Tencent Unleashes Triple Threat: Three Blockbuster Games Launched at Once
Text | Mobile Games | rum
Recently, Tencent has begun to make efforts in the sports competitive mobile game track. In the past two months, Tencent has continuously tested three products, “Hot Blood NBA”, “NBA All-Star” and “NBA King 2”. From the names alone, we can understand that these products are all about NBA basketball.
As one of the most popular sports in the world, basketball has a deep mass base in China. According to data released by the Chinese Basketball Association, the number of basketball players in China has reached 125 million in 2021. However, in the domestic mobile game market, there are many potential players in the basketball track, but there are few blockbuster products that can enter the public’s field of vision.
(NetEase’s “All-Star Streetball Party” may be one of the few hits in recent years)
As for Tencent, their last basketball product was “Slam Dunk” in 2022, and this product had not been substantially updated for nearly a year, so Tencent’s three consecutive moves in the basketball track can be said to be sudden. So, why did they choose to invest in this field?
A closer look at the positioning of the three products reveals that Tencent is trying to cover three types of user groups from two dimensions. This time, Tencent seems to focus more on breadth rather than depth, and is closer to an exploration and experiment.
In addition to Tencent, many other manufacturers have also set their sights on the basketball mobile game category. From this perspective, the potential of this track may be greater than most people imagine.
Use simulated business to win over light users
Let’s first take a look at “NBA 2”. This product got its version number in 2022, had its first test in May 2023, and started its second test on August 20 this year.
In the game, players will play the role of professional managers, leading the team to become champions step by step in the NBA. To build a team, the most basic thing is naturally the players. Players can obtain players through player recruitment, draft and free market. Recruitment is the common card drawing, and draft is to add a ranking mechanism on the basis of card drawing.
Free recruitment randomly refreshes several players and spends free basic coins to sign them. It is worth mentioning that the scores, rebounds, turnovers, fouls and other data in real games will affect the player’s score in the game, and then affect the signing market price. For example, Diop’s value has increased by about 10% because he has scored consecutively in recent games and has fewer fouls and turnovers.
After signing, the player’s salary will be fixed, but the market price will still be affected by the actual game. Therefore, one of the greatest pleasures of this system is to find a potential player at a low price and watch his value soar. This design not only accurately targets the group of players who are keen on watching NBA games, but also makes players think of the game itself when watching the game, which increases user stickiness in disguise. The fluctuation of player ratings also helps to form a community among players.
As a manager, in addition to signing players to build the team, players can also influence the direction of the game. Players can change offensive and defensive tactics in real time to provide special benefits to players. For example, inside tactics can provide a 15% combat power bonus for centers and power forwards. According to changes in the situation on the field, the system will also give recommended tactics. However, when the player’s combat power is significantly lower than that of the opponent, it is difficult to win the game no matter how you adjust your tactics. Therefore, the strategic depth of the game is relatively limited, and numerical development is the focus.
Overall, “NBA King 2” is still a simulation game that is oriented towards development, and does not require high operational strategies. However, the star rating mechanism linked to the results of real events distinguishes it from other competing products to a certain extent. The game is obviously more targeted at casual players among basketball fans.
It is not difficult to understand why Tencent would make such a product. On the one hand, the case of “League of Legends: Esports Manager” proves that competitive game-themed simulation business products are feasible in the market. On the other hand, there is currently no basketball-themed simulation business product with sufficient influence in the market, which also provides an opportunity for “NBA 2”.
Light and heavy parallel coverage of competitive users
Unlike “NBA King 2”, Tencent’s other two basketball products, “NBA Hot Blood” and “NBA All-Star”, are both real-time competitive products with a realistic style.
Some friends may ask: both are NBA themes, and both focus on real-style competition, so why is Tencent doing horse racing? Actually, although both are real-time competitive gameplay, they are different upon closer inspection.
“Hot-Blooded NBA” obtained its license in January this year and started a new round of “joint training” testing on July 18. The game strives to simulate the modeling and action performance of the stars; the main gameplay is 3V3 competition, each game is only three minutes long, and has a 24-second non-attack exchange of ball rights and an 11-point game system, which also makes the overall rhythm of the game extremely compact.
Furthermore, the buttons that players need to use in the game are also quite streamlined: the left joystick controls the direction, and the four buttons on the right hand cover all the operable buttons, so the overall game is not difficult to get started.
However, you can combine a lot of technical moves in the game by using the joystick + button. For example, drag the left joystick towards the basket and drag the shooting joystick to trigger a floater or a European step. You can lightly shoot outside the three-point line and then dribble past the opponent to fake a shot and fake the opponent. This brings stronger operability and strategic game play to the game.
