Where will the future of the stand-alone ＂Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man＂ go？

For many post-80s game fans, this summer may belong to the ever-changing "Fairy Sword".

On the one hand, it is "bad" news, and the R&D team of Beijing Soft Star has been "abolished". You know, the leader of Beisoft is Yao Zhuangxian, who is known as the "father of the sword"; On the other hand, the Shanghai Soft Star, which is working on the remake of "Fairy Sword 4", was first disbanded, and then was "renamed" as "Shangruan", which made fans feel excited …

On the other hand, it is good news. The animated versions of "Fairy Sword I" and "Fairy Sword III" appeared in Tencent Video Animation Awards 2023, and the animated version of "Fairy Sword III" announced that it would be finalized in the summer of 2024; The live-action version of "Fairy Sword III" in cooperation with Penguin Film and Television and the live-action version of "Fairy Sword IV" in cooperation with iQiyi are expected to be released this year; At the 6th anniversary event, the Chinese mobile game partner Square Game announced that it would make a remastered version (stand-alone) of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man, and the producer was still Joseph Chang.

After spending more than 800 million yuan to win the IP of "Fairy Sword", China Mobile Games invested more than 300 million yuan in the production of cross-platform game "Fairy Sword World" in three years, and it was confirmed by the prophet from the insiders of China Mobile Games that part of the stand-alone R&D team of Beijing Soft Star was merged into the R&D team of "Fairy Sword World" recently, and China Mobile Games gave up the stand-alone self-research business, so China Mobile Games was repeatedly distrusted by stand-alone fans.

With the flood of nostalgia in the game circle in recent years, Chinese mobile games have become a very concerned company. In 2023, it is also a crucial year for Chinese mobile games. Whether it is "The World of the Sword" which is researched and developed with a huge sum of money, or several series of animations of "The Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man", the Xianjian town in Hangzhou, and the remastered version (stand-alone) of "The Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man" which is the most concerned, all need to be tested urgently.

At the same time, the IP of "Xianjian", a stand-alone era, seems to have been far away from the public. However, in 2023, its heated discussion among game fans seems to prove that the stand-alone market and Xianjian IP have never gone far. Under such pressure, China Mobile Games 2023′ s IP strategy, undoubtedly following the three-body universe, has set a new example for companies that have been betting on IP for those years but have not achieved results.

In the past two months, the fate of "The Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man" and the news of whether the stand-alone R&D teams of Beijing Soft Star and Shanghai Soft Star exist have always touched the hearts of the fans who like the stand-alone game of the Sword.

On August 11th, Joseph Chang, the former general manager of Shanghai Soft Star, officially responded to the rumors about "Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition" in the past two months at the Weibo. Joseph Chang admitted that he had experienced some changes, but they didn’t give up, and they kept trying to return to the status of developer. It was not until August 1st that the project was saved with the help of many friends and team members and box games. However, it is worth noting that Joseph Chang emphasized that "we will return to the development work of reprinting" Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man IV "with a brand-new identity of UP software, and attached a logo pattern named" UP software "by Qvanxian Zhang.

Intriguingly, Shanghai Soft Star was dissolved once after finishing Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man IV in 2007. Later, Shanghai Soft Star was reorganized by Joseph Chang in 2015. Recently, it became a new software named "UP software" because of the remake of the Sword 4.

Prophet Travel learned from the industry that although the R&D team of "Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition" has remained basically unchanged, its name has been changed from softstar shanghai to UP software. Although the abbreviation of the former is also Up Software, the change of logo means that the team has changed from a subsidiary of China Mobile Games to a new subject of box games. In other words, China Mobile Games abandoned the self-research business of Xianjian single-player game and adopted the cooperation mode of external authorization to develop new works of Xianjian single-player game.

According to the Prophet Travel, part of the R&D team of Beijing Soft Star has indeed been abolished, and the other part has been merged into the R&D team of Fairy Sword World, but there are still some employees engaged in non-R&D businesses (such as marketing, brand, IP operation, commerce, etc.).

In addition, some people related to Chinese mobile games emphasized that "Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition" was also promoted by Chinese mobile games, and the future stand-alone planning of the series "Legend of Fairy Sword and Chivalrous Man" will be announced in due course, and the stand-alone of Fairy Sword will be mainly in the form of cooperative research and development, because "Fairy Sword World" has some stand-alone gameplay, which is also to avoid the waste of resources caused by internal competition.

