The “clock-point dance” that has gone viral on the entire Internet, is Douyin not the biggest winner?

Explore how the music game Phigros unexpectedly became popular during the Tik Tok card dance craze, and the impact of this phenomenon on the niche culture circle and the game industry. Recommended for readers who are interested in subculture, the game market and social media trends.

In a subculture world with a strict chain of contempt that ordinary people rarely come into contact with, music game players may be a group with a relatively low sense of presence.

On the one hand, as an "I-person project", music games do not need to compete with anyone (except for players who brush the charts), they only need to constantly break through themselves; on the other hand, since most of the tracks come from "two-dimensional" IPs such as anime and virtual idols, there is a high degree of overlap with "otaku" in the usual sense.

For this reason, music game geeks who are self-reliant in their own circle usually don’t want their favorite games to “go viral.” Because once they become a “popular discipline,” the originally “pure” circle will be tainted with other colors, and it will not be something that a group of old players who “play for love” can control.

Recently, players of the free music game Phigros encountered a similar situation - because the UI and special effects of this game are very dynamic and unexpectedly fit with the card point dance, all the young ladies on TikTok have turned into the shape of Phigros. This made the original old players feel at a loss.

But the control of traffic obviously does not lie with the old players, and even the decision on how to monetize the traffic does not entirely lie with Douyin. Instead, the game manufacturers and distribution platforms behind it have a lot of control. In this feast of traffic, they are the real players behind the scenes.

1. When the Renaissance meets the music game

How to test whether a niche thing has gone viral? Just look at whether the official account has been released. After Phigros's related secondary creation went viral on Douyin, Chengdu Mobile's official video account also released the same card-point dance video, and even combined it with another popular Chinese girl element. This is considered a "stamp of approval" for Phigros.

So how much attention has Phigros, the "root of all evil," received on TikTok?

So far, more than 252,000 people have participated in the video, with a total of 2.12 billion views. It is not an exaggeration to describe it with the most popular phrase nowadays: "overwhelming wealth".

In terms of the content itself, the secondary creation of Phigros on Douyin is not a "new life" in itself, but a renaissance of "ancient materials" from different periods. For example, the "kadian dance" as the main theme is better known as social shake. This trend started with Kuaishou in 2015 and Douyin in 2017. Up to now, it has become a 10-year-old "living fossil" on the Internet.

Another example is Phigros, which was passively released this time. It was first released around 2020. Even after 4-5 years of operation, it already has a group of loyal native players and community ecology. However, compared with the more well-known "cars, guns and balls" game types, or even the more popular "Genshin Impact" in the two-dimensional game, it is still a very small and old niche music game.

Therefore, when billions of followers are introduced into this circle by copyright-conscious TikTok users, one can imagine what kind of impact the music game geeks who originally kept to themselves will have.

The most intuitive reflection comes from the comments under Phigros’ short video on Douyin.

From the comments, we can see that some original players of Phigros love and cherish their own small circle. They are not interested in this wave of traffic and wealth, and even have some rejection. The reason is not difficult to infer - a subculture game that was originally a circle of people who grew up in a circle, was pushed into the spotlight by traffic. Regardless of the result, this circle will definitely not be as pure and passionate as before.

I believe no one would like this feeling of being suddenly "exposed" and feeling helpless.

2. Traffic and Beyond Traffic

Loosely speaking, the probability of being hit by Douyin's traffic is about the same as buying a lottery ticket. However, to successfully catch this kind of overwhelming wealth, whether it is an individual or a brand, you usually need to work harder than the average person.

If we use this standard to select, the production company of Phigros, Pigeon Games, and its boss "CN115", obviously meet this definition. In the words of the director of the game documentary "Director BK", "This young man born in 1999, when he was less than 20 years old, brought a group of QQ group friends to create a completely free music game Phigros." Some core players pointed out that the first version of this game was even completed when the founder was in the second year of high school.

