In the Folk Custom Season without excessive grinding or heavy spending on in - game purchases, The Chinese Paladin: Mobile is still making efforts.

Nearly two years after its launch, the mobile game "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" continues to bring surprises.

On April 25th, the "Chinese Folk Culture Season" version of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game was officially launched. As the name suggests, the new version incorporates a large number of Chinese folk culture elements, organically integrating traditional cultures such as Yue Opera, shadow puppetry, and nuo masks with the game's plot and dungeons, bringing players an immersive intangible cultural heritage experience.

In addition, the new version further upgrades the game's visual performance. Many players have given positive reviews on social media platforms such as Douyin for the game's new content and improved graphics quality.

Image source: Social platform

While continuously enhancing the content, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game continues its consistent and restrained commercialization path - free and low - cost 6 - yuan clothing remains the mainstream, stimulating players' payment enthusiasm with high cost - effectiveness. On the day of the new version update, the game quickly climbed to the 8th place on the iOS game best - selling list. Considering that this version is close to the end of the season and annual cycle, this result is quite remarkable.

More than a year ago, with its leading product strength among its peers and a business model of "not selling numerical advantages, small - amount payment", "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game refreshed the historical records of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role - Playing Game, hereinafter referred to as MMO) mobile games in terms of word - of - mouth, new user acquisition, and revenue upon its launch. After nearly two years of continuous operation, this game still maintains strong vitality, bringing continuous surprises to players while achieving considerable commercial returns.

Behind this long - lasting success, the secret seems to have become an important reference answer for the future development of the game industry.

Integrating traditional culture, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game is still making efforts

As a large - DAU Chinese - style game product, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game is an excellent platform to showcase Chinese traditional culture through digital means.

In this "Chinese Folk Culture Season", the game deeply integrates intangible cultural heritages such as Yue Opera, shadow puppetry, and nuo masks with the version content. Players can not only experience the ancient legends told by the Northern Song Dynasty Minnan shadow puppetry through the new main storyline but also participate in a stage - style battle as the characters from "Butterfly Lovers" in the opera - themed dungeon "Three Acts of the Butterfly Dream". This dungeon is co - written by Yu Qingfeng and Qu Zhaojie, winners of the Cao Yu Drama Award. Combining opera singing and lighting effects, it allows players to "immerse themselves" in the charm of intangible cultural heritage art.

Image source: "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game

The new map "Maple Grove Lodge" creates an ultimate oriental aesthetic scene: the combination of a red maple forest and an ancient post - station, supplemented by dynamic weather and day - night lighting, along with the performance of "Butterfly Lovers" in Yue Opera on the stage, constructs an immersive experience of "visual, auditory, and interactive" triple senses. Players can even freely switch the camera perspective through the "Theater and Shadow Mode" to observe the details of the Su embroidery on the opera costumes up close - these costumes are designed by Yao Huifen, an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, and the embroidery stitches are accurately restored through graphic technology.

In addition to traditional culture, the version also collaborates with the excellent domestic folk - themed game "Paper Bride", launching a puzzle - solving gameplay "Soul Journey between Yin and Yang" and limited - edition appearances. Linked by "Chinese folk customs", the game skillfully combines the martial - arts world narrative of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" with the suspenseful style of "Paper Bride", attracting a large number of non - MMO players to join. The addition of the "Cyber Fortune - Telling" function in the game simulates the divination in the "Book of Changes" through AI technology, allowing players to feel the cultural charm of Eastern metaphysics in the interaction.

Image source: "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game

Although the version content is rich, the core rewards still follow the "free + low - cost" model: players can get the Buddhist - themed mount "Capybara" by signing in, and the opera - themed fashion "Promise at the Pavilion" after listening to 5 opera performances. The battle pass and dungeon rewards offer optional rare internal skills and abilities. This "welfare - driven" strategy successfully stimulates players' payment enthusiasm, pushing the game back to a high position on the iOS best - selling list.

Image source: "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game

In addition, the popularity of topics related to the game has also rapidly increased on social media platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu. In players' reviews, words like "conscientious" and "cultural pride" have become high - frequency terms, once again confirming the superiority of the combination of "low payment pressure + high emotional value".

Looking back at the performance of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game since its launch, it is not difficult to see that the game has been consistent in aspects such as "no excessive grinding or heavy spending" and "integrating traditional culture". Such concepts have promoted the game to continuously break through circles, maintain continuous vitality during long - term operation, raise the ceiling of the category, and bring new vitality to the martial - arts MMO track.

Revolutionizing the long - term operation and business model of the category to meet the needs of the new generation of players

MMORPG is a very important pillar category in the Chinese game industry. It has a solid player base and many long - term stable leading products.

According to the research data of the Game Work Committee of the China Audio - Video and Digital Publishing Association (GPC), as early as the first half of 2013, the revenue of domestic MMORPG games exceeded 14.2 billion yuan, accounting for more than 60% of the total revenue of client - based online games. At that time, client - based games were still the main revenue source of the domestic game industry, accounting for 64.5% of the total, while mobile games only accounted for 13.5%. It can be said that in the early days, the MMO category occupied half of the domestic game industry's revenue.

