Last weekend, Dream World held an offline celebration of the 10th anniversary of Subway Parkour in Shenzhen.
When watching this celebration, the plan revealed by the project team of Subway Parkour attracted the attention of the game daily, including the 10th anniversary edition of adding one-click black, dress-up management function, brand-new rock characters, adjusting the game of props, and more heavyweight revelations in the future. It is foreseeable that after these ideas are installed:
The social links, content depth and user stickiness of Subway Parkour will change accordingly.
Although Subway Parkour has been online for 10 years, it is still a big DAU product active in the game market. Last year, "Subway Parkour" also set a "red myth" in the domestic market, which occupied the top spot of iOS free for 33 days in a row.
Such a game, which has made national influence, needs to carry not only entertainment, but also the positive social value of cultural products. In the new plan revealed by the project team, Game Daily found the new thinking on how to do a good job in culture in Subway Parkour, which has certain reference significance for more big DAU products.
In the past 10 years, how did Subway Parkour use "city" to do a good job in China culture?
"What city are the players expecting our next stop?" This sentence mentioned by the project team of Subway Parkour summarizes the key thread of the expansion of the game content of Subway Parkour in the past 10 years.
This is actually the key means for Subway Parkour to carry and spread culture. Since its launch, Subway Parkour has been updated in more than 100 global cities, including China, which has covered more than ten cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Xi ‘an, Guilin, Sanya, China, Hong Kong, Harbin, Macau, China, Wuhan, Chang ‘an and Shenzhen.
This kind of thinking is not difficult to understand. The city is a synthesis of customs, history and environment, which can provide a lot of material reference for game creation, and the diversified content developed can also meet the players’ demands for novelty. At the same time, the city itself is also an emotional link to reach the users in the place, and the culture condensed by the city has been transmitted in such an interesting scene.
Of course, a good presentation of culture also requires a deep foundation.
Take the Shenzhen version released on the 9th anniversary as an example. There are signs of Shenzhen behind the pictures that frequently appear in the scene, such as Shenzhen Bay Bridge in the depths of the scene. There are buildings with the reference of China Resources Building "bamboo shoots"; Behind the "East Gate" is the Dongmen Pedestrian Street, the oldest commercial district in Shenzhen. In addition, the bay scene on the left is also constantly strengthening the label of Shenzhen coastal city.
In addition to this intuition, Subway Parkour is also supplementing the "image" of Shenzhen with more details. On the one hand, in the scene, you can see the mobile milk tea carts that appear at intervals, and Shenzhen has the title of "milk tea capital"; On the other hand, the version of the character "Master Deer" based on the design of Luzui Villa is not only a simple combination of unique scenic spots, but also shows the characteristics of "young and energetic".
A lot of details show the unity of Shenzhen’s external impression and internal spirit, which makes players feel "seeing my home" and allows "foreign players" to have a more comprehensive understanding of Shenzhen and more cities.
It is worth noting that "Subway Parkour" attaches great importance to universality in urban culture, which makes the culture carried by different urban versions have a global market spread foundation.
For example, the exquisite music, because the scene of Subway Parkour is pure music, solves the threshold of text understanding, thus making music "borderless" a reality. The Shenzhen version of the music mentioned above has been well received, and players can be seen on bilibili that they want to run a little longer "for the sake of music". And listening to the music and guessing the version of the second-generation content can also trigger a large number of players to participate.
Another point is the adjustment of the role image. If you want to integrate some local distinctive content into the game and even spread it on a global scale, you have to consider the visual perception.
Take Lao Sun, who was released in the Beijing version, as an example, we can see that the typical characteristics of the Monkey King’s golden hoop and "monkey face" are maintained, but at the same time, more fashionable styles such as hairstyles are being added. Referring to the Monkey King, who is adapted from today’s film and television, he will find that he is following the same idea, retaining the uninhibited spirit, and presenting it in a more fashionable and personalized way. Although it is still unique to the China version at present, the image after this "adjustment" will have more advantages in foreign export in the future.
Spreading the accumulated IP characters is on the one hand. Subway Parkour also shows its cultural skills in the creation of original characters. For example, the character "Mo Yun", which was launched when the Suzhou version was launched during the National Day this year, itself took the background of many famous landscape paintings in Suzhou, and the oil-paper umbrella held by the character and the "skateboard" in the shape of ink painting were all featured in the misty rain south of the Yangtze River. This role has been praised by many players because of its high face, and it is also arousing users’ interest in Suzhou culture.
