Chapter 57: The Profit Secrets of Card Games
Are domestic card games actually fun?
This is a matter of opinion, as different players have different tastes.
Many criticize card games for being shoddy, monotonous in gameplay, and repetitive in content—and indeed, these are all true.
But they still make money.
Making money means players approve of them.
Why do players approve? Because they find them fun.
This is a strange phenomenon: players curse the game while simultaneously paying for it.
Why can card games make money? What exactly makes them fun?
This is a somewhat broad topic. If Chen Mo were to write a thesis specifically explaining the core appeal of card games, he could probably write tens of thousands of words.
In simple terms, the fun of domestic card games mainly comes from three aspects.
First is the joy of collecting and nurturing cards.
This is built on the player's recognition of the card characters.
Once, a mobile game company made a first-generation card game themed around *One Piece* (a complete reskin of *I Am MT*). A whale entered the game without a word and directly spent a few thousand yuan just to draw a single Hawk-Eye Mihawk card.
There was also an unknown Three Kingdoms card game still in its testing phase. A whale entered the game, said nothing, and angrily spent five thousand yuan just to draw a Zhuge Liang card—only to find that the game hadn't even released Zhuge Liang as a character yet.
The game company ended up working overtime to create Zhuge Liang.
In *I Am MT*, many players would do daily dungeon runs like a routine, collecting purple card fragments, or splurging on ten-pull draws, all to get the cards they wanted.
Game designers also deliberately adjust card skills and stats to match the storyline (or tweak them based on character popularity). This is all to cultivate the player's identification with the card characters.
Only by establishing this sense of identification does the card become valuable, and only then will players pay for it.
Once this value system for cards is established, it means there are differences between cards. The player's desire to collect and nurture is satisfied, and they feel the money was well spent.
So, the key to profitability in card games lies in building a card value system that players can identify with—like stamp collecting—and constantly selling new cards to players.
After players get the card they want, to make it stronger, they continue to spend money to upgrade it, increase its stars, level up its skills, and so on. Each upgrade gives the player a sense of growth, making them feel the money wasn't wasted.
This is a manifestation of the "numerical stimulation" mentioned earlier.
This is the core fun of all card games. It's a very mature, reusable model, which is why card mobile games were so rampant in the previous life.
Second is the joy of experimenting with team compositions and formulating independent battle strategies.
The battle system of card games may seem monotonous, but it's actually quite rich. In *I Am MT*, each card has three abilities: normal attack, skill attack, and passive. The character design is based on the battle system of *World of Warcraft*, and each character's skills are different.
For area-of-effect damage skills, there are types like Blizzard (full-screen attack), Whirlwind Slash (front row, three units), Chain Lightning (three random units), and Piercing Shot (vertical row, two units), among others.
Skill damage is further divided into magic and physical, as well as single-target and multi-target.
Healing skills are similar, with single heals and group heals.
In addition, there are various combat abilities like damage reduction, resurrection, and continuous damage. Basically, any skill you can think of can be crammed into the card game's battle system.
Combined with complex factors like card positioning, turn order, attribute counters, and leader skills, the playability of the card game's battle system is greatly enhanced.
Of course, this battle system can't compare to PC games, but for mobile game players, it's more than enough.
As long as the packaging is changed, this battle system can perfectly cover most worldviews, such as anime like *One Piece* and *Naruto*, or wuxia novels.
There are cyclical counter relationships between various combat abilities, such as single heal countering instant kill, instant kill countering group heal, and group heal countering area damage. For players to find the best five-card combination among dozens of cards requires a very long process of trial and error and repeated experience sharing.
Because obtaining rare cards is strictly controlled—either by spending money or time—testing the actual combat power of each card requires a significant investment.
This process is also full of fun and a sense of achievement for players. Therefore, the battle system of card games perfectly complements the card cultivation system. As a classic and enduring battle system, it's enough to keep players engaged for 3 to 5 years without getting bored.
Third is marketing strategy and numerical stimulation.
This is a broad topic, including operational events (seven-day login, check-ins, growth funds, etc.), daily welfare (maintenance rewards of diamonds, stamina, online rewards, etc.), and early-stage numerical architecture...
Of course, these elements are not exclusive to card games; they have basically become standard features of all domestic mobile games, widely adopted in other genres like SLG (strategy games) and FPS (shooting games).
However, if we trace the earliest origins, it likely sprouted from browser games, flourished in card mobile games, and eventually spread to all domestic mobile games.
Of course, this "Pavlovian" numerical stimulation has been criticized relentlessly by countless players and game reviewers. But criticize all they want, almost no mobile game company dares to leave it out.
Why? Because it's simple and effective. Once removed, game data and revenue will noticeably decline.
This "numerical stimulation" system works like this.
First, the game must be free, attracting as many players as possible. These people may have no intention of spending money—that's fine, just get them in first.
Once inside, there will be very detailed newbie guidance, allowing players to quickly experience the core fun and gameplay. At the same time, no numerical difficulty is introduced, letting players breeze through smoothly.
This is the same logic as the first 300,000 words of a web novel being free: experience first, pay later. Try before you buy; no satisfaction, no charge.
However, this situation can't last forever. At most a week, at least three days, players will inevitably encounter some setbacks.
In these games, paying and non-paying players are inherently unequal. To get players to pay, bottlenecks must be set up.
These so-called bottlenecks are designed to block players, making them face difficulties, prompting them to spend money to buy combat power and continue challenging higher levels.
But this creates a problem: what if a player unwilling to spend money hits a bottleneck? They are likely to give up on the game and stop playing.
How do you keep these players around? Simple: give them money.
Genius remembers this site's address in one second.