In recent years, offline games represented by room escape have been sought after by many young people. Data shows that the overall market size of offline entertainment in China in 2019 has reached 500 billion yuan, maintaining an average annual growth rate of about 15% for many years. , Nearly 50% of "post-90s" and "post-00s" participate in offline entertainment at least once a week.
Recently, an offline game called "Script Kill" has also begun to emerge. Its story, suspense, excitement and its own social attributes have attracted a large number of consumers.
"Playing Life" "Script Killing" Becomes New Social Favorite
Script killing, also called the mystery of murder, originated abroad. Players play the roles in the script, reason about the cases in the script, restore the relationship between the characters, and dig out evidence, and finally find the murderer.
Generally, there are 5 to 8 players per game, and a single game lasts 4 to 7 hours.
The reasoning and suspensefulness of the script kill can fully release the player's desire for performance, and can also satisfy the reasoning hobby of "detective" players.
In addition, the emergence of "Script Killing" also provides a platform for many players with social needs.
Shanghai "Script Killing" player Ma Longyu: I prefer to socialize because I prefer to communicate with others. I have met more than 100 people in the past few months. Every time new friends come over, I can feel their happiness. , I will be very happy myself.
In a script-killing offline store in Shanghai’s Putuo District, the reporter saw that although it was Friday, there were already several groups of players playing script-killing in rooms with different styles. The person in charge of the store told the reporter that it is now in the store. Business is very good. Due to too many people booking, they have just recently expanded a new store.
Yang Wenhui, the person in charge of a "Detective Inference Hall" in Shanghai: The new store has just been expanded. The original number of shows was too popular. In the case of two games a day, 10 rooms would equal 20 games a day. Now, on weekends, there are basically 40 games full.
Not only offline, but also online script killing is also popular. The person in charge of a Shanghai script killing Internet company told reporters that although there is no sense of offline experience, the price of online script killing is relatively cheap and there are many options for scripts, so there is also one online. Most scripts kill players.
Especially during the epidemic this year, the number of users of their App suddenly increased by 8 million, so that the server was once fully loaded.
Lin Shihao, CEO of a Shanghai Internet company "Script Kill": There are almost 30 million online users.
Gathering with your friends and classmates, they may need this kind of game demand, the server is full, and you need to keep adding servers.
Data show that in 2019, my country's "script-killing" market has grown rapidly, with the scale being twice that of 2018, breaking through 10 billion yuan.
Shanghai: "Script Killing" with more than 30 stores per month ushered in a blowout period
With elements such as "reasoning", "brain burning", "homicide" and "traversal", script killing has become the new favorite of many young people's entertainment and social life.
Whether it is in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen or the fourth-tier small cities, script killers have gradually increased, and more venues for script kill have emerged, and the growth rate is very fast.
This weekend the reporter came to a script-killing offline store in Xuhui District, Shanghai. The 20-square-meter room was full of players in various ancient costumes. Some of them were dressing up, and some were chatting with scripts. .
The owner, Yang Anan, is an entrepreneur born in the 1980s. When the reporter saw her, she was dressing up for customers.
She told reporters that she had come into contact with the script kill by chance, and after playing it twice, she decided to open her own shop.
Yang Anan told reporters that the entry barrier for script killing is not high.
Due to the relatively low requirements on the facade, most stores will rent their stores in old buildings with relatively cheap rents, plus decoration, labor, and script procurement. The initial investment of opening an offline script killing store is about 300,000 yuan. .
Yang An'an, the person in charge of a “Script Killing Plot Museum” in Shanghai: The reproducibility rate is too high, and the input cost is not high. In fact, the threshold is very low.
The initial period is about two to three million yuan, a one-time investment, and the payback is about six months to one year.
Data shows that as of December 2019, the number of offline script killing stores nationwide has soared from 2,400 in January to 12,000, and 10,000 stores have been opened within a year.
Yang Wenhui, who entered the script-killing industry earlier, told reporters that it costs about 100 yuan to play a script-killing game, while a real-scene script-killing game is a bit more expensive, at about 200 yuan, but compared to the previous escape room, it costs four to five hundred yuan. , The script kill is much more cost-effective.
Coupled with the low barriers to entry, in the past year, script-killing shops have expanded very rapidly.
Yang Wenhui, the person in charge of a "Detective Inference Hall" in Shanghai: Four years ago, there were probably only two or three in Shanghai. After the epidemic, consumers have a very strong desire to consume. There are about 150 in Shanghai, and they are expanding at a rate of 30 or 40 each month. .
In addition, the popularity of script killing has also driven its upstream and downstream industrial chain.
Scripts are the core of script killing. The quality of a script directly affects the profits of the script killing store. At present, the copyright of some good scripts on the market can even sell for millions of dollars.
Industry insiders told reporters that when the size of downstream stores is still far from meeting consumer needs, even if small and medium shop owners can’t get a good script, it’s not a fatal problem. Relying on real scenes to attract new users can still live well.
But as the downstream market becomes more and more crowded, how to make innovative things is also something that all store owners need to consider.