However, unlike other fan-oriented and sentimental independent games, Phigros received a recommendation score of 4.7 in the Apple Store shortly after its release, and also received a high score of 9.7 out of more than 80,000 reviews on TapTap. Even among the 1-star reviews, there are many suggestions and positive reviews like the following.

What is even more surprising is that as a music game with no in-app purchases and "generated for love", the daily revenue source of Geyou comes from donations from core players. According to the founder of Geyou "CN115" in 2022, this donation amount is usually not large, "sometimes a few thousand a month, sometimes a few hundred a month", which is obviously impossible to support a game production team. Not to mention that this money is basically used to purchase music copyrights and pay server fees.

The model of Phigros also shows that this is a niche game made by core music game players, relying on gameplay and excellent product quality to cultivate and operate another group of core players. Whether it is the team composition or "revenue", it has little to do with the traditional game production model. In the words of the game's music designer "Chen", "What everyone invests is pure love, and they rely on their cooking skills to operate this game."

Therefore, it is most appropriate for both the producers and game manufacturers to maintain a "self-cultivation" state for niche games and niche circles that are independent of mainstream game products or outside the mainstream vision.

The main reason is that, whether it is a music game or the game itself, for the mainstream narrative, as long as it does not go overseas to make money like miHoYo and does not "win glory for the country", it is "distracting" and will be severely criticized.

As for Phigros, Geyou's response to this is also very telling. As early as 2022, Geyou issued a statement hoping that Phigros would not be over-commercialized. In this traffic storm, the aforementioned statement also became a bullet fired by core players into the comment area of ​​​​TikTok short videos.

It can be seen from the previous article that in the hearts of Phigros producers and players, this game has become a pure land in their hearts. They do not want this game to become commercial and boring due to excessive commercialization, and become a "assembly line product" that meets the needs of investors or parent companies.

Under the aesthetics of such a production team, the KPI standard of general game companies such as "revenue" does not exist in Geyou Company. For the same reason, they did not choose traditional game distribution channels such as Hardcore League, and finally chose TapTap, which has a better community atmosphere and more core players, as its only distribution channel on the Android side.

3. Who will eventually consume the billions of traffic?

Traffic itself cannot be monetized directly, but game-related content may be an exception.

Lao Hu often watches chess and card videos on Douyin, or to be more precise, Sichuan Mahjong competitions. There is usually a small red handle at the bottom of the screen of such short videos or live broadcasts. Clicking on it will lead to the mahjong game APP recommended by the blogger.

Under the influence of algorithms, this type of game finds target users through short videos, and its effect is more accurate than traditional game buying volume advertising. This is also one of the reasons why game advertisements have always occupied a large share of the information flow advertising in Douyin and Kuaishou.

However, Geyou itself rejects commercialization, and Douyin itself also does not have a download channel for Phigros. Because the only way for users attracted by the dot-dance girl to play Phigros, apart from the Apple APP STORE, is to become a new user of TapTap on the Android side.

Therefore, TapTap, as the only distribution channel of Phigros on the Android side, eventually became one of the beneficiaries of this billion-level traffic storm.

It is understood that in the first quarter of this year, the number of active users of TapTap has successfully emerged from the temporary downturn last year and may hit a new high since the birth of the App. TapTap's exclusive content and non-profit strategy not only provide a touchstone for works like Phigros to face the market directly, but its high-density community ecology also provides a pure community for players to communicate.

This may be the most realistic part of the business world - whether the Phigros company itself is willing or not, or whether the old players of Phigros are happy or not, these traffic will eventually turn into commercial returns.

Whether it is the influx of new players to Phigros, the countless new users entering TapTap, or the Douyin users who cannot get out after watching the dance videos on TikTok, they will flow to various apps or games in the form of traffic, reshape and change the user ecology of games and communities, and generate unpredictable commercial returns.

Although such changes are generally positive, for subculture groups or music game players who are accustomed to self-cultivation, too drastic changes are not all good things. As for how this traffic will change TapTap and Phigros, only time can tell.

Author: Lao Hu; Supervisor: Daman; Layout: Yuqi; Source: IQ Tax Research Center (ID: 1089356)