Is domestic card games fun?

It's a matter of opinion, and different players have different tastes.

Many people criticize card games for being shoddy, monotonous, and repetitive, but indeed, this is true.

But it just makes money.

Being able to make money means that players are recognized.

Why do players recognize it? Because players find it fun.

It's a strange phenomenon where players scold it and pay for it.

Why do card games make money? What's so fun about it?

This is a relatively vague proposition, if Chen Mo is asked to write a paper specifically about the core of the card game, it is estimated that he can write tens of thousands of words.

To put it simply, the fun of domestic card games mainly comes from three aspects.

The first is the fun of collecting cards and cultivating them.

This is based on the player's recognition of the card character.

Once a mobile game company made a "One Piece" theme of the original card (completely reskinned "My name is MT"), a local tyrant entered the game without saying anything and rushed directly for thousands of dollars, just to draw an Hawkeye Mihawk.

There is also an unknown Three Kingdoms card game, which is still in the testing stage, and a local tyrant entered the game without saying anything about rushing five thousand, just to draw a Zhuge Liang, but there is no Zhuge Liang in the game.

In the end, the game company worked overtime urgently and made Zhuge Liang out.

Like in "My Name is MT", many players farm dungeons every day, save purple card fragments, or throw a lot of money to draw ten consecutive cards, all in order to draw the cards they want.

The game designers will also deliberately adjust the card skills and combat power to the extent that they match the story (or fine-tune them according to the character's popularity), all in order to cultivate players' identification with the card character.

Only when this sense of identity is established will the card become valuable and the player will pay for it.

Once the value system of this card is established, it means that there is a difference between different cards, and the player's desire to collect and cultivate is satisfied, and he will feel that the money is well spent.

Therefore, the key to making a card game profitable is to establish a card value system that players can agree with, just like stamp collecting, constantly selling new cards to players.

And after players get the card they want, in order to make the card stronger, they will continue to charge money to upgrade it, upgrade stars, upgrade skills, and so on. Each upgrade of the card can make the player feel the growth and make him feel that the money has not been spent in vain.

This is a manifestation of the "numerical stimulus" mentioned earlier.

This is the core fun of all cards, and it is a very mature mode that can be used over and over again, which is why the mobile card games in the previous life were so proliferated.

The second is the fun of figuring out the lineup and formulating your own battle strategy.

The combat system of the card game may seem monotonous, but it is actually quite rich. In "My Name is MT", each card has three abilities: normal attack, skill attack and passive, and in terms of character design, there is a combat system in World of Warcraft as a blueprint, and each character's skills are also different.

It is the same area damage skill, and there are differences between Blizzard type (full-screen attack), Whirlwind Slash type (three units in the front row and horizontal row), lightning chain type (three random units), piercing shot type (two units in the vertical row), and so on.

Skill damage is divided into spells, physics, and the difference between individual and group.

The same is true for healing skills, there are single milk, there are group milk.

In addition, there are a variety of combat abilities such as damage reduction, rebirth, and continuous damage, and basically all kinds of skills that can be thought of have a way to force them into the combat system of the card.

Coupled with complex factors such as card positioning, shot sequence, attribute restraint, and captain's skills, the playability of the card game's combat system has been greatly improved.

Of course, this combat system can't be compared to the desktop game at all, but for mobile gamers, it is enough.

As long as you change the packaging, this combat system can perfectly cover most of the worldview, such as anime such as pirates, Hokage, or martial arts novels.

There is a cyclic restraint relationship between various combat abilities, such as single milk gram second kill, second kill gram group milk, group milk gram range damage, and so on. Players really want to find the five cards that match best among dozens of cards, and it takes a lot of trial and error to share experience.

Because the acquisition of rare cards is strictly controlled, it costs either money or takes time, and it takes a lot of investment to test the actual combat power of each card.

It's also fun and rewarding for players. Therefore, the combat system of the card game is a perfect fit with the card cultivation system, as an enduring classic combat system, it is enough for players to play repeatedly for 3~5 years without getting tired.

The third is marketing strategy and numerical stimulation.

This is a very broad content, such as operational activities (seven-day login, sign-in, growth fund, etc.), daily benefits (maintenance and diamond delivery, physical strength, online rewards, etc.), and the early numerical structure......

Of course, this content is not only exclusive to card games, this has basically become the standard configuration of all domestic mobile games, and it has also become widely popular in other game genres such as SLG (strategy games) and FPS (shooting games).

However, to say that the earliest origin should be sprouted in web games, flourished in card mobile games, and finally popularized to all domestic mobile games.

Of course, this kind of "Pavlov" type of numerical stimulation has been sprayed by countless players and game reviewers, but almost no mobile game company dares not to do these things.

Why? Because it's simple and effective, once removed, there will be a noticeable drop in game data and revenue.

Here's how the "numerical stimulus" system works.

First of all, the game must be free to attract as many players as possible, who may not intend to spend money at all, and that's okay, let's talk about it first.

After entering, there will be a very detailed novice guide, so that players can experience the core fun and gameplay of the game as soon as possible, and at the same time, do not make any difficulty in the numerical value, so that players can go all the way.

This is the same as the first 300,000 words of the online article are free, the experience is pre-emptive, and the payment is post-post. Experience first and then pay, and if you are not satisfied, you will not be charged.

However, this situation is unlikely to last long, as long as a week or as short as three days, and players are bound to experience some setbacks.

In this kind of game, top-up players and non-top-up players are naturally unequal, and in order for players to pay, they must set card points.

The so-called stuck point is to get players stuck, let them encounter setbacks, and let players recharge money to buy combat power and continue to challenge higher levels.

But this creates a problem, what if it is a player who is not willing to spend money and encounters a stuck point? There's a good chance he'll give up on the game and stop playing.

How do you get these players to stay? Quite simply, send money.