In addition, the game also has common character development gameplay such as upgrading, star upgrade, and skill enhancement. The performance of some players also needs to be developed to unlock. For example, Towns’ step-back shooting, three-pointer and dunk abilities will improve with the level of his exclusive skills, and star upgrades will add additional action modules. Cultivating a strong enough player character has become an important factor that affects the game in addition to operation.
Overall, the game lightens the basketball competition while retaining space for operation and gaming, and combines it with mainstream RPG gameplay. This gameplay is obviously more suitable for medium to heavy players who are familiar with the mobile game mode.
Another game, NBA All-Star, was tested for the first time on August 9, and it was called “pure NBA2K series”. In terms of content, this product is indeed closer to the core gameplay of the end game NBA2K24 than similar competing products. The game focuses on 5V5 competition with a higher ceiling and stronger strategy, and the duration of a single game is also four minutes. In terms of operation, it can also perform detailed operations such as back dribbling misdirection, pull-back on the spot, and retreat jump shot through rubbing moves, which provides room for game play.
(Misleading bad luck)
At the same time, in the test version, players cannot improve the ability values of players through training, and can only use the badge system to customize the play style of each player. Badges will not directly improve the player’s panel, but will bring benefits to the player in different situations.
For example, “Key Shooter” can give players a bonus to their shots at the last minute, and “Ultra-Long Three-Point Shooter” can improve the player’s three-point range. Players with similar badges can build towards the direction of scoring big C. Conversely, in order to avoid interference from opponents, the team just needs a player with defensive badges such as “Off-Ball Pest” or “Death Coil” to protect them.
If a player has a breakthrough or dunk badge, he or she will often need the assistance of a player with the ability to pass and control the ball. After determining the core of offense and defense, the player also needs to make up three players in a targeted manner according to the core’s ability deficiencies to form a complete tactical system.
After matching the lineup, players should also adapt their playing style to the characteristics of the badges. For example, players with the “superstar” badge should dunk as much as possible to trigger extra points. Teams with “key shooters” as the core are more suitable for defense in the early stage so as to play an advantage in the later stage.
From the above content, it can be seen that NBA All-Star retains the hardcore gameplay of sports competition, puts forward higher requirements for thinking and operation, and the proportion of development elements is relatively small. This product may be more suitable for heavy players who are willing to spend time to explore and polish their operations, or to achieve conversion for PC game players.
Although both “Hot Blooded NBA” and “NBA All-Star” are realistic competitive basketball games, in terms of specific content segmentation, the former is more lightly competitive, while the latter is more heavily competitive, and the target groups are also different. Through these two products, Tencent has basically covered the two main types of basketball competitive users.
How much potential does this track have?
It can be seen that although all of them use NBA themes, Tencent’s three products have their own differentiated positioning to attract different player groups.
The investment in three consecutive products seems to indicate that Tencent has new expectations for the mobile basketball game track and attaches great importance to it. Judging from the market performance of “All-Star Streetball Party” launched by NetEase last August, the mobile basketball game track does have certain potential, which may be one of the reasons why Tencent is willing to invest.
As Pansy, the producer of “All-Star Streetball Party”, once said, the true potential of basketball users has not yet been fully tapped. There are many more people who are truly willing to try basketball games than what is seen on the market, but no one has provided them with products before.
This may be because some basketball products in the past tended to overemphasize numbers, while products that did not focus on numbers were too hardcore, with too high a threshold to get started and a relatively lengthy overall pace. This resulted in only a small number of players being selected from a wide range of basketball users, making it difficult to unleash the commercial potential of the entire group.
Judging from the above three products, Tencent seems to agree with this idea. “NBA 2” takes real-life events as the entry point, focusing on simulation development, and is responsible for the lightest group; “NBA Hot Blood” simplifies the difficulty of competitive operations, adds RPG elements, and undertakes mainstream competitive players such as MOBA and tactical competitions; “NBA All-Star” retains the core competitive experience and converts players of similar competing products. Tencent may want to maximize and verify the value of the basketball group in the mobile game market by covering three main segments.
In fact, Tencent is not the only company that has taken action on this potential track. Changyou recently tested a manager product, NBA: Absolute Superstar; Wangchen Technology’s NBA Peak Showdown was also launched on the 22nd, also focusing on hardcore operations, and integrating streetball, dynasty and other game modes, which has received good feedback.
In addition to the three products mentioned above and the current top basketball mobile game “All-Star Streetball Party”, we can see that various manufacturers are exploring the possibility of the basketball mobile game track. The investment of multiple manufacturers will also bring new vitality and changes to this track. New hot products may be born. We might as well give manufacturers and the basketball mobile game track more expectations.