The explosion of "Finished" has led to a surge in short drama concept stocks. Is a new trend coming?

How did a game bring short dramas to the forefront? What new insights did the explosive popularity of "The End" bring? Is this a new trend? Let's take a look!

After games entered the live broadcast industry and led to the explosion of popularity of interactive barrage gameplay, the short drama track has also been affected by the game industry recently and ushered in a new round of craze.

Recently, a live-action interactive video game launched on Steam, "It's Over! I'm Surrounded by Beauties!", became a huge hit. Less than a month after its launch, its sales are expected to exceed 30 million.

Not only that, the game's popularity has also affected the secondary market, driving game and short drama companies to attract much attention in the market, and the stocks of many listed companies involved in short drama business have soared. The short drama track, which was already hot, has now soared again due to the pursuit of capital.

How did a game bring short dramas to the forefront? What new insights did the explosive popularity of "The End" bring?

1. The capital market has set off a "short drama fever"

Recently, due to the explosive popularity of "Finished! I'm Surrounded by Beauties!" (hereinafter referred to as "Finished"), the entire capital market has set off a "short drama fever":

The share price of Baina Qiancheng has been high for many consecutive days, rising by nearly 66% in just one week; as of November 7, Tianwei Video achieved four consecutive daily limits, Zhangyue Technology had "two daily limits in three days", and many companies related to short dramas such as China Online, China News Group, and Yaowang Technology had their first daily limit.

It is reported that the share price of Baina Qiancheng rose first, mainly due to two reasons:

One is that Zheng Ziyan, one of the popular characters in "Ended", is played by Zhong Chenyao. The movie "Hot Search" in which she starred will be released on December 1, and Baina Qiancheng has become one of the co-producers of the film. In addition, Baina Qiancheng is preparing for an interactive game similar to "Ended" called "Hidden Detective", which is expected to be officially launched within the year.

Tianwei Video mainly benefits from short dramas. Its subsidiaries own the leading short drama app "Hippo Theater" and a mini-program short drama matrix; Zhangyue Technology, China Online, etc. all have rich IP resources and have laid out short drama businesses.

Securities firms have flocked to the short drama market for research, organized a series of conference calls on short drama market opportunities, interactive film and games, and released relevant research reports on the short drama market.

On November 6, Tonghuashun even added a new concept index called "Short Drama Game".

The analysis of this concept is: "End" ignited the real-life interactive game, the core of which lies in the script and short dramas, inducing a new business model for short dramas. Compared with the traditional film and television industry, the short drama industry has more obvious advantages in entry barriers, content review, investment returns, initial investment and turnover speed.

It can be seen that the already hot short drama track is now booming again due to the pursuit of capital.

However, you may be curious about why the popularity of a game has led to the popularity of short dramas. To answer this question, we have to go back to "The End" itself.

2. Why are short dramas so popular?

It is reported that "Wan Dan" is a real-life interactive video game developed by INTINY Studio, whose backer company is Guangzhou Xiaoyou Content Interactive Entertainment Co., Ltd. "Wan Dan" was launched on Steam on October 18, 2023. It is a development game that uses the first-person perspective of the male protagonist Gu Yi to embark on a love journey with six beauties of different looks and personalities.

Unlike "Paper Man", "Finished" uses real-life content to enhance the players' sense of excitement in the game. In the game, based on the dialogue choices at different key nodes, more than 100 story branches are derived, with a total of 12 endings.

According to relevant data, the current favorable rating of "Done" has reached 95%, which is a "very favorable" game. According to Steam Spy's estimate, the current cumulative sales of "Done" are about 789,000 copies. Based on the payment model of the game that can be bought out for 42 yuan, the cumulative sales are expected to reach more than 30 million.

In fact, as early as 2019, "The Invisible Guardian", which also focused on live-action interactive story games and was released on Steam, sparked a discussion about live-action interactive story games. According to the Steam game public account, "The Invisible Guardian" ranked first among domestic stand-alone games with sales of 1.4 million that year.

However, "The Invisible Guardian" did not cause the current craze.

One of the most obvious differences is the rise of short plays.

Comprehensive analysis shows that the popularity of "End" is mainly due to two factors: (1) the core script and content design; (2) the immersive experience brought by real-life performances. These two points cannot be achieved through game design, which is precisely through short plays.

Since the beginning of this year, short dramas have continued to be popular. "The revenue of "Wushuang" exceeded 100 million yuan in 8 days" and "Tenglong" exceeded 22 million yuan in 24 hours" and other short dramas have created a wave of wealth in the industry. Most of these popular short dramas are "cool dramas". Therefore, some people describe short dramas as "enhanced version of nipple fun", IQ -100, happiness +10,000.

