To be honest, when I saw the game "Xiaoyao Shushan", I felt quite emotional. 0.05 Super Explosive Raising Dragons and Gold. The name sounds like the typical Xianxia web game routine of maxing out the values and relying on idle time to get treasures. But this is not the point. The key is that I find that the mobile game market is increasingly moving in the direction of "heavy liver and heavy krypton". On the contrary, games with this early hit model have begun to appear again.
Not to brag, I have been playing since the Symbian era, and I have watched mobile games evolve from stand-alone Snake and JAVA mini-games, to "Angry Birds" and "Fruit Ninja", and later to "Dota Legend" and "Honor of Kings". At that time, game design focused on the gameplay itself, and one level could be pondered over and over again for several days. What about current games? The graphics are indeed exquisite, but many of them are numerical games with Xianxia skins and card-drawing skins. When you go online every day, you just do your daily routine, fight guild battles, and climb the rankings. Playing them is just like going to work. 😅
Games like "Xiaoyao Shushan", to be honest, do not hide their goals - to let you kill monsters, explode equipment, raise dragons, and then trade to make money. It doesn't tell you any emotional plot, it just tells you "I can make gold". This business model is actually a return to the one used by "Journey" and "Legend" ten years ago, but it is more transparent. Nowadays, many so-called "masterpieces" are secretive, tricking you into getting in first, and then slowly picking your pockets.
Judging from the trend, it is obvious that the “gold making” mobile games and the “free krypton gold” mobile games are at two extremes in the past two years. On the one hand, big companies like "Genshin Impact" and "King of Kings" are spending money to produce content. On the other hand, small teams like "Xiaoyao Shushan" start and retreat quickly, relying on numerical values and social stickiness to harvest a wave. I think this is a sign that the market is mature and players have their own choices. Old players like me occasionally want to kill time with a game that doesn't require too much brainpower and can be idle for retirement. This kind of "nostalgic style" is quite suitable. 🤔
But to be honest, I'm not optimistic about the long-term longevity of this type of game. Because the numerical value expands too fast, once a new area is opened in a few months, the old area will become ghostly. But if you are going for "finance for retirement", or want to experience the exhilarating feeling of "level 99 with one knife" of early web games, then "Xiaoyao Shushan" is indeed a good nostalgic choice. After all, there are not many games that can make people calm down and play for a day. 😌