The scripts sought after by young people were killed, and the leeks were cut by pirated editions.
Editor’s note: This article is from the WeChat public account “Shenrancaijing” (ID: shenrancaijing), author | Wei Jie, editor | Liming.
“Ask a script to kill the game?” It has become a new social trend for post-90s and post-00s.
One set of costume, one script, you can spend four or five hours with three or five friends, experience all kinds of life, and gain the sense of accomplishment of reasoning. This is script kill, and one of the most popular offline entertainment activities for young people today. .
Even ByteDance has begun to treat script killing as an employee benefit. Recently, Bytedance has publicly recruited script-killing service providers to provide script-killing services for Bytedance employees, with a purchase amount of 500,000 yuan per year.
In the script killing shop, some people were immersed in the emotional book (a script with touching stories as the selling point) and knelt and wept bitterly. Some people had the addiction of being a detective in the reasoning book, and some players were scared in the horror book. The brain is blank.
In 2016, the variety show “Star Detective” broadcast by Mango tv began to make this game into the public eye. Along with the script’s outburst, the industry ushered in a large number of entrants. Meituan’s research report shows that by the end of 2020, there have been more than 30,000 offline script-killing stores across the country. At present, the market scale of the domestic “script-killing” industry has exceeded 10 billion yuan. But in the eyes of practitioners and investors, the imagination of this industry is much more than that.
Zhou Wenjing, a partner of Chunni Capital, believes that script killing has formed a complete industry chain, which means that the life cycle of this industry will be longer. In the future, script killing is likely to become the first choice for post-95s and post-00s offline entertainment. The consumption frequency even exceeds that of movie theaters or KTV.
However, script kills that are booming also have growing problems. Many practitioners have expressed to Shen Ran that one of the most important competitiveness in the script-killing industry is scripts. However, piracy instantly dissolves this competitiveness. As soon as the scripts come out, the pirated versions are sold simultaneously. Some stores try to save costs. , “Know fakes and buy fakes.” Piracy is rampant, but practitioners can only rely on industry self-discipline to curb this phenomenon.
01 Who makes money in the script killing?
In the context of script killing, script creators create scripts, script publishers collect and promote scripts, sell them to script distribution platforms (similar to industry e-commerce), and the distribution platform sells scripts to downstream offline20210329/v2_30543dfb52764dda89ddd5e4d797bfe7_img_000″>
Selling prices of different types of scripts. Source / Black detective Youpin
Zhou Wenjing told Shenran that, generally speaking, the creators of the script killing basically did not make much money, resulting in not much upstream high-quality content. “Branded stores are still too few, and the business model of Script Kill must be supported by a certain number of stores in order to be virtuous.” With more stores, selling IP-related derivatives and providing catering services, you can earn more money to improve the treatment of creators and give authors more shares. Only when upstream authors make money can they increase the attractiveness of offline stores.
On one side of the industry chain, the author does not make money. On the other hand, making money in offline stores is relatively easy. There are usually two ways to play offline script killing stores: one is the main desktop script. Players gather around a table. According to the information provided on each person’s role script and some clue cards, they restore it through performance and chat. The truth of the case, find out the culprit. Another form focuses on real-world scripts. The store will turn the content of the scripts into real-world scenes through decoration, clothing, and scenery, creating an immersive experience for players.
At present, most of the script kill shops are a combination of one or two real-world scripts plus dozens of pure desktop scripts. They attract new customers through real-world scripts, mainly for entry-level players, through a large number of desktop scripts. Attract old users to continue to return to the store to repurchase consumption.
A script-killing shopkeeper in Nanjing said that taking the live-action script “No One in the Tomb” as an example, 7 players, each with 268 yuan, earn 1876 yuan per game, and nearly 40,000 yuan in a month About income.
The “2021 China Script Killing Industry Research Report” shows that the average consumption of a single offline script killing is between tens to hundreds of yuan. In second-tier cities, the fare for a single person in a script is usually less than 100 yuan, while in the first-tier cities, the price is mainly 200-300 yuan. With the addition of decoration, labor, and script procurement costs, the initial investment of a script-killing offline physical store ranges from 300,000 to 1 million yuan. A well-operated store can recover the cost in about half a year and achieve profitability.
In the eyes of Zhao Jiangbo, the CEO of Script Killing Brand Reasoning Master, hundreds of thousands invested in Script Killing Store is still a relatively basic form, and the higher-level form of Script Killing Store is a store with more investment and better game experience for players. After the model of this kind of store is built, the income of “ticket fees” will also have a lot of room for increase, and the price of content can also rise sharply.
