sales link for the brand. Nowadays, digital marketing tools have almost become the standard of beauty brands, and the essence of tools is to serve efficiency. What we often call "user thinking" is essentially a more efficient content model that links the market.

Here we also show the full-link technology empowerment in the field of beauty through some cases.

In the field of R&D, Galand Group, the parent company of Nature Hall, mainly promotes a kind of "indigenous component", a microbial strain in the Himalayas, which is also a component of the cooperation between Galand and Chinese Academy of Sciences in microbial research.

Now, this ingredient with "anti-oxidation" function has practical product application, and now it is also one of the star products of Nature Hall.

Another typical case of process innovation comes from Zhiben.

No matter how good the ingredients are, if they are not absorbed, the effect will be discounted. Today, an important technological innovation direction in the field of beauty cosmetics is actually to solve the problem of how functional ingredients are used by the human body.

The present technology is called "artificial exosome delivery technology", which can effectively absorb extracellular active ingredients by activating cells and increase the efficacy of the ingredients themselves.

There are also corresponding products on the market.

In the field of packaging, Runbaiyan’s packaging is more representative on the level of sustainable development. At the same time, it has a strong sense of design and recognition, and tells the brand concept through product packaging.

Regarding the following channels and marketing digitalization, here is a marketing link.

Between planting grass and pulling grass, there is also a link to raise grass, which is also a link to open up online and offline, public and private domains through data, improve the quality of marketing reach in an all-round way, and increase consumer experience.

It shows that in addition to some direct efficiency transformation, we should also add more indirect content to give marketing content and emotional value. And our current digital tools and solutions are indeed more and more intelligent, so high that we can achieve continuous optimization of content through accurate consumer analysis.

The influence of science and technology on the field of beauty is increasing, and this cognition is also reflected in the business process of industries and enterprises through data.

First of all, the proportion of R&D expenses of head beauty enterprises in total revenue has gradually increased in the past three years. Huaxi Bio and Betani are outstanding, with R&D expenses accounting for more than 5% in the past year.

Moreover, not only domestic beauty cosmetics are following the era of technological beauty led by efficacy skin care, but now many foreign brands are also highlighting their scientific research strength and related achievements, fully catering to the efficacy wave.

We have observed that the overall trend in the field of beauty today has changed from "volume marketing" to "volume channel" to "volume research and development" and "volume efficiency".

Show you some typical cases that everyone is familiar with-

The first is Huaxi Bio, which started from the research and development of raw materials. Before that, it was more of a core supply chain enterprise serving the B-end such as medical care and medical beauty. Later, the advantages of raw material research and development and channel funds were expanded, and the beauty brand matrix was developed to play the C-end market and gradually become a terminal brand enterprise; Now Huaxi Bio is a veritable beauty industry chain group enterprise.

Bettini also takes the whole chain route, starting from the conservation planting at the source, integrating R&D and production of brands; Now the product system covers cosmetics and medical devices, and continues to expand in the field of beauty.

These two cases are more focused on the field of skin care products. Cosmetic companies, which have always been regarded as not paying much attention to R&D, are actually gradually consciously raising the threshold of product competition with scientific and technological investment-the parent companies of Perfect Diary and Huaxizi now have their own R&D centers, or do research and development of products with technical content through cooperation with authoritative scientific research institutions.

The direction involved is also inseparable from products and processes. Now many make-up brands are also improving the safety of their products through "local raw materials", creating brand recognition, and even giving make-up products the efficacy of nourishing skin.

Including now, many make-up brands are also making efforts in the field of base makeup, which requires higher research and development, and establishing their own moat through products with thresholds.

Finally, through a table, I will show you the R&D, construction and related trends of new domestic beauty brands on the market.

Just now, we mentioned that mainstream beauty companies on the market are making efforts in research and development, and also listed relevant data, but in fact, it is difficult for each industry to set a perfect absolute value for R&D investment.

However, the gradual upward trend itself will reflect the positive correlation between R&D investment and the market value of the brand. I believe that it is precisely because of this that the brand has the incentive to continuously increase the price in science and technology.

In the next part, we take this view and show the beauty technology and product direction with high market recognition through some specific cases.

Let me give you a general picture first. This is the main positioning and concept of domestic beauty head brands (including listed companies and cutting-edge brands). Obviously, we can see the weight of scientific research on brands now.

Source: business staff liquid essence category seven-day product ranking

In addition, we also found that more and more products will directly write the ingredients when optimizing the platform keyword search, which actually reflects that consumers’ understanding of beauty technology has reached a certain height today.

Then look at some specific cases-

The first one is hyaluronic acid, represented by "Huaxi School". Here is a direct example of Runbaiyan.

Since its debut, Runbaiyan has been deeply cultivating hyaluronic acid by relying on Huaxi Bio. This year, it directly expressed its brand positioning as "hyaluronic acid technology repair aesthetics", focusing on precise repair of surface, middle and bottom layers.

We also briefly summarized the launch of Runbaiyan on various platforms and the brand word cloud based on the launch, and found that the whole play and positioning of Runbaiyan have a high degree of overlap.

Of course, the core of brand marketing is products. In particular, the brand matrix of Huaxi Bio has always emphasized the concept of "big single product" and advocated that the whole series should be driven by big single product.

Let’s take another example that obviously adopts component positioning, which can be beautiful.

The human-like collagen of giant creatures has a very high reputation in the industrial circle, and it has been named as the original ingredient of China. When doing brand operation, it is also the idea of "core ingredients+efficacy output+big single product". That is, "recombinant collagen+fragile muscle repair+mask, second throw, collagen stick".