The Legend of the Fairy Sword and the Chivalrous Man was originally a series of computer games produced by Daewoo Information Co., Ltd. in Taiwan, China. The story of the Fairy Sword is based on the legend of immortals and ghosts in ancient China, with the theme of martial arts and chivalry. So far, nine stand-alone role-playing games and a number of derivative games have been released.

Since its birth in 1995, The Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man has been playing a national-level stand-alone role in domestic stand-alone games, especially in mainland China, which has become a symbol of "youthful memories" for a generation of players. Therefore, Yao Zhuangxian, the "father of the sword", left his hometown as early as 2000 and came to Beijing to work hard alone from Taiwan Province, and successively established two subsidiaries, Beijing Soft Star and Shanghai Soft Star.

However, with the release of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man (6) in 2015, due to serious optimization problems, the game sales volume was less than expected, and then Daewoo Information, as the parent company, was badly managed, resulting in a huge funding gap. In addition, due to the strict control of the version number policy on imported games and other factors, Daewoo Information moved the idea of selling the shares of Soft Star and the ownership of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man in mainland China.

Kunlun Wanwei was the first to take a fancy to the IP of "Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man". However, due to the booming investment and Internet business of Kunlun Wanwei’s boss, the game business was gradually pulled down, which finally led to Kunlun Wanwei’s failure to complete the capital increase of Beijing Soft Star, a subsidiary of Daewoo, within a limited time, which made Daewoo announce the termination of its shareholding.

Soon after, China Mobile announced that it would invest 213 million yuan in Beijing Soft Star. After that, China Mobile will hold a 51% stake in Beijing Soft Star (and its subsidiary Shanghai Soft Star), and join hands with Daewoo Information of Taiwan Province to carry out independent research and development, joint research and development, and multi-dimensional pan-entertainment cooperation on well-known IP such as Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man, Xuanyuanjian, Monopoly, Star Volunteer and angel empire.

On August 5, 2021, China Mobile Games increased its capital by HK$ 640 million, and finally bought the IP ownership of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man in mainland China, becoming the sole owner of the registration, authorization and use rights of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man in Chinese mainland. Since then, China Mobile Games has been listed on the Hong Kong stock market under the label of "big IP game player" and "global IP game operator".

Long before the acquisition of "Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man" IP, Chinese mobile games were famous for their large number of IPs in the game industry, including two collaborations with Daewoo to adapt the double sword IP to mobile games, that is, Chinese mobile games successively changed "Legend of the Sword and Chivalrous Man" and "Xuanyuanjian 3: The Other Side of the Cloud and the Mountain" into mobile games.

In addition, the chairman and CEO of China Mobile Games have been preaching the details or significance of the IP strategy of China Mobile Games in various industry summits and other public occasions. Therefore, China Mobile Games is definitely a game company with great obsession with IP, and it is bound to know the importance of Xianjian stand-alone to the IP of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man, because the root of the IP of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man is the stand-alone game fan of Xianjian.

However, we also see that with the development of the times, it also poses a huge challenge to the pure stand-alone business model. Fans need high-input, high-quality and iterative content updates, but the market return is difficult to cover the cost. The new product "Fairy Sword World" that China Mobile Games tried to use the open world mode of "70% stand-alone plot +30% networking mode" is also a bold innovation of Xianjian IP’s previous pure stand-alone business model. But it may take time for pure stand-alone fans to accept it. For example, at the time node when the prospect of Xianjian’s stand-alone machine is unknown, a lucky draw initiated by Weibo, the official of "Fairy Sword World", was unexpectedly unsuccessful.

Then, what are the reasons why China Mobile Games successively cut down the stand-alone game R&D teams of Beisoft and Shangsoft?

Let’s take a look at the financial report released by China Mobile Games in the last year to know the answer. Although the financial report of China Mobile Games in the first half of 2020 mentioned that Shanghai Soft Star Technology officially established the stand-alone game "Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man IV: Remastered Edition" in the first half of 2022, which has entered the research and development stage. However, in the 2022 financial report, some R&D projects of China Mobile Games were postponed to varying degrees, and the launch of new games was also affected. The performance of China Mobile Games turned from profit to loss, with a net loss of RMB 216.9 million in 2022.