“After the content is highly premium, my judgment is that a 500 yuan script now may sell for 50,000 yuan in the future.” Zhao Jiangbo said that when the content side can make 30% of the industry’s profits, businesses You can take out a portion of the money to do publicity,Donated book cover, plastic cover, etc.
This seemingly humble business is not insignificant in terms of the lethality of the script-killing industry, because it directly cuts the core competitiveness of script-killing in half. Beibei, a script-killing shop owner in Xi’an, told Shenran that, for most stores, it is very rare to find a good book with a fascinating story, logical and smooth, and the process is laborious and costly. Many shopkeepers buy scripts online or participate in exhibitions. Among them, the ones bought online may actually find that there are big bugs, which are not necessary.
Participating in the exhibition offline, testing and selecting scripts in person is even more inefficient, because it takes 3-4 hours for a script, and it may only test 3 scripts a day, and there may not be one suitable. You have to include the air ticket and hotel money to participate in the exhibition. And those merchants who buy pirated editions purchase scripts at low prices and lower the ticket fees. Most of the “novice players” come to the store, and they have no discernment ability. Those players who insist on buying genuine copies have a hard time saying no. Out. Even some shops that have bought genuine scripts can’t help the temptation of pirates, they will copy the original scripts and then sell the pirated scripts.
The Research Report on China’s Script Killing Industry in 2021 pointed out that industry piracy is rampant, which not only causes great troubles for stores who abide by industry rules and insist on buying genuine copies, but also severely discourages the enthusiasm of script creators, resulting in the expulsion of bad money The consequences of good money.
According to a report from Beijing Business Daily in 2019, a staff member of the script killing shop said, “A cruel reality is that over 70% of businesses in Beijing use pirated scripts.” And this industry will develop until 2021. The phenomenon of piracy has not improved much.
“The distribution studio itself is weak in rights protection, and the cost of rights protection is too high.” Zhao Jiangbo Xiang Shenran analyzed that most of the scripts can only be sold for four to five hundred yuan, but the cost of accountability is far more than four to five hundred. Yuan, the final compensation may not be able to cover the cost of rights protection, many people do not have the motivation to defend their rights. There are only three or five authors in a studio, and there is no staff to do this. I think it’s better to write a few more scripts.
“The current response is self-regulation among peers.” Zhao Jiangbo said. For example, if a shop owner uses a genuine version, and finds that a shop next door uses a pirated version, the shop owner will interact with industry platforms and industry media. And the association to report. “Because of the same script, the pirated version is used, the customer unit price is low, and the other one who uses the original version feels that it has affected their business, and has the motivation to report it.”
03 Big business on the eve of the outbreak
According to CCTV reports, the current domestic “script-killing” industry market has exceeded 10 billion yuan. In the eyes of practitioners and investors in the script-killing industry, the imagination of this business is far more than 100>At present, VR technology has been applied in some offline script killing stores and accepted by some players. The “2021 China Script Killing Industry Research Report” pointed out that Compared with the actual decoration cost of nearly 1,000 yuan per square meter, VR technology has not significantly increased the store’s operating costs. Instead, it is introduced at the same cost. Stores with VR technology can show consumers more diverse and realistic scenes, effectively enhancing the gaming experience.
In addition, sinking the market will also be an important growth point for the script to kill. Zhao Jiangbo pointed out that the rent of venues in Beijing is relatively expensive, so when choosing a location, the shopkeeper will either make the room smaller or put the room underground. The user experience is limited, and if it is a third- and fourth-tier city, the cost of the venue rental If it is not so high, the player’s experience will be better.
Moreover, users in third- and fourth-tier cities have more time. It takes about 4-5 hours for the script to kill a game. For first- and second-tier cities, it is difficult to spare such a long time on weekdays. The passenger flow is concentrated on Saturdays and Sundays, and the load factor of the store is limited, which is extremely large. Most of the traffic is wasted. However, in third- and fourth-tier cities, if the store is operated well, the source of customers will be abundant on weekdays.
In the beginning, script killing may be a game for reasoning enthusiasts, but in the process of script killing, it gradually evolved into a lower threshold and more entertaining activity.
In Zhao Jiangbo’s view, the core of script killing must be good content. He believes that the content industry has strong cross-industry capabilities. Whether it is IP in script killing or cross-industry cooperation, young people playing, shopping, taking photos and punching cards in it will feel that the day is full.
“In the future, young people will want to come out of the screen and are more willing to spend time on heavy experience entertainment. In this sense, we are competing with Douyin and WeChat for young people. Attention.” Zhao Jiangbo said.
*At the request of the interviewee, Xiaoyu is a pseudonym in the article.