Hongguo shakes Tencent Games? True stories of 5 players

Text｜On the outside and inside

Is the “electronic swill” of AI short drama worthy of being compared with games?

When a friend dragged Zhang Yue into an AI skit, she scoffed. I’ve watched too much of “Nipple Fun” to lower my intelligence. Even if the game is produced at a low cost, the settings and art will be polished. The thrill of competition and the fun of teaming up to play black games cannot be replicated by assembly line content.

However, in just half a year, she became really fragrant. “Honor of Kings” has been out of the game for three months, and I haven’t done any “Genshin Impact” tasks for half a month. Whenever I have free time every day, I open the short drama app and watch it non-stop.

Zhang Yue’s “rebellion” is just part of the current undercurrent in the gaming industry.

The average daily usage time of a single user of Hongguo has exceeded 2 hours, and core users overlap with the game to a large extent. Some analysts believe that casual players will be diverted, and the desire of big R players to make money will also decline. The life cycle and long-term capabilities of games will be affected. Tencent and other major game companies have also told ghost stories in the capital market.

“Outside and inside” chatted with five “Youzhuanju” users, including fresh graduates born in 2000 and mothers born in 1995, competitive masters and two-dimensional game enthusiasts. Everyone was once a serious gamer.

Their stories, from different dimensions such as emotional experience, time matching, and the cycle of investment and return, jointly point to a trend: the status of games as the “first entertainment” may remain unchanged, but as AI short dramas become a new “digital addiction,” the barriers have begun to loosen.

1. The AI short drama is “enjoyable”, but the game gives me a “game” CC 00s animation design worker

From a big national standard to a small national standard, and then to a painful loss of the national standard, it only takes a few AI short dramas.

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Every time I thought about playing in the peak competition, I would accidentally open the short drama app, and when I looked up again, it was already early in the morning. Sometimes I won too little and just stopped playing, and spent the whole day immersing myself in the AI skits.

I can’t control myself, because the AI skits “make me happy when I see them”, but the games often give me “games”.

After playing the game for 8 years, my rank has already reached the King level, but when I enter the game, I can still match up with Star Glory and even Diamond teammates. I led the line, and they started to fight in a group; I deceived the opponent’s skills and prepared to take over, and they started to retreat.

When encountering such “pig teammates”, there is no doubt about failure. The coefficients and combat power that I won in the last round were lost in the blink of an eye, trapping me in a cycle of “win one, win one with difficulty, and lose one after being dragged down by my teammates.”

In a competitive game, the higher your rank, the better you can compete with your teammates. However, the system has an ELO mechanism, which estimates the expected combat strength of the players and creates two teams with a total strength of close to 50%. When it comes to me, the higher the C, the more sanctioned I get, making it difficult to steadily score points based on strength.

If you can’t score, the joy of playing the game will be reduced by half.

If I say that a certain hero of mine is very strong, others may question me for finding a team to get ranked in. Hanging the national standard is the most core proof of strength, and it is my “ceremonial sense” for playing games. Now I am very internally conflicted: If the game competition is unfair, how can we still play it?

After being tortured repeatedly for a long time, my addiction to gaming has worn off. The first time I came across an AI short drama, I just didn’t want to play games anymore and came across it by chance while watching short videos.

I found that the picture quality and plot of the AI short dramas were good, much better than live-action short dramas, and they even restored many of my favorite novels. And it doesn’t matter the environment or network speed, you can use it anytime and anywhere. Compared with playing games, it is a “happiness” that is easier to obtain, more stable, and more unlimited in supply.

However, the competitive pleasure that the game gives me is still irreplaceable. When I am in a good mood and feel good, I will still play a few games, but I no longer live in the canyon.

2. What the game couldn’t create, the AI short drama did. Cherry, post-00s media practitioner

Ying Long rained down thunder on Japan, giant beasts filled the screen, and golden lightning fell from the sky. In an instant, the crowd disappeared, the city was destroyed, and Mount Fuji exploded…

This scene in “Battle of the Trapped Beasts” surprised me: An AI comic has developed like this in less than a year?