At the 2022 annual financial report meeting, Jian Xiao, the chairman of the board of directors, made it clear that Box Games is still the cooperative agent publisher of Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition, and the R&D expenses of Chinese mobile games will not increase too much in 2023 because Box Games covers the R&D expenses of Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition. Jian Xiao’s statement is equivalent to also suggesting that the R&D expenses of "Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition" will still be invested by Box Games, accounting for a large part, while China Mobile Games only invested a small part of the R&D expenses.

After Shanghai Soft Star experienced a rumor of personnel unrest recently, it finally announced that it had reached a cooperation with Chinese mobile games in the single-machine development and distribution of Xianjian IP by using the box game, and the work of "Xianjian 4 Remastered Edition" was restarted and came to an end.

Box Game is only a single agent publisher that cooperates with China Mobile Games. Why should it bear the main research and development cost of the project "Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition"? The reason is that the square game has a deep relationship with the stand-alone works of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man, and the two sides are deeply bound. If there is no stand-alone machine of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man, the core user group of the square game will be reduced by more than half.

All this, it has to start from the history of the box game.

Universal Star used to be one of the most famous stand-alone game agents in China. From its establishment in 2002 to 2007, all stand-alone works of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man were distributed by Universal Star. However, due to the sharp decline of stand-alone game business after 2007, a large number of people left the company and were on the verge of bankruptcy, so the development right was transferred to Beijing Soft Star’s Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man, and the agency of which was mainly engaged in end-game travel.

Baiyou set up a stand-alone game division in 2011 after obtaining the distribution right of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man. In 2013, Baiyou transformed the stand-alone game division into Aiyou, an independent subsidiary of Baiyou. In 2014, Aiyou was acquired by Sohu Changyou and renamed Changyou Ledong. So far, all the stand-alone game businesses of Baiyou were transferred to Changyou, but in 2014, Changyou Ledong and the stand-alone business were swept out of the house. So Bian started his own business and set up a stand-alone distribution company called Xinyou Times, and launched the distribution platform of Kangaroo Games. In 2017, Kangaroo Games found a new owner, Wanxin Media, and changed its name to Box Games.

Judging from the history of the box game, it started from the single-player game seed users gathered through the exclusive release of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man 5, so if the fate of the single-player of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man is interrupted, the root of the box game will be broken, and the behavior of the box game investing in the remake of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man 4 is precisely for the purpose of "keeping the root".

It is worth noting that "Fairy Sword 4 Remastered Edition" was established as early as the first half of last year, and it was mainly invested by the box game. After more than a year of development, it must have invested a lot of sunk costs, so it is reasonable that its fate can continue. However, there has been no exact news about the establishment of the project until now.

However, China Mobile has promised to launch more stand-alone works of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man in cooperation with Box Games. As long as the market performance of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man 4 is up to expectations, perhaps the future Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man 8 will also adopt the same cooperation mode, that is, Box Games will invest in the production and distribution of Shanghai Soft Star to continue its stand-alone fate.

At the summit forum of China International Digital Entertainment Industry Conference (CDEC) in the past 2023, Jian Xiao, Chairman and CEO of China Mobile Games, solemnly introduced the positioning of China Mobile Games-China Mobile Games is a global IP game operator, with IP as the core, and through independent research and development and joint research and development, it provides high-quality IP games for global players and builds a highly competitive IP game ecosystem. Deeply cultivate its own IP operations such as "Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man" and "Monopoly", and continue to create quality content and interactive experience for fans to create a world-class IP!

According to the financial report, in terms of revenue, Chinese mobile games are mainly composed of three businesses, namely distribution business, development business and IP authorization business. Among them, the distribution business is the business of distributing mobile games to Chinese mobile games. The development business originally included the development of stand-alone and mobile games, but perhaps it will no longer include stand-alone development business from this year, and the IP licensing business is based on its own IP such as Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man and Monopoly.

The financial report shows that the IP licensing business of China Mobile Games will achieve revenue of 110 million, 232 million yuan and 147 million respectively in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Although it can’t be compared with the mobile game distribution business, it still has great growth potential, because the mobile game will continue to improve the IP layout of its own IP "Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man", further covering the fields of games, movies, animation, content literature, music, derivatives and real entertainment, and join hands with partners in related fields to create the IP universe of the Sword.

By investigating and counting the authorized derivative games of the Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man IP over the years (see the above table), it is obvious that since China Mobile Games took over the Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man IP, the number of all kinds of authorized derivative games has been greatly reduced compared with the previous authorization mode, so China Mobile Games is still relatively restrained in using the stand-alone IP of the Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man to realize cash by developing mobile games, which is also the same as that of China Mobile Games.

