It's 2025. Has the Cheng Guang Games become outdated?

Text | Min Feng 

Editor | Shiwu Liu 

Recently, on the comprehensive ranking list of the Orange Light game platform, "The Girls' Dormitory is a Battlefield" (hereinafter referred to as "The Girls' Dormitory"), a game that was completed as early as 2018, once again topped the list.

Screenshot of the comprehensive ranking list of the Orange Light platform

As an old game that has been silent for a long time, the re-popularity of "The Girls' Dormitory" actually stems from a game live commentary published in 2022.

In December 2024, the game live of "The Girls' Dormitory" by Bilibili UP master Tao Hehei became extremely popular two years after its release. Although two years have passed since the live was released, both Tao Hehei's commentary and the content of the game itself are still "very in line with the mental state of everyone at present". A series of interesting remarks by Tao Hehei in the game live video have become popular topics for interaction among users on various platforms such as Douyin, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili.

The popularity of the video has nurtured the game and the platform. After many years of completion, "The Girls' Dormitory" once again surpassed many new rising stars on the recent Orange Light platform to regain the top spot on the comprehensive list, and at the same time, it has brought the Orange Light platform back into the public eye.

As a platform that was early known for its female-oriented interactive text games, it is not the first time that Orange Light has broken the circle in this "outside the game" way.

The Past of "Orange Light Games"

Today's Orange Light was once called the 66RPG Forum, which was established in 2005. It is a game-making enthusiast communication community centered on RPG Maker (a role-playing game production tool). In its early years, it has attracted countless like-minded people to discuss and create together. After many years of forum operation, due to the limitations of the forum format and the need for commercial realization, adhering to the concept of "allowing everyone to make their own games", the stationmaster Liu Xiaoyu began to focus on the simplification of game production and developed a more universal game production tool.

In 2012, the Orange Light platform was officially established, and it provides all users with a tool for making independent text games on the site. With its low threshold and ease of use, it has attracted a certain number of creators to participate.

In 2013, with the emergence of more and more high-quality works such as "Palace Scheme", the influence of the platform has also continued to expand. Due to the low threshold of game creation, some readers of the original works have transformed into new authors. The "snowballing" growth of the number of authors has led to the emergence of a large number of high-quality text interaction works.

Early excellent work "Palace Scheme"

In the early stage of the platform, the main games were beautiful girl games, mainly attracting male players. However, the male player group generally pays more attention to the strong interactivity of the game and the richness of the gameplay. In contrast, the advantages of text AVG games in content expression and emotional rendering are more attractive to female users. The launch of real-person star games has even met the virtual love expectations of a considerable number of female users. In an era when the otome game market has not been fully developed, it has undoubtedly attracted a large number of female players' attention and also made women quickly become the main users of the Orange Light platform. As of 2018, the proportion of female users on the site has reached 85%, and the data in 2025 shows that the proportion of female players on the platform exceeds 60%.

However, the subsequent copyright issues of the real-person area illustrations have led to the removal of a large number of early high-quality works, and the domestic female-oriented game market has been developed. Long-term continuously operating and exquisitely produced otome games have led to the continuous diversion of the original female user group of Orange Light, so that for a long period of time, the platform traffic and the ability to attract players of Orange Light have shown a sluggish trend.

Today's Orange Light, after continuous attempts to optimize and upgrade the production tools and improve the user game experience, has opened up the "highly free track of text games", diversified the choices in the game, refined the plot content branches, and allowed some games to allow players to deeply cultivate the characters, affecting the attributes and abilities of the characters, and then triggering the corresponding plot content. While giving readers more choice opportunities, it has further enhanced the game experience and sense of substitution, and the brand positioning of the "new interactive reading community" has become quite clear.

Multiple hobby sections within the Orange Light platform

From a simple game production tool to a considerable-scale platform, the wisdom of Orange Light lies in the precise control of user needs, always facing the target audience, and steadily advancing in the track of text-based interactive games, thereby developing a stable user group. It is precisely because of this that although the current Orange Light is no longer as glorious as it used to be, it still remains as an existence of "ancient youth" and "white moonlight", maintaining an unshakable position in the minds of some female-oriented game players.

