The Zhitong Finance App learned that Everbright Securities released a research report saying that although the popularity of “Phantom Beast” is due to social media communication, its key innovations that focus on user needs, the interaction and user experience with rational gameplay and detailed design are at the core of its competitiveness, and its sales are expected to continue to increase in the future. As the first hit in 24 years, “Phantom Beast”'s “Circles” can guide the game industry: 1) Players will still give clear positive feedback on the fun creation of gameplay, and other innovative gameplay in the game industry is expected to be recognized in the future; 2) Micro-innovation is still a direction with strong execution and high win rate. China's mobile game manufacturers are expected to increase the certainty of product output revenue through mobile games and the transfer of cutting-edge ideas from overseas.
Incidents:
On January 19, '24, “Palworld (Palu the Phantom Beast)” was launched on the Steam platform, and it was popular and popular in a short period of time. According to official information from “Phantom Beast”, the game sold more than 8 million copies in the six days it went on sale. According to SteamDB data, as of 10:00 on January 29, “Phantom Beast” had a praise rate of 93.01%, ranking first in the Steam game list with a peak of over 2.1 million people online in the past 24 hours, while the peak number of people online in history was second in the overall ranking, after “PUBG.”
Comment:
The ultimate “stitching” wins players' love. Based on Pokémon IP-like ideas, the reason “Phantom Beast Paru” is popular is that it satisfies the demands of different types of players. At the same time, it has carefully designed a balance between training and combat, and has spread widely through the community caused by emotional resonance, and achieved “going out of the circle”.
▍ The main views of Everbright Securities are as follows:
The successful experience of the “Phantom Beast” team is expected to be an important reference for the future development of domestic games:
1. Behind the “similar” controversy, there is critical innovation support to seize the core demands of players who like “Pokémon” games.
“Phantom Beast Paru” is highly similar to the “Pokémon” series, from capturing and cultivating phantom beasts to directing phantom beasts to participate in exploration and battles, and also in terms of art design, but “Phantom Beast Paru” is also quite different from the latter:
1) Compared to “Pokémon”, the interaction between humans and pets has been further enhanced. Pokémon's functional design is relatively uniform. Pokémon is positioned as a pet partner, but the gameplay is more reflected in the combat system. “Phantom Beast” greatly expands Paru's functionality. Players can not only command Paru to participate in battles, but also apply them to the agricultural or industrial construction of their homes, making full use of their characteristics to serve themselves. This provides a richer interactive scene between the player and Paru.
2) There is no clear main story, and handing over gameplay choices to players has improved players' self-drive, which helps attract different game audiences. There is no clear main story in “Phantom Beast”, and as the “Tower Guardian” that appears as a boss, it is not an absolute ultimate goal. Different game audiences can find their favorite gameplay in “Phantom Beast Paru”. The PVP and PVE modes also allow players to upgrade alone to fight monsters or participate in multiplayer online experiences.
2. The experience design is in place to guide players to form mutual incentives between casual development and adventure combat.
1) Rich battle modes enhance the player's sense of experience. Based on the “Pokémon” turn-based combat, “Phantom Beast” uses real-time FPS shooting+action gameplay. Players can not only use Paru as a mount to attack, but also fight and drive Paru to automatically release their skills. They can also perform combined attacks with Paru to enhance the game's strategy while providing players with a more direct and stimulating sensory experience.
2) Develop straightforward logic, and the “Palu Code” summed up by players is easy to spread on social media. The player plays the role of a capitalist or tyrant in the game: each Palu has different characteristics and can be responsible for starting fires, farming, riding, and being a hard worker, and Palu who cannot create value will be eliminated; human technology collaborates with Palu to conquer more Palu, and then take the products produced by Paru as their own. It partially satisfies players' demand for ridicule, and has formed social media dissemination of game topics, which is conducive to its spread on the Internet and gaining further popularity.
3) Training and combat are connected by “Palu Ball” to form a motivational cycle. The key point of the development and battle process in “Phantom Beast Paru” is to capture the Elf Ball used by Paru. The fastest way to upgrade is to capture Paru. Capturing Paru requires the consumption of Paru Balls, and the captured Paru can be used to produce Palu Balls faster, thereby cleverly balancing the two steps and forming mutual encouragement, so that players can continuously gain a sense of self-improvement in battle and development in the monster catch-production-monster catching cycle, helping “Phantom Beast Paru” retain a large number of online players.
3. The small team made blockbusters, and their successful experience in micro-innovation and efficient production is worth learning from for future game designers.
1) Detailed micro-innovation is carried out on mature gameplay categories to meet the actual needs of players. “Stitching” reviews have received a lot of attention. “Phantom Beast” producer Takuro Mizobe once responded that “Phantom Beast Paru” did draw on the gameplay and Pokémon elements of games such as “Minecraft,” “Ark: Survival and Evolution,” and “Rimworld.” In an interview with Japanese media Automaton, he praised “Pokémon” as an excellent and great work. Drawing on these great ideas on the market rather than simply pursuing originality was his original idea. He only hoped that his work would make different players “have fun because it's interesting.”
2) Creators focus on game production itself, love and invest in creating quality products. According to Mizobe Takuro's disclosure, when it comes to talent selection, the company is not limited to education and experience, but rather establishes a team that can efficiently complete the production capacity of industrial game production. Since it values the skills of specific talents, the company even recruited a middle school graduate to be responsible for gun animation, camera, and sound effects production, and a fresh graduate to be responsible for art design. In terms of R&D expenses, the development time of “Phantom Beast Paru” was over three years, and the development team of more than 40 people and outsourcers invested, and almost all of the company's account was spent 1 billion yen (about 50 million yuan).
Segments that are expected to benefit include:
1) With the success of “Phantom Beast”, SOC (Survival\ Open-World\ Crafting), or open world survival production games, is expected to become the category that various game makers will try to break through in the future. The manufacturer that took the lead may take the lead. Recommended: 37 Entertainment (002555.SZ), etc.;
2) “Phantom Beast Palu” relays the rapid spread of social media topics. Its lead transmission path is expected to benefit manufacturers that focus on purchasing volume logic. Focus on: Kaiying Network (002517.SZ), etc.;
3) Category integration is a determined direction in the current situation where large-scale category innovation in the game industry is slowing down. Manufacturers that combine multiple categories to launch potential new products are expected to benefit. It is recommended to focus on: Shenzhou Taiyue (300002.SZ), etc.;
4) “Phantom Beast” has a high degree of completion. The industrial output capacity of the game industry is still the core competitiveness. Major manufacturers with strong productivity may continue to have an advantage. Recommended: Tencent Holdings (00700), etc.
Risk warning:
Competition intensified; commercialization fell short of expectations; new products fell short of expectations; changes in the policy environment.