01

Lock "open beta for 10 days, iOS revenue of 103 million yuan

Surpassing 'Endgame' and reverse war mobile games, it is the hottest new game in Q1 of this year

Firstly, on January 22nd, the global public beta of "Arknights: Endfield" under Eagle's Edge reached 35 million pre orders before its release.

On the iOS side of the Chinese server, the first day's revenue was about 10.24 million yuan, and on the 5th day, the data began to slowly decline. The first month's revenue was 104 million yuan, and the recent month's revenue was 57.4 million yuan. Currently, the total revenue is nearly 190 million yuan, and the daily revenue is around 650000 yuan (on the international server, the first day's revenue was 17.5 million yuan, and the data only showed a significant downward trend after the first week. The first month's revenue was 310 million yuan, the current daily revenue is around 5 million yuan, and the recent month's revenue is 150 million yuan, with a cumulative revenue of 540 million yuan. Japan, South Korea, and the United States account for 44.45%, 21.75%, and 12.8% respectively).

The overall medium to long term operation of the game is stable, and the market data of the international and domestic servers are in sync, reversing the dilemma of a single popular product in Yingjiao. It has also accumulated the first successful experience for Yingjiao in key directions such as open world, large-scale 3D, cross platform, and global unified release, which is of great significance.

The next two games are both from Tencent. One is the first person collaborative shooting game "Reverse War: Future" (PC and mobile compatible, only available in the domestic market) brought by Tianmei J3 Studio on January 13th, with over 40 million pre order users.

In terms of iOS data, the first day's revenue was about 6.2 million yuan, but it began to decline on the 5th. The turning point occurred on February 5th when the first official season of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" was launched, and new maps of the hunting ground, "Kunlun Temple" and "Jingjue Ancient City", were launched. On that day, the game topped the iOS game bestseller list for the first time, with a daily revenue of 2.1 million yuan. Since then, it has once again entered a regular oscillation, with a first month revenue of around 135 million yuan. Currently, the daily revenue during the regular period is fluctuating around 500000 yuan (ranking 19th on the bestseller list), and the revenue in the past month has been 35.2 million yuan, with a cumulative revenue of 190 million yuan.

The performance of this game in the public beta for over two months has maintained the basic level of Tencent's DAU products. Even in the early stage, when there was a "bad news" from the outside world, relying on seasonal content to go against the trend, it is highly likely that it will continue to maintain stability in the later stage, with a cyclical fluctuation trend of seasonal version growth. With the support of core players, there is no problem in the long run.

Both "Endgame" and "Counter Strike: Future" were launched at a time when the market had sufficient traffic and limited competition before the Lunar New Year. Although there were also excellent data products such as "Fashion Department Store" and "Dream Guard" in the past two months, their volume was significantly smaller.

It was not until the end of March that Tencent Magic Cube Studio (with three major studios: Magician, Magic Mirror, and Demon King, and well-known products including Naruto, Dark Zone Breakout, Rock Kingdom, Under One, Ace Warriors, etc.) re ignited the enthusiasm of the domestic mobile game market with the public beta of the national IP "Rock Kingdom" sequel "Big World Elf Cultivation Game" and "Rock Kingdom: World" on all platforms (PC/iOS/Android).

So, as the third widely recognized masterpiece of the year, how is the market performance of "Kingdom of Rock: World"? What was the process from the outbreak to the official public beta? How is the gameplay experience? Next, Dian Dian Hai will conduct a detailed analysis.

On March 26th, "Rock Kingdom: World" officially went public in China. Before its launch, the number of pre orders on the entire network exceeded 60 million, surpassing "Endgame" and "Counter Strike: Future" at the same stage. After 13 hours of opening, the number of new users of the game exceeded 15 million, which shows the level of players' expectations.

In terms of ranking performance, this game easily won compared to the two major titles mentioned above. After opening pre downloads three days in advance, on March 23rd, it quickly topped the iOS game free list and has been dominating the list since then until the deadline of publication. On the iOS game bestseller list, it surged to third place on the first day of public testing, peaked the next day, and then slightly declined, but never fell below the TOP5.

In terms of iOS download volume, from the first day of pre download to the sixth day of public beta, the daily download volume was around 230000. Although there was a slight decline since April, the magnitude was minimal. At present, its daily downloads are around 185000, with a cumulative download volume of 2.803 million after 10 days of public testing, higher than the 1.232 million for the Chinese version of "Endgame" and the 2.333 million for "Counter Strike: Future" in the same stage.