The "Breaking the Circle" of Orange Light Games

By opening the mall interface of any work in the Orange Light Reader APP, it can be intuitively found that the vast majority of works adopt a one-time purchase mechanism. Players only need to pay a certain number of "flowers" in the mall within the corresponding game to enjoy the full plot. The consumption forms outside the game are relatively limited, mainly including "ranking" for the confession cards of game characters, drawing avatar frames, and related sticker card packs. This kind of consumption is not directly related to the user's game experience itself and belongs to "powered by love" outside the game.

Although the buyout system is quite friendly for low-intensity players, considering that the purchase cost of each work is not high, if there is no large user group as the basis, the revenue brought by this model is obviously very limited. To stimulate the emergence of a large number of high-quality works and drive the continuous increase in the platform's benefits and popularity, it is particularly important to support the authors as the output power through funds and other means.

Out of the need to motivate platform creators and enhance the platform's influence, Orange Light has continuously carried out various creative incentive activities since the establishment of the platform, selected high-quality works, and actively sought cooperation with well-known UP masters. Through forms such as screen recording and commentary, relying on the traffic advantages of platforms such as Bilibili, the popularity of the works is enhanced.

In 2014, the live video of the Orange Light game "Counterattack: Star Shining Road" released by the well-known UP master "Xiaoyao Sanren" has now exceeded 38 million views, greatly promoting the become extremely popular and user growth of Orange Light games; the live of "The Girls' Dormitory is a Battlefield" by "Tao Hehei" on Bilibili has also reached 14.27 million views. High-quality plots combined with interesting commentary have contributed to a win-win situation for the platform, authors, and UP masters.

The live video of "Counterattack: Star Shining Road" has exceeded 38 million views

In addition, the sale of IP copyrights has achieved the fastest realization of the work's revenue. The interactive game format makes the works of the Orange Light platform have a considerable adaptation space, and high-quality game works provide abundant resources for IP conversion.

To date, many works of Orange Light have achieved IP authorization and adaptation. The authorized business scope is relatively wide, involving multiple fields such as TV dramas, audio novels, comics, and independent games. The TV drama adapted from the early excellent work of the platform, "Counterattack: Star Shining Road", has achieved good broadcast results, and the steam game "The Invisible Guardian" adapted from "The Hidden Red Path" has also been loved and recognized by a large number of players, winning several awards with its excellent narrative and interactive experience.

Beyond the "Sense of Substitution", Distinct Protagonist Images Are Still Needed in the Female-oriented Market

After the explosion of "The Girls' Dormitory", the discussion about the work itself has never stopped. Some players who are already used to the vague treatment of the image of the heroine in "otome games" are puzzled by the distinct personality characteristics of the game's protagonist, "Lu Xiaoran". The question of "whether the game has an independent heroine image or supports players to substitute themselves" has caused a certain range of discussions. In response, the author, "October Yaodao", promptly made relevant responses.

"October Yaodao"'s response to the discussion of the work

At present, although otome games are still continuously expanding their circles, many taboos and rules in the player community also make many people hesitate and worry about accidentally entering certain "forbidden zones". The high requirement of "sense of substitution" requires the blurring of the personality of the player-controlled character, which is more likely to lead to the weakening of some character conflict plots. In contrast, text games attach more importance to the diversity of the plot and the richness of choices than the "sense of substitution". Players can "freely substitute" according to their own understanding and choose their favorite perspective to experience the game.

In the comment section of the same work, players' substitution experiences, empathy experiences, and God's perspective game feelings can be seen at the same time, focusing on the game plot itself from different directions, and the atmosphere is harmonious. The free creative environment and discussion atmosphere give authors a broader creative space and also provide the necessary soil for the birth of vivid and distinct characters and extremely spiritual plots.

In the present where otome games are continuously expanding their circles and their voices are getting louder and louder, Orange Light has achieved a balance between "substitution" and "observation" in its own way, proving that the current female-oriented market still needs distinct protagonist images.

Conclusion

With the continuous upgrading of technology, gameplay, and graphics, the era of "PPT games" has become the past and is difficult to gain the favor of players. It seems that in the fast-paced market environment, hardcore technology support, visual impact, and marketing methods are the first elements for the success of a game. Against this background, the re-breakthrough of Orange Light relying on "content" is more worthy of attention - after the rich external packaging of gameplay, the "content orientation" should still not be ignored.

All the images in this article are from the Internet

This article was first published on "36Kr Games".