You know, the last time I held my breath was Yang Jian in “Black Myth: Wukong”. Even Yang Jian’s red thunder sword rain was far less shocking than Ying Long’s overwhelming golden thunder at this moment.

There is a common saying among gamers: I have been working on “Genshin Impact” for six years, but I still can’t make a long skirt that doesn’t fit the mold. I didn’t expect that the AI comic would overtake the game in terms of graphics so quickly.

What surprises me even more is that AI comics are strongly breaking the game narrative.

At first, because the character Funina in “Genshin Impact” was so good, I just spent 5,000 yuan to get full life. What I want is very simple: a good plot, fun fighting monsters, and quick development.

But after watching the comic series “The Dummies Are Coming, I’m the Only Prophet in the Show”, I found that whatever the game can give me, the comic can also give me, and it can be given faster and for free.

In “Genshin Impact”, if you want to assemble a team of characters who can fight difficult bosses, it takes four months if you are lucky and half a year if you are not lucky. In the comic series, I can follow the protagonist and defeat five difficult bosses in one day. There are no physical limits, no recovery times, and no “come back tomorrow” prompts.

Of course, the game’s operational pleasure, strategic depth, and social interaction cannot be replaced by comics for the time being. But the problem is that new games are becoming more and more like “reskinning” old games, and old games are becoming more and more like “clocking in to work.” The comics released at this time are too tempting for players like me who are tired of being “scammed” by games.

People who watch comics may not necessarily play games, but people who play games will basically watch comics. After all, who wouldn’t want to binge-watch an episode of “Chinese Yinglong Brutally Beats Japanese Mechas” while commuting, cooking, or even doing daily tasks in the game?

I haven’t uninstalled “Genshin Impact” yet, but the number of times I open it has indeed become less and less. I don’t know how long this kind of life will last, but now it’s really difficult for me to sit down and play games for 4 hours.

3. Playing games is too violent, so it is better to be a “fun person” in short dramas. Qingtian, born in the 90s, baker

My teammates posted in the chat box, “You’re ridiculously good”, and I said, “You’re not as good as AI.” My teammates scolded me, “Hurry up and start another round.”

I didn’t care about fighting with the enemy, I just stared at the dialog box and was forced to stop typing until the crystal exploded. After exiting the room, clicking on the report button, I finally let out a breath of anger, but thinking back to those sharp words just now, I was suddenly stunned.

When did you become so irritable? I’m obviously a very kind person.

It’s all because there are so many trolls on games nowadays. In the early years, players just played casually and played black games for fun; but I don’t know when, everyone seemed to be patient and sold out. They didn’t want to spend time experiencing the fun of the game, but just wanted to win, win, win. If a teammate chooses a hero with a low winning rate or makes a few mistakes in operation, it will be infinitely magnified and lead to a scolding war.

Sometimes I get scolded by my boss at work, and I want to play games after get off work to have fun, but the result is that the more I play, the angrier I get.

Even if you change a game, you will inevitably get a “beating”: there are only a few fun games, and there are more and more experienced players. Everyone has reached the highest rank, so they use the trumpet to “fish”. I played “Operation Delta” and spent a lot of money to buy equipment and pick up treasures, but I was killed in the blink of an eye. All the early investment was wasted.

In the past, I would be banned from the system after playing on one account for seven hours, so I would switch to another account and continue playing until my hands were so sore that I reluctantly logged off. Nowadays, I start to feel tired after playing two games, and I end up with full of negative energy.

So I fell in love with the AI short drama. It was pure “cool bombing”. I didn’t have to use my brain to figure out how to win, and there were no random voices bothering me in my ears. I only had the joy of “making a fortune by opening a supermarket in the apocalypse” and “being a boss and ruling mutants”. I finished two movies after get off work, and the anger I had suffered at work all day came out, and my mood became much calmer.

Life is already very difficult, even if the AI skit is “Nipple Fun”, as long as it can coax me into an “embryo”, it doesn’t matter if it’s high-end or not. Besides, the essence of the game is also to adjust your life. The eldest brother does not talk about the second brother.