We also pulled some data from mainstream platforms to show the product line and sales of Fumei.

The third case is Ximuyuan, which takes the component route.

When Ximuyuan was first recognized by the market, it was also inseparable from ingredients, but industrial cannabis and medicinal Phellinus linteus finally went wrong for various subjective and objective reasons.

However, Ximuyuan has been building its brand around natural ingredients, and now it mainly promotes the product lines of camellia and cherry blossoms. In fact, camellia is not originated by Ximuyuan, but it does not hinder the positive effect of this ingredient on the brand.

At present, Ximuyuan combines the concept of natural ingredients with urban life from positioning to marketing, which is also the ideological trend that cutting-edge consumer brands in China will generally graft.

Let’s talk about a domestic brand PMPM.

The big move of PMPM this year is to set up a global skin care research expert committee, with the core purpose of "providing solutions to skin problems for consumers in China". The brand has always wanted to promote the concept of "formula", and the formula represents the collection of ingredients and technology.

This is also a case where the brand’s hard scientific research strength is directly presented at the market level.

Finally, I will share this report and show the possible trends from the perspective of our industry.

First, the beauty and skin care industry has entered the era of "strong supervision". No matter which industry will pay special attention to policy orientation and industry rules, beauty is actually an industry with a high customer complaint rate, and the impact of policies on brand enterprises is very obvious.

Judging from the adjustment of filing rules in recent years, it can be clearly found that the supervision of the beauty industry has become stricter. Some products can no longer use the expression of "medical" in publicity, which actually puts forward higher requirements for the brand’s product strength.

Since we are in the age of efficacy and benefit from it, we should not abuse it.

Otherwise, the effect will also fail.

Second, synthetic biology: reconstructing the next password of the beauty industry. Brands need to pay attention to some important scientific and technological innovation trends. From the feedback from the current investment market and the mainstream research and development direction of the industry, we conclude that synthetic biology is a research direction that is more concerned in the field of beauty.

Moreover, synthetic biology is also a direction in which China has the first-Mover advantage. At present, China’s synthetic biotechnology is comparable to the international mainstream level, and even in a leading position in some biotechnology fields.

Third, the capital market prefers biotechnology. Take a look at the signals sent by investment institutions. The first is the attention to the field of synthetic biology; Secondly, many investment institutions will favor the proven ingredients and efficacy to increase the certainty of investment; In addition, there are still opportunities for breakthroughs and innovations in sub-populations, scenarios and needs.

Finally, deep brand differentiation based on scientific research and development is the foundation for brand enterprises to impress investors and always stand in the market.

The next three trends are all related to channels and marketing.

Fourth, the development of offline channels has brought new growth points to the beauty industry.

Since the beginning of this year, many beauty brands have begun to work offline. In fact, going offline is the only way for brands to expand their channels. When everyone quickly starts online, whether they have reached the traffic ceiling or not, they will naturally extend offline, because offline service and experience are the core values of beauty brands.

Of course, today’s offline channels need to be upgraded on the basis of traditional shelf thinking, so that offline can become a scene with strong content, multifunction and more experience, which can effectively promote purchase decisions and enhance purchase intentions.

Here, people are no longer simple consumers, but change to accurate consumers; In contrast, brands need to use this scenario to provide more accurate products and services.

And with the empowerment of technology, online and offline will be opened up, resulting in sales linkage. In the future, omni-channel digital empowerment of retail+service+technology+experience is the only way.

Fifth, lay out private domain e-commerce and establish its own digital user assets.

Like the logic under the wire, the public domain leads to the private domain, which is an inevitable brand logic. Under the combined effect of the expensive public domain traffic, limited repurchase rate and emerging platforms and traffic dividends, private domain has almost become the standard for brands to maintain long-term growth.

Moreover, private domain is a channel strategy with compound interest, and the later it is, the higher the production ratio will be, which is also the application meaning of stickiness and repurchase.

Sixth, content innovation is the primary productivity of online marketing of beauty products.

We emphasize that no matter what kind of channels and marketing actions we do, everyone’s requirements for content must be getting higher and higher. The good live performance of Xiaohongshu this year actually confirms the effect of previous content accumulation, and the trust generated by high-quality content in the consumer market has been recognized and highlighted in the form of sales data.

We also advocate that today’s brand enterprises will no longer roughly divide their business into two categories, such as online and offline, public domain and private domain, but focus more on understanding and observing people and refining effective content for real people.

Insight into the output content, content construction experience, experience produces stickiness, and stickiness produces long-term purchasing power; With the help of content and market links, brands will generate new insights under the continuous benign interaction, thus serving the upgrading iteration of the whole business process such as technology, products, content, channels and marketing, and finally making the business form an "organism".

This is a process that takes content as the core driving force and constantly realizes the flywheel of brand growth in the positive cycle.

Seventh, finally, pay attention to a trend, and custom beauty has sprung up everywhere.

Customization is almost a foreseeable end point of all consumption, and customized service reflects the highest degree of respect for consumers. It also reflects the market’s pursuit of in-depth and high-quality services.

It is not easy to find a suitable product and service solution in the vast amount of information. From the industry to the market, people are looking for the next hot trend.

In fact, what is popular is not necessarily suitable.

Of course, thousands of people need not only the input of product technology, the deepening of market education and cognition, but also the more universal and customized solutions that cater to the consumption power of the masses.