Shulou(Shulou.com)12/24 Report--

Recently, the announcement of a joint venture between Duoniu Technology Group (stock code: 1961) and Lix Film and Game Group Company Ltd (hereinafter referred to as "Lix Film"), owned by internationally renowned filmmaker Tang Jili, has aroused widespread concern in the digital entertainment industry. This move may reflect some of the key trends that are taking place within the industry.

Duoniu Technology, as a digital entertainment provider listed on the main board of Hong Kong stocks, is mainly engaged in game research and development and distribution. Its parent company, Duoniu Group, has the largest Chinese game community NGA, A9VG, video game bus and other game media matrix, as well as well-known social networking platforms such as Renren.

Tang Jili, the controlling shareholder of LixFilm, is an internationally renowned filmmaker, who is a director, action director, screenwriter, producer and producer. He has achieved many successes with Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh and other works such as "Red Fan District", "Police Story" series, "Myth" and "Kung Fu Yoga".

According to the company, this cooperation is expected to focus on the classic film IP directed by Tang Jili to develop game works, promote film and game joint creation, and will also find a suitable game IP to carry out film and television development cooperation, while using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence to continuously develop and cultivate high-quality IP. From a macro point of view, this cooperation may be one of the manifestations of the convergence trend of the game and film and television industry.

01. The trend of linkage between movies and games has been strengthened, entering a new symbiotic cycle.

In the past few years, the line between the game and the film and television industry has become more and more blurred, and the trend of mutual penetration between the two has become more and more obvious. This trend is reflected in the mutual adaptation of games and film and television works, as well as the common progress in narrative and visual performance of the two industries. Now, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, this integration trend is entering a new stage.

Specifically, the similarity of the two industries provides a natural basis for integration. From a product point of view, film and television and games rely on strong story narrative ability to complete the work, but also need exquisite scenes and character design to attract the audience. From the audience point of view, the two share a similar fan base, the main audience are mainly young people, this part of the group is receptive, willing to constantly try new content and new forms, which also provides a user base for the close linkage between the two.

In addition, the film and television industry and the game industry are typical technology-intensive industries, the emergence of new technology to boost the industry is very obvious, every major breakthrough in the technical level can give birth to an epoch-making work. In this sense, the two industries are eager for the emergence and application of new technologies, and there is a full demand for integration at the technical level.

In fact, the mutual adaptation of video games has formed a relatively mature business model. In recent years, classic film and television works are constantly being adapted into games. Sony's "Marvel Spider-Man" and Warner Bros.'"Heritage of Hogwarts" sold 30 million and 15 million copies worldwide, respectively, with great success. In China, "Harry Potter: the Magic Awakening" developed by NetEase in 2022 has been downloaded 1060 times by June 2023, with domestic revenue exceeding 263 million US dollars.

On the other hand, many classic games have also been adapted into film and television works. As early as the 1990s, Nintendo invested $43 million to remake a live-action movie version of its best-known game, Super Mario Brothers. Such as "biochemical crisis", "Silent Hill", "Warcraft" and even "Angry Birds" have been adapted for release in theaters. This year's hit American TV series "the Last Survivor" is also adapted from a classic game of the same name. Perhaps having tasted the benefits of the game adaptation again, Amazon quickly announced that it would remake another classic game, radiation, and recently released its first trailer, which sparked a heated debate.

This kind of adaptation not only expands the commercial value and liquidity of IP, but also has a strong market logic. On the supply side, the film solves many problems from production capacity to commercialization for the game, and the theme through the film ecological verification also reduces the exploration cycle of the game in terms of type and diversification. On the consumer side, with the support of IP, more forms and styles of content help the game overcome user growth and payment bottlenecks. For the film and television industry, the huge fan base of classic games greatly reduces the publicity cost of the film, while the high-quality script and character design of the game itself also significantly reduces the difficulty of the development of film and television works. This kind of cooperation can be said to be happy for everyone.