In terms of iOS revenue, its daily revenue was about 8.63 million yuan on the first day, increased by about 11 million yuan on the second day, and maintained this value for 6 days. On the eighth day of its launch, its daily revenue slightly decreased to 8.1 million yuan, but it quickly increased afterwards. Currently, its daily revenue fluctuates between 8 million and 11 million yuan.

The game has been in public beta for 10 days, with an estimated cumulative revenue of 103 million yuan, significantly higher than the 73.65 million yuan for the Chinese version of "Endgame" and the 40.4 million yuan for "Counter Strike: Future" during the same period.

Therefore, in terms of data, it is not an exaggeration to say that "Rock Kingdom: World" is the best performing new game in the domestic market since 2026.

02

The Pok é mon Capture and Breeding Battle is the core, and the open world is the skeleton

Supported by IP sentiment, long-term research and development, debugging, and promotion, it was able to secure a spot on the track

Let's take a look at why the performance of this work is so outstanding. Firstly, the most crucial factor is undoubtedly the large number of emotional users and the inherent brand effect.

As is well known, "Kingdom of Rock: World" is the latest generation IP flagship product derived from the 2D turn based web game "Kingdom of Rock". The latter is not only a shared memory of a generation of players, but also of great significance to Cube Studio.

Public information shows that 15 years ago, Rubik's Cube seized the opportunity to combine "pet collection" with "online communities" and created the first "connected elf world" in the market, "Rock Kingdom". Zhang Hanjin, the president of Rubik's Cube Studio Group (who has participated in projects such as "QQ Tang" and "QQ Speed", and led projects such as "QQ Pet" and "Q Pet Big Fight"), was also the first employee of the "Rock Kingdom" project.

In July 2010, "Rock Kingdom" officially went public and received 1 million new additions on its first day. Although the initial retention was not ideal due to economic system issues at that time, after multiple iterations, the game's data began to "skyrocket" after September. In December of the same year, the highest number of online users exceeded one million. Almost at the same time, Tencent management approved the application to establish a Rubik's Cube Studio, and Zhang Hanjin also stated in his sharing that it was because of the success of "Rock" that the Rubik's Cube was completed.

In nearly 15 years of operation, the historical registered users of "Rock Kingdom" have reached 350 million, and movies, animations, books, and various peripherals have also emerged one after another, all of which have laid a solid user foundation for "Rock Kingdom: World".

The second fundamental reason is the lack of competitive benchmarking, high-quality, and player imagined gaming experience.

In the past two years, the theme of pet hunting has been very popular, but even if we ignore the differentiation of categories, there has never been a benchmark product in China. The only Palu SLG that has achieved success overseas, Palmon: Survival, has not achieved very impressive results after its launch in China. Its iOS revenue in the first month was only 5.8 million yuan, and its revenue in the past month has dropped to 2.8 million yuan.

Rock Kingdom: World has chosen a steady and compatible but not perfect path. It neither completely replicates old games nor innovates aggressively, but instead chooses a gameplay combination that is in line with current player trends based on its own characteristics. It not only restores the immersive feeling of the first generation game in 3D, but also makes the elf design lively, simple and cute. The underlying framework is centered around "open world+elf collection and cultivation battles".

For the former, the work achieves seamless maps and ecological logic that meets the needs of different elves. Although rich in exploration and discovery, players are not required to catch up with progress, do tasks, and brush copies. This module is more like strengthening the players' immersion in catching favorites while enriching the lightweight content, which is significantly different from other open world games on the market.

As for the latter, during early testing, the official emphasized that the game never sells sprites, values, or gacha. All sprites are obtained by capturing or completing tasks in the big world, designed according to the direction of the Big DAU.

Players need to weaken wild elves first, and then use the prop "Gollum Ball" to capture them. The personalities and talents of the captured elves are random, which makes cultivating and collecting "top-quality" elves one of the core driving forces. The payment points mainly focus on appearance and decoration, passes, and convenient props (such as the "Leng Cai Qiu" that can be 100% captured, 100% colorful, ensure outstanding talent, and can ignore the obedience level of elves).

The restrained commercialization model can also be seen from the RPD so far, which should be set at 36.76 yuan, lower than the 59.79 yuan in the same period of "Halo", and higher than the 17.31 yuan in "Counter Strike: Future".

The combat system is a classic turn based game, which includes up to 18 attributes with complex restraint networks between them. It also introduces a unified "energy" system, where all skills share energy slots. Strong skills consume more while ordinary skills consume less. In addition, weather and terrain can affect the battle situation. At present, players' overall evaluation of the PVP module tends to be positive, especially in terms of underlying fairness, strategic depth, and lineup diversity.

The third is a long R&D and debugging cycle combined with continuous promotion and community building.