Suzhou version of the map is also full of national flavor.
Based on these long-term investments, with the changes in the coverage and depth of the city, the China culture carried by Subway Parkour has become more and more "heavy", which has made this product a social value that cannot be ignored.
The 10th anniversary conference shows the greater imagination of Subway Parkour.
On the basis of the model that has been run through, the signal revealed by the tenth anniversary celebration is a more diversified combination exploration. Game Daily found that at least two adjustments are closely related to cultural carrying capacity:
The first adjustment is more props competition themes, and the project team mentioned that there may be urban themes.
This means that the combination of Subway Parkour and the city has more forms of presentation than comprehensive scenes and limited roles. Take Suzhou as an example. Typical local foods such as "Squirrel Mandarin Fish" and "Suzhou Braised Duck" may appear as special effects props, and the scene may be refined from the whole city of Suzhou to a landmark such as "Humble Administrator’s Garden", so as to make it from coarse to fine.
The second adjustment is to dig deep into the role. The project team said that there will be real-life dubbing in the future, and there will be a story background.
In the past, the introduction of the role of Subway Parkour was relatively simple, in fact, there were "regional restrictions". For example, Lao Sun mentioned earlier may be out of China. Even if overseas players like the role, it is difficult to deeply understand the China culture behind the role through games. However, as Subway Parkour becomes a deep role, it can build a bridge for users to trace its roots.
These ideas are not groundless, we can look at a concrete example.
This year’s Spring Festival "Subway Parkour" updated the Luoyang version, and the limited role of the version was Song Yi, a traditional opera style, which soon became one of the most discussed topics among the players. During that time, some people in bilibili analyzed the gender of Song Yi, some painted for Song Yi, and some people compared the feel of this role with other roles.
The Game Daily found that the discussion of Song Yi by players is not limited to the superficial image, and many people are paying attention to the specific drama classification and the corresponding role business referenced by this image. This can prove that they are interested in the culture behind the role. Therefore, "Subway Parkour" supplements the background story of the characters, which will make the players driven by interest deeply understand the corresponding culture.
In addition, we can see that cities are also updating their versions. For example, Beijing was launched in 2014, and the Beijing Spring Festival version appeared in 2020. Both versions are quite popular, which means that players’ exploration of cities cannot be completely satisfied by a single comprehensive map of cities. The future prop competition will be integrated into the urban theme, which precisely meets this demand.
Of course, how to make the content of Subway Parkour and whether it can combine culture well depends on the accumulation and achievements of the project team itself. However, it can be confirmed that the social strengthening of Subway Parkour and the promotion of DAU driven by the content adjustment will further amplify their influence of carrying culture.
Innovation is not limited to the gameplay. Parkour on the Subway has deep social value by "grasping with both hands".
Spreading excellent culture is an important part of the game company’s social responsibility, but we can’t ignore some problems that may be brought by its own entertainment. The special product form makes the game company have to think more comprehensively.
It can be seen that the Subway Parkour, which is deeply rooted in China culture, is constantly being made, with particular emphasis on the protection and concern for young users.
For example, in addition to strictly limiting the duration of underage players’ games, Subway Parkour has innovatively formulated a "double-limit height" system for the common social problem of teenagers’ recharge: in the case of abnormal recharge with high quota and high frequency, Subway Parkour will pop up an answer box when it is initially restricted, and it can only be recharged if it is correctly answered; Advanced restrictions will force you to enter the recharge cooling-off period, and the interval for continuous payment must be more than 30 minutes.
Another example is to stimulate young people’s interest in learning through education. This year’s eleventh edition of Subway Parkour updated the Suzhou theme version, and the official combined the famous articles written in Suzhou in history to make a collection activity. After completing this activity, it can be exchanged for many rewards including characters. Teenagers can remember these excellent poems while entertaining.
In short, Subway Parkour once again demonstrates a truth: you can’t talk about value without content, and you can’t give up value and do content first. Industry history has constantly proved that only good products with parallel content and value can become evergreen explosions, because only such products can truly meet the growth demands of users and get long-term feedback from users.
Using the six words on the big screen of the celebration to evaluate "a new starting point for the tenth anniversary", we look forward to the better performance of the national product "Subway Parkour" in the future and expect it to accompany more people to grow up.
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