There is another form of cooperation between film and television and games. In terms of experience, one of the biggest differences between the two industries is that the audience of the film and television passively accepts the plot, while the audience of the game actively creates the plot and has a stronger sense of immersion. If the film and television of the game weakens the sense of immersion of the game, then the emergence of interactive film and television works can be called "the gamification of film and television."

Interactive film and television works are not the newborns of the times, and their age is even the same as that of the whole game industry. In the 1980s, the game industry was still in the early stage of development, and the graphics technology was still very backward. In order to attract players, some manufacturers added real photos and video images to the game screen, thus giving birth to FMV games (full-motion video games). Although with the development of game graphics technology, this kind of interpolated real-life images are gradually abandoned because of its rigid performance and fixed movements, but this form has not disappeared, but waiting for another round of development of the industry.

In 2016, Microsoft's 3A game Quantum Breaking caused controversy by adding more than 20 minutes of live-action plot between the scenes, while in 2018 Netflix released the interactive film Black Mirror: Pandasneki, in which audiences can make choices at key points in the play, thus affecting the ending of the movie, which completely blurs the line between games and film and television. The live-action interactive video game that became popular in China in 2023 is over! I'm surrounded by beauties! "it's just an extension of this form.

These industry convergence trends fully show that as young people become mainstream users of the Internet, the traditional single linear expression is no longer enough to meet the personalized needs of the audience, but to pursue a higher degree of freedom of choice. I hope to participate in the story as a protagonist and experience a stronger sense of immersion. It can be predicted that the film and television and game industry will be more and more closely linked.

02.AI technology reshapes the video game industry, helping IP to gain more value

In this context, the emergence of AI technology has greatly accelerated this process. In terms of content production, AI can not only help film and television producers and game developers generate storylines and create dialogues more effectively, but also accelerate the production and update cycle of content. It can also create new narrative methods, such as dynamically changing game storylines according to the choices of players, or providing more diversified plots for film and television works, which is bound to further blur the boundaries between film and television and games. make the work more interactive and immersive, and promote the film and game works to change to a unified intermediate format. At the same time, the output of AI in the underlying digital assets such as scene, image design, art style and so on can form asset reuse in the film and television and game industry, and further reduce the cost of the industry.

In fact, the emerging AI and AIGC (AI generated content) technology has swept all industries with an irresistible momentum, and the game industry is the first batch of beneficiaries. According to Gamma data, more than 60% of Chinese head game companies in China are actively laying out the AIGC field, focusing on integrating AI technology into all aspects of game development, marketing and operation.

From the interim performance report of Duoniu Technology, we can also see that the company is ready to make efforts in the field of artificial intelligence this year, launched a number of AIGC application products, and set up artificial intelligence joint laboratories with some well-known scientific research institutes and authoritative institutions to reserve technical resources for follow-up new product research and development and the use of new models, and closely join the tide of the AI army.

In the film and television industry, AIGC technology has been gradually involved in the film and television creation process, and even triggered a protracted strike in Hollywood, but this can not stop the wave of AI technology. Film and television practitioners, including Guo Fan, director of the Chinese sci-fi movie wandering Earth, and Joe Russo, director of the Avengers, have affirmed the potential of AI in areas such as special effects makeup and sound adjustment, and may even create a whole new interactive movie experience.

According to reliable sources, Tang Jili's new film "Legend" has been killed. As a sequel to the "Myth" series, the main highlight of the film is the virtual reshaping of 27-year-old Jackie Chan through AI technology, making him appear in the same picture with his current self. The application of this technology is no longer limited to character creation, but also extends to all aspects of film production, such as the creation of glacier temples, desert and other scenes. It is expected that the cooperation between Duoniu Technology and Tang Jili will also give full play to the potential of AIGC technology in the film, television and game industry, which is a useful attempt.

It is not difficult to see that AI technology for the film and television and game industry, is a new technological leap, and this is what the two industries have long longed for. The cooperation between Duoniu Technology and director Tang Jili is part of the profound change that is taking place in the industry. in the future, more game companies and film and television companies will come together under the blessing of AI to explore new changes in the way of entertainment. For both film and television audiences and gamers, this is a future to look forward to.

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