Rock Kingdom: World "was officially launched in 2020, and its first PV was revealed and released in mid May 2021. Since then, there has been little news about the game, but the official operation on major social platforms has not completely stopped during this period. Various player interactions, research and development materials, and co creation content will be updated irregularly to maintain the attention of the core user group in the long run.

In June 2024, the game obtained its license, and in mid to late August of the same year, the game began its first one month technical light test - the "Urgent Duck Test" (deleting files on iOS without payment). At the same time, the official launched live streaming introduction activities on nine platforms, and also invited well-known Japanese animation producer and director of the Doraemon anime, Toshiyuki Honda, to recommend and assist.

In mid to late March 2025, the game will once again undergo a nearly two month second round of testing - the "Wait Duck Test" (limited number billing and file deletion test, supporting iOS, Android, and PC, and account data interoperability). In mid to late October of the same year, the official conducted a nearly one month special test for the new round of changes - the "Peer Test" (three terminal billing deletion test), mainly bringing home and social related gameplay.

It is worth mentioning that in July 2025, the official stated that the game would be open for public testing in Q4. However, at the end of December, the official announced that due to the planning and promotion of peer testing, the project team missed this milestone. After comprehensive coordination, the public testing time was postponed to March 26, 2022, and the official also provided a more favorable opening welfare plan.

The promotion pace is basically consistent with the testing pace, with more player interaction, IP secondary creation forwarding, and a small amount of game materials before the first test;

The promotion pace has accelerated since the beginning of the first test, such as increasingly frequent exposure of game content, official live broadcasts combined with a small number of influencer live broadcasts (popular couple CP "Mangquan Naibao", etc.), participation in and organization of various offline activities (BW 2025, Huawei nova's "Same Game Still Youth" offline theme event, Wuhan offline New Year's Eve event, etc.), expanding creator incentive plans covering major social media platforms across the network, and supporting large-scale KOL promotion.

From the pre launch period of the public beta to the official launch, we will focus on using KOLs, celebrities, and live streamers to increase the discussion level of the game, and use specific operational activities to promote social fission.

On line, during the Yuanxiao (Filled round balls made of glutinous rice-flour for Lantern Festival) Festival, the live broadcast activity was carried out, and comedian Zhang Xingchao was invited to perform the whole activity of "Happy Little Rock". With the support of popular social platforms and KOl, the popularity of "grabbing the best number" was raised. Popular anchors such as Du Haitao, hanghang, the little princess, Good Night Sister, Wawa and so on were invited to cross the border to play on the Tiktok platform, with Shanghai Animation Film QQ、 Meituan Group Buying, Luotianyi, People's Posts and Telecommunications Publishing House and other IP linkage;

Offline, a trial session will be held at the Guangzhou Tower, and an online "Luo" party will be held at the Bund in Shanghai, among other events.

03 Summary

Overall, IP、 The comprehensive collaboration of emotions, gameplay experience, continuous iteration, promotion, and operation has helped "Rock Kingdom: World" become the biggest hit in the first quarter of this year.

In terms of long-term operation, some people compare it with "Mole's Mansion", which also relied on its childhood IP to become popular a few years ago, and believe that there may be challenges to its sustained longevity. The latter went public in June 2021, with an iOS revenue of 212 million yuan in the first month, but dropped to below 5 million yuan in the fourth month, and currently has a monthly revenue of less than 500000 yuan.

However, as analyzed above, unlike 'Mole's Manor' which mainly focuses on reproductions, 'Kingdom of Rock: World' is richer in scale; In terms of gameplay design, it is also more coordinated and long-term, while having a clear differentiation from the traditional open world in the market; In terms of experience, it not only meets the needs of the older generation of sentimental players, but also meets the needs of the new generation of players for high-quality, open world, pet catching, leisure and other elements with the continuous development of the market; As for the operation side, in addition to various regular activities, the official commitment is to provide players with rich game content through seasonal updates every two months and major world updates every six months; In addition, Tencent has accumulated a deep foundation in the field of large DAUs. Once it is allowed to achieve a bottleneck in a specific track, it is not an easy task to slip or be overtaken. Therefore, DianDian Hai believes that this game is highly likely to become Tencent's next evergreen product.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that many top manufacturers have made layouts in the "pet catching+open world" track, such as Man Jiu's "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballad", MiHoYo's "Broken Fate Elf", FunPlus' "Imo", Bilibili's "Sparkle! Lumi", and even in the broader open world track. In the near future, Perfect World's "Alien" and Tianmei's "King of Glory: World" will also be released one after another. Therefore, it is not easy for "Rock Kingdom: World" to stabilize its current card position. In addition to internal repairs, it also needs to deal with the continuous and severe external challenges in the future.