However, traditional MMOs face some constraints: the path dependence on "high ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) + strong social binding" is one of the most prominent problems in this category. In the new era, this model has led to a lot of young players' resistance to "payment - based dominance" and the "working - like feeling" of daily tasks, resulting in the increasing solidification of the MMO user circle. Relevant data shows that the global market scale of MMO mobile games reached its peak in 2019 and has been on a downward trend ever since.

Players of different generations have different user needs. With the changes of the times, MMOs also need to evolve. Nowadays, the younger generation of players has more choices. They are not willing to bear too much pressure in games, and their payments are more for self - pleasure and self - expression rather than social dominance.

Based on these changes, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game has revolutionized its long - term operation and payment model: it has shifted the core payment points of the game from numerical advantages to appearances. Through small - amount payment designs such as 6 - yuan fashion, battle passes, and appearance lotteries, the business model has been transformed into "large DAU + low ARPU". This model not only lowers the entry threshold but also shifts the payment motivation from "combat power competition" to "aesthetic expression", which fits the trend of "self - pleasure consumption" of Generation Z.

To meet the more diversified needs of young players and reduce the "working - like feeling", "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game has innovatively launched the "Same Destination via Different Routes" system, allowing players with different gameplay preferences to get similar rewards after playing different content.

The corresponding innovation is not easy. The producer of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game once said: "The 'Same Destination via Different Routes' system is difficult because it involves many issues, such as the efficiency, difficulty, and balance of obtaining the same resources... Before the launch of 'The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve' mobile game, no game had done it this way."

With the close combination of game design, game content, and commercial model innovation, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game has performed excellently since its launch. It recovered its 1 - billion - yuan cost in just one month, with a user scale exceeding 40 million, breaking many records within NetEase and in the MMO mobile game category. According to external estimates, the game's revenue in the first year reached 20 - 30 billion yuan.

The superiority of the new model is also reflected in the game's retention data and user profile. The producer once said that the DAU of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game continued to increase many days after its launch, while that of traditional MMOs usually starts to decline on the second or third day. In terms of user composition, the game has attracted different types of players, with more than 70% of the players having never played an MMO before. Therefore, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game is called "the first MMO for young people" by many players.

The strategic value of large - DAU MMOs

"The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game has shifted its payment model from "small DAU, high ARPU" to "large DAU, low ARPU", catering to the changing needs of players in the new era, expanding the user base of the category, further raising the ceiling of the track, and a more benign long - term operation model also provides a guarantee for the long - term vitality of the product.

At NetEase's earnings conference call, Hu Zhipeng, the executive vice - president of NetEase Group, once highly praised the design of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game, saying that NetEase is committed to creating a new type of game payment model. "According to our statistics, one - third of the players of 'The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve' mobile game had never played NetEase games before. These users mainly come from other large - scale games in the market." This also proves from the side that "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" is also a very user - friendly game for many general users.

While expanding the user group, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game continues and even magnifies the unique social advantages of MMO games - compared with other categories, the social attribute of MMOs naturally meets very important user needs; in terms of production capacity, the emergence of social interaction also greatly reduces the content production pressure for long - term operation.

For an industry - leading company like NetEase, the precipitation of user social relationships also has important strategic significance, which many other types of games and manufacturers envy. Against this background, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game, as an MMO with large - DAU attributes, is even more valuable.

The unique social ecosystem and corresponding product functions endow "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game with the huge imagination space of a "game - version Douyin". Observing the game's social ecosystem, it is not difficult to find that the social interaction of players in "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game is not limited to the game but also forms a huge amount of social dissemination outside the game.

Image source: Social platform

On the Douyin platform, the video views under the topic related to "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" have exceeded 160 billion. It can be said that watching, sharing, and even creating short - video content related to the game have become the daily routine of most players of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game.

Based on the strong social stickiness inside and outside the game, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game recently launched the "Drama Crew Station" function, allowing players to experience the joy of watching and creating short - videos within the game without switching apps.

Image source: "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game

The "Drama Crew Station" supports the integrated creation of game characters and real - world videos - players can upload any single - person video and replace the person in the picture with a game character, making the virtual characters in the martial - arts world teleport to the real - world background.

These functions continuously stimulate players' enthusiasm for secondary creation. This ecosystem of "in - game social interaction + cross - platform dissemination" makes it a "martial - arts version of Douyin", continuously attracting general users to join and helping the game continuously consolidate and even expand its user base.

During the long - term operation process, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game also plays the role of a "new - technology test field". The project team continuously improves its technical strength through self - imposed technological competition, expanding its competitive advantages.

In terms of game quality, "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game continuously improves the scene performance and optimizes the character models. Currently, the PC desktop version has increased the startup speed by 70% through intelligent loading technology and supports 4K resolution and realistic lighting rendering; in terms of AI application, as a pioneer in the implementation of NetEase's AI technology, the game has connected to 6 major domestic AI models such as DeepSeek, Tongyi, and Wenxin, constructing an intelligent NPC girl group. These technological breakthroughs not only improve the user experience of "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game itself but also can feed back other NetEase products.

While most manufacturers are still anxious about "how to extend the life cycle of MMOs", "The Sleuth of the Red Sleeve" mobile game has proven a sustainable path with the triple engines of "cultural in - depth exploration + technological competition + social fission": by reducing the payment pressure to expand the user base, maintaining the quality benchmark through technological upgrading, and then forming a dissemination moat with the social and