4. Games are fun, but AI short dramas are more suitable for fragmented entertainment Yuan version Post-95s researcher

I recently noticed a phenomenon: in King of Kings and Chicken Live broadcasts, the anchor will watch AI skits while waiting for resurrection or restart.

This scene seems familiar. I myself went from being a heavy mobile game player to an AI skit user without knowing it.

In my early years, I played King of Champions and was keen on controlling heroes. However, as I got older, my reflexes gradually failed to keep up. After playing thousands of games, the pleasure of improving scores also decreased, and my brain seemed to be automatically desensitized to “low-level fun”.

So, I started playing adventure games such as “Monster Hunter”, soul-based masterpieces such as “Dark Souls”, and niche CRPGs such as “Baldur’s Gate 3”. They do not rely on high scores or ranks to kidnap you, but through narrative, level design, feel, degree of freedom drive, etc., making you feel like you have experienced a novel or movie after finishing the game.

What increases with age is the decrease in discretionary time. I can only squeeze out a small period of complete time to play on the computer. 80% of the entertainment time in life is still fragmented and needs to be filled with content with short feedback and strong dopamine.

I usually watch game live broadcasts and watch short videos. I recently started to try out AI short dramas. I haven’t played any mobile games in more than half a year.

After all, short videos and AI skits can be stopped as long as you want, but the “exit cost” of the game is very high. If you disconnect midway, your teammates will be cheated and punished; if you don’t complete daily tasks and limited-time activities, you will fall behind. On the surface, it is fragmented entertainment, but in fact, it still requires continuous time.

The “emotional cost” of playing games is also higher. Winning a game will make you happy for a few minutes, but losing a game may ruin the good mood of the day. A losing streak can even cause an emotional explosion. Even after my desire to win was not so strong, improving the rankings became a kind of pressure for me.

On the other hand, the content of AI short dramas is not necessarily that exciting, and is mostly shoddy “spiritual garbage”. However, it has more continuity than short videos, has a lower threshold than movie series, and is less burdensome than mobile games, so I can still watch it if I find something that interests me.

But I won’t be addicted. AI short dramas are still very substitutable, and the overall quality needs to be improved.

5. Playing games makes the family tense, and AI short dramas are more “harmless” UU post-95s stay-at-home mom

In my house, it is not possible to play games around my children, but it is OK to watch AI skits.

I was playing games and wanted my husband to help take care of the children first. He opened his mouth and said, “Which is more important, games or children?” The elders saw it from the side and also looked down, “Playing games all day long sets a bad example for the children.”

While I was watching the AI short drama, I was feeding my children, building blocks, and making complementary foods, and they stopped making any noise.

Games require thinking and are more brain-training than short, fast AI skits, but they don’t care. For them, whether entertainment is acceptable depends not on the quality, but on whether it will delay childcare and whether it will add burden to the family.

When I was at my craziest, I would play games for 8 hours a day and no one would stop me. At that time, I was still pregnant, and I was under great physical and mental stress. I would get angry over the smallest things and would always quarrel with my husband. Later, I played “Operation Delta” with my friends and fell in love with the excitement of touching the safe to find rare items, and my mood gradually calmed down.

But since I gave birth to my child, my family no longer accepts me playing games. Even if I take care of the baby for a day during the day and only spank the baby twice at night, it can still ignite family conflicts every minute.

This is the concept of the older generation. They always think that playing games next to children is “bringing bad luck”, but they often watch TV series themselves, so they think it is okay to watch AI short dramas.

Now I myself have given up on games and switched to AI comics. It’s not that you have to bow down to your family, but that it’s really easy to be negligent while taking care of your baby, causing the baby to get hurt.

What’s more, the AI short drama also made me more relaxed – life requires me to be a strong mother, a considerate wife, and a filial daughter, and the game also requires me to collect information and not hold back. But when watching the AI short drama “Nuo Nuo Descends the Mountain”, I can take on the role of a little girl who is doted on by the master brothers.

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