Chen Tianhui, the mastermind behind the popularity of "The End" and the distribution director of Guangzhou Xiaoyou Content Interactive Entertainment Co., Ltd., said in an interview with the media that some of their earliest ideas were indeed influenced by similar cool dramas and short videos. This product also referred to some of the currently popular first-person short video accounts, and then used them as an entry point.

"Because this type of subject matter has a wide audience and tens of millions of fans, there must be a reason for its popularity. We analyzed the reasons and found some users' needs, emotional points and value points," said Chen Tianhui.

On short video platforms, it is not uncommon to see accounts that shoot short videos from a first-person perspective. Take the account @Meet Her for example, which uses the male character "Fang Yu" as the first-person perspective to interact with multiple heroines. The account has 14.847 million followers, and the heroines that appear at different stages in its videos receive high attention from fans.

For example, netizens teased that the heroine Zhu Keren and herself were the "three regrets on Douyin". According to Feigua data, Zhu Keren's average Douyin search index from October 5 to November 5 was 11,000, even though she had not participated in filming for more than 7 months. In addition to Zhu Keren, the heroines Bohan and Jiajia also received varying degrees of love and attention.

So, from this perspective, it was not "Finished" that made short dramas popular, but the short video content of plots and the mature user ecology of short dramas that made "Finished" have the conditions to become popular.

"Finished" innovatively turns the short drama into a gamification, which not only provides users with the pleasure of watching the short drama, but also provides them with the interactive experience of participating in it.

3. New Exploration of “Short Play + Game”

As early as a few months ago, the short drama group was discussing how to move in the direction of games. "

A senior person in the short drama industry said that before "Finished" became popular, the leading short drama organizations were considering entering the game track. The reason is that the current marketing model of short dramas is very similar to that of games. Both are achieved through the release of materials, buying traffic, and ultimately monetization through recharge payments.

The collaboration between short dramas and games has also appeared before "Finished" and achieved good results.

On September 28 this year, the "Battle Rules" released by Caesar Culture officially started public beta. When promoting this new game, Caesar Culture and the leading short drama agency Miracle Culture jointly launched the "Fighting Road King" mini web drama. In addition to the implantation of game elements in the drama, a download link was also posted below the video.

In terms of content promotion, with the support of famous anchors or professional players such as Yizhuanyu, Kuangren, Qiu Dongsheng, and Baiyu, "Battle Rules" successfully topped the iOS free list on the first day of public beta. As of October 31, "Battle Rules" has basically stabilized at around 60 on the iOS best-selling list, and the first month's revenue is estimated to exceed 100 million.

Compared with the brand-customized drama gameplay, in addition to earning advertising fees, customizing content around games can also earn commissions through mounting. Under the condition of ensuring that the content can bring stable and eye-catching traffic, the income of short drama agencies will naturally increase greatly.

Now, with the popularity of "Endgame", the cooperation between games and short dramas seems to have more new possibilities.

For example, for game companies, short dramas can undoubtedly enhance the character of the game, so as to explore ways to monetize such as live broadcasts and short videos. After the explosion of "The End", it led to the popularity of actresses.

For example, Zhong Chenyao, who plays the game character Zheng Chuyan, has seen her Douyin account @战天使ZCY increase in followers by 1.18 million since the game was released. Currently, her total number of followers is nearly 1.5 million, and more than 1,100 people have paid 980 Douyin coins per month (equivalent to RMB 98 per month) to become her exclusive members.

Zou Jiajia, who plays the game character Xiaolu, has gained 580,000 followers on her Douyin account @佳佳子_zZ, with a total of 630,000 followers at present, and over 1,800 people have paid to become her exclusive members. At the same time, in the latest live broadcast, many netizens gave out expensive gifts such as Porsches and rockets.

In addition, short drama organizations can also develop IP through games and run a paid game monetization path.

"Short drama organizations can actually change from being the second party to the first party. They can develop their own IPs, or they can develop other mature IPs to make games. Then, based on the effects of the games, they can pick out the protagonists from the games to develop short dramas."

The head of a short drama organization said that compared to traditional content payment, game payment allows users to have more participation and interaction, and user participation and interaction can also inspire the team's ideas and direction for the next round of content production.

After the explosion of "End", many companies have followed suit. Hippo Games announced that it had reached a deep strategic cooperation with INTINY. At present, the two parties have begun to prepare for the next new work "End 2! I am surrounded by handsome guys!", but the news was later denied by INTINY; the online content company "Qishuyouyu" also recently announced that it would establish cooperation with the team of Han Chao, the chief producer of "End", to launch a number of interactive film and television games simulating love...

Competition is intensifying. However, it remains to be seen whether "Wan Dan" can be copied, whether other short drama games for women can be accepted, and how to solve the problem of content homogeneity.

Author: Aligu

Source: WeChat official account: "New Broadcasting Field (ID: New_bc)"