| ▲ Consumer goods sold at MapleStory 20th Anniversary Fan Festival Source: Game Insight |
Game companies are focusing their efforts on producing secondary creations with ‘Golden Hands’ users.
In the form of active cooperation while providing copyright and goods sales space for users, it is becoming very popular in offline events and is growing in size.
Meanwhile, secondary creations of games have been traded in the shadows and received many negative images from fans, but the recent atmosphere is that game companies release copyrights and invite them to offline events to coexist.
 ▲ Eternal Return Lumia Night Market consumer goods store held at the Play Expo site Source: Twitter ‘Dewa’ |
 ▲ Blue Archive 1.5th anniversary offline event with 84 consumer goods stores Source: Nexon |
Consumer goods stores demonstrate their presence in offline events by increasing consumer satisfaction. In particular, for games in the subculture genre, creative goods produced by golden hand users often surpass the quality of the official goods, so it is easy to see even workers admiring them.
In fact, secondary creations such as key rings, stickers, mugs, figures, and pads that use game characters are selling as hot as official products. As products often sell out quickly, more and more consumers visit the gift shop before on-site events.
 ▲ Popular items often sell out early Source: Game Insight |
The strength of these secondary creations is the variety that covers diverse tastes. There are cases where official goods are standardized or ideas are hard to shine, but the user-created creations are extremely satisfying as they reflect the opinion of the community or are tailored to the tastes of actual users.
Accordingly, active production of secondary creations is expected to continue. Nexon introduced 30 merchandise stores at MapleStory’s 20th anniversary fan festival, and significantly increased them to 84 at the Blue Archive’s 1.5 year anniversary event, taking the lead in creating a positive atmosphere.
 ▲ Car Air Freshener Black Desert Merchandise Contest Winner Source: Pearl Abyss |
Nimble Neuron hosted the Eternal Return Flea Market at the site of the eSports finals and Play Expo, while Pearl Abyss hosted a contest inspired by Black Desert fan art and actively produced official merchandise.
A synergy is created between users who love games and a company that recognizes their abilities. Since product popularity is highly likely to eventually lead to games and is seen as a measure of consumer preference, secondary creations have a positive impact on long-term game service.
