The dispute between the two giants of China's SLG (simulation game) track has a first instance result for the time being.
Recently, the people's Court of Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province made a first instance judgment on the previous case of unfair competition brought by "leading the land to the shore" against "the annals of the Three Kingdoms · strategic edition", ruling that the plaintiff Netease game won the lawsuit, and the defendant Ali Lingxi mutual entertainment compensated the former 80000 yuan.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noted that SLG, as a red sea product in the current game market, has fierce competition between new and old products in the market and existing user groups. In the game, players from both sides compete for hegemony through alliance and war. In addition to the game, Netease and Alibaba behind the game also launched a "war of words" and "litigation war" for the same category, the same theme and the same group of users.
Unfair competition case triggered by advertising war
In the highly competitive SLG market, Netease's "leading the land" and Ali's "Three Kingdoms · strategic edition" are the best among them. These two SLG products have been firmly within the top 10 of China's IOS game best seller list for a long time. The former is a real-time multiplayer strategic mobile game developed and produced by Netease games, which was officially released in 2015. In 2019, Alibaba launched the "Three Kingdoms · strategic edition" based on the genuine authorization of the IP of the "Three Kingdoms" of the Japanese video game publisher and developer Guangrong tekumo.
The dispute between the two sides began in April 2020. At 0:00 on April 5 of that year, a large number of users went online at the same time, resulting in login difficulties. In the live broadcast room of a douyu anchor, two users made several dissatisfaction comments on the player. These two users are also considered by the player to be members of the project team of "lead the land" then, the comments of the live studio were widely spread by screenshots, and the subsequent fermentation was the topic of "the project team of the land of the lead angered the players"
Tiktok, a Guangzhou advertising nine company, launched a number of advertising materials in today's headlines, Iqiyi, jangling and pangolin League platforms. These materials include copywriters "all in 2020, and even game player's operation, who gives courage" and so on.
Netease believes that the series of advertising materials launched by Lingxi mutual entertainment belong to the unfair competition behavior of commercial slander. Kwai tiktok in February 23, 2022, on the first instance of the defendant's "Three Kingdoms strategic version" game operator's mutual business amusing, was sentenced by the Tianhe court of the plaintiff to the "all this land" game operator network, Yi Lei Huo, and the court found that the defendant constituted a commercial slander, and accordingly ordered that the defendant stop the commercial slander of the plaintiff, delete the voice in Guangzhou, the headlines, the fast hand, Iqiyi, The infringement video released by pangolin alliance platform made an apology to the plaintiff on the defendant's official website, eliminated the impact and compensated 80000 yuan the court found through trial that the defendant Lingxi mutual entertainment, as an operator with close horizontal competition with the plaintiff, made a negative evaluation of the plaintiff and its game "lead the land bank" by publishing false advertising information, and recommended and praised the game operated by the defendant, which had obvious intention, and the defendant's behavior constituted Commercial slander, It shall bear the civil liability for stopping the infringement and compensating for the losses
In addition to the disputes over unfair competition and commercial slander, they have also fought over plagiarism.
On September 20, 2020, "lead the land to the shore" released a letter to players, believing that a game was plagiarized. Although the letter did not specify which game it was, a month later, "lead the land to the shore" released a short video of 1 minute and 7 seconds on the microblog, publicly questioning that the "annals of the Three Kingdoms · strategy edition" had "borrowed" its own game in CG animation, gameplay mechanism and other contents, and was suspected of plagiarism, including marketing materials, gameplay design, season rules, etc., and gave the news that the court had filed a case.
Subsequently, the "Three Kingdoms · strategic edition" responded that it did not have any plagiarism, emphasizing that it came from the adaptation and independent research and development of the "Three Kingdoms" of Japan's glorious IP. Meanwhile, "the annals of the Three Kingdoms · strategic edition" counterclaimed against "the coast of the land" up to now, there is no public result of the case, and the plagiarism dispute is still in the stage of "war of words".
In the highly competitive SLG market, the purchase volume and cost are high
With the controversy, SLG game market is booming. According to the analysis report on the trend and potential of China's game industry in 2022 released by Gamma data, 2021's head SLG market size is close to 20 billion yuan at the same time, in recent years, the head effect of SLG Games has become more and more obvious. In 2021, the products with the highest flow gathered nearly half of the head SLG products. According to the data of China Business Industry Research Institute, China's SLG market will break the 40 billion mark in 2024.
Generally speaking, the categories of SLG in China mainly include "Three Kingdoms", "Wanguo" and science fiction. The Three Kingdoms SLG market has always been a popular game theme in China. In addition to Netease and Ali, which currently occupy the head of the market, the Three Kingdoms SLG product "Hongtu Xia" issued by Tencent was also launched in 2020.
With the continuous expansion of SLG market scale in China, the gold absorption capacity is continuously improved, and the competition is more intense at the same time based on the same historical background, SLG products are facing the pressure of competing for the same market and the same user group. Therefore, it is very important to strengthen the game publicity and promotion of the target audience through effective marketing means
"At present, there are three main publicity channels in China. The first is to carry out publicity and promotion in the app store, the second is to broadcast live in the game community of the platform, and the last is to share through soft text." AI media consulting CEO Zhang Yi analyzed to 21 reporters. He also pointed out that it is difficult to promote SLG category games. In addition to the lack of publicity and distribution channels in China, there is also the problem of high purchase cost. On the one hand, SLG products are not strong in short-term revenue. If we traditionally consider buying volume and recycling, it is difficult to make a profit in a short time. On the other hand, from the perspective of market environment, channels are more willing to promote products with high short-term income and rapid return to capital.
According to the overall launch data of the advertising data analysis platform dataeye in 2021, the "Three Kingdoms · strategy edition" can be described as a "big hand" in the field of effect advertising, with an average daily release of more than 1800 groups of materials. In contrast, the six-year-old "lead the land to the shore" increased its investment in the first half of 2021, and the amount of investment tended to be stable in the future. Even at the sixth anniversary celebration of the product, there was still no large-scale investment.
Zhang Yi believes that the innovation of his own products is the key to maintain and continuously develop the user group and ensure the long-term operation of SLG games at the technical level, the game R & D team needs to refine the products. Strengthen the innovation of playing methods, optimize image design and improve the level of animation. In addition, game manufacturers also need to lay out the next generation of user groups and study more targeted consumption mechanisms.
In view of the concept of capturing user groups, he also suggested that game manufacturers should formulate a "younger" route and investigate and cater to the preference directions of young users, such as emerging cultures such as quadratic elements. After improving the participation and activity of this group, the game culture is spread through the drive among users, so as to achieve the goal of expanding the number of users.
In addition to the traditional Three Kingdoms category, some manufacturers on the market have begun to explore SLG products with science fiction themes, such as Netease's endless Lagrange and scopely's Star Trek: Fleet commander.
"SLG category users update quickly. In addition to meeting the needs and preferences of the current market and consumer groups, it is also very critical to activate the early SLG category users' recognition of the whole market." Zhang Yi said.