Judging from the consistent publicity of China Mobile Games, the purpose of China Mobile Games is to combine its own advantageous IP resources, and finally realize the formation of an IP game ecosystem of "IP resources-independent R&D and joint R&D-global distribution-own IP operation-meta-universe platform", and establish three business sections: game R&D and distribution, own IP operation and meta-universe platform.

Among them, the Meta-Universe platform is only an unrealized picture for Chinese mobile games at this stage, but Xiao Jian once said in an interview with the media that the Meta-Universe has great potential. The company’s self-developed national wind meta-universe game "Fairy Sword World" is expected to create more than 3 billion annual stable income in China, and the Meta-Universe module will lead products into the trillion-level national wind consumer market, open up online and offline consumption scenarios, and have the opportunity to create a consumption scale of 100 billion in the future.

From this point of view, China Mobile Games wants to build a meta-universe platform with the IP of "Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man" as the core, and the most critical means to achieve this goal is "Fairy Sword World", and China Mobile Games has repeatedly declared it as a strategic platform-type product of open world +MMO+ national wind meta-universe.

Earlier, Jian Xiao said in an interview with the game media that the IP of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man should be turned into an IP with a valuation of 10 billion, and the World of the Sword should be turned into an open world product with an annual income of 3 billion. At the performance briefing in 2022, when answering questions, Jian Xiao once again expressed his optimism about the future of Xian Xia’s open world, and thought that he had a good chance to reach the height of the second open world.

Today, Jian Xiao further stated at the 2023 China International Digital Entertainment Industry Conference (CDEC) Summit Forum-

The market size of Xianxia theme games is nearly 60 billion a year, while the market size of MMO is 50 billion a year. There have been three kinds of open-world games with design ideas in the market, and all of them have achieved great success. For example, the recent online mobile game "Going Against the Water" has let us see the great explosive power after MMO breakthrough, and with the release of Apple’s MR head-mounted Vision Pro, the space Internet era will begin.

Based on the above analysis and thinking on the market, China Mobile Games decided to make every effort to build the world’s first virtual world of national wind and chivalry, "Fairy Sword World", to build the world base with a seamless map, to provide high-quality content for the kernel, to extend the rules of world interaction with IP settings, and to adopt the innovative integration and social progression of "single player world+multiplayer world+meta universe" to create an open world game with super-first-line theme of chivalry!

There is no doubt that "Fairy Sword World" is the core project of China Mobile Games. It is precisely because of the great importance attached to "Fairy Sword World" that China Mobile Games even changed the original exclusive release of "legend of sword and fairy’s Sword Quest" into a joint release with celadon games (celadon games are the main release, while China Mobile Games are the auxiliary release), perhaps because it is necessary to concentrate on the management of "Fairy Sword World".

However, "Fairy Sword World" is a cross-platform open world game. Nowadays, the manufacturers who have the strength to enter this track have invested hundreds of millions to start, and the Chinese mobile game will further explore new fields, because "Fairy Sword World" will not only launch PC-side, mobile-side and cloud-side products, but also launch host-side and MR-side products in the future. Jian Xiao even bluntly said that Genshin Impact’s success had the greatest impact on his cognition in recent years, and "The World of the Sword" was probably made with the goal of benchmarking Genshin Impact, so we can think that "The World of the Sword" is to build a version of the "original god" of the sword, and its production cost will not be low.

As of April this year, China Mobile Games has invested more than 300 million R&D costs for "Fairy Sword World", which has been continuously developed for three years. In addition, many games of China Mobile Games failed to obtain version numbers and delayed their launch, as well as the decline of old games and the decline of IP licensing income, which eventually led to the first loss of more than 200 million yuan last year. In order to reverse its performance as soon as possible, China Mobile Games will abolish and partially merge the R&D team of Beijing Soft Star, which is in charge of stand-alone game R&D business but has poor market performance, and transfer the R&D team of Shanghai Soft Star to the partner box game.

This is the root of the recent repeated twists and turns in the stand-alone fate of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man. The stand-alone fate of Legend of the Sword and the Chivalrous Man in the future will also be closely related to the market performance of Fairy Sword World created by Chinese mobile games in order to develop and realize the brand-new business segment goal of the meta-universe platform.