As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 148 Game Plan (Subscribe!)
Since Sekiro started to become popular, the Souls-related games have naturally had no shortage of manufacturers in China trying to follow suit.

It’s just that the game manufacturer that claims to be a Chinese-style Cthulhu Souls-like ARPG has really left both players who like and dislike Souls-related games speechless.

The UI of Sekiro, the combat mode of Bloodborne, the stiff movements, and the excessive stitching marks make it clear that the target audience of this type of game is soul-related game enthusiasts.

This film borrowed from Hidetaka Miyazaki, which offended its target audience and its reputation is extremely bad.

The judges from Tencent asked a very fatal question. If you use the same historical background and the same genre, it is easy to trigger associations in players.

Tencent’s reputation was not that good to begin with, but it has become nationally famous.

The judge on the stage continued: "And the target audience of the game you designed is obviously console players, but Tencent's attempts in console games in recent years have well proved one point: the overlap between our target audience and the console player group is very low."

As the only domestic agent of Nintendo NS, Tencent thought that the NS would be a big hit after its release. However, it took more than a year for the sales volume to barely exceed one million.

If we change to another agent, we might be able to sell a little more than Tencent.

"The more important point is that it cannot pass the review. Failure to pass the review means that it can only be sold on overseas platforms, which will create a certain purchasing barrier for domestic players."

Chen Ran was already prepared for the other party's questions: "I think the bad reputation of Cthulhu Souls ARPGs with a Ming Dynasty background made by other manufacturers is a good thing."

"Domestic players are actually very tolerant of domestic console games. The previous game, which was not very good, could still attract a lot of attention and discussion based on this point."

"Our product only needs to be good enough to form a sharp contrast with that game in terms of game quality, which will stimulate the interest of players."

"China doesn't lack gamers, it lacks good games."

“The most important thing is the quality of the game.”

"The target audience of Tencent does not match the console players, and the quality of our games cannot meet the expectations of players."

"In my opinion, Tencent is the undisputed number one game manufacturer in China, and players have high expectations of Tencent, but the games we make obviously cannot meet such expectations."

“Once the console games we make can reach or even just get close to their expectations, it will definitely arouse the interest of players.”

“As for the version number, it can be sold on Steam and players can download it on Steam.”

As for the competitive relationship between WeGame and Steam, both have to give in to the brain-computer connection system.

Tencent had high hopes for WeGame and provided a lot of resources to support it, but the results were not very good.

Because games need to obtain a game license to be released on WeGame, there are very few games that can be logged in to WeGame. The domestic game ecosystem has prevented WeGame from taking off.

The ecosystem of the system is much more important than WeGame. For the VR system, Tencent can take the initiative to find Steam to cooperate and move Steam to brain-computer VR.

Steam is essentially just a game downloader and launcher, so it is very easy to develop a VR version.

For example, a very popular type of VR game is horror games. It is impossible for such games to pass review in China, so they can only go through Steam to bypass regulation.

The judges disagreed with Chen Ran's answer: "How do you ensure that the quality of your game can satisfy the players?"

"How can you be so confident? You have to know that brain-computer connection and VR are completely different ecosystems."

“No one knows which type of game will be most popular among players before the specific product comes out.”

“Even for mature console games or mobile games, no one dares to say that their games will be recognized by players and become hits before they have been tested in the market.”

“I’m curious where your confidence comes from?”

Tencent has always been like this. They don’t care if they are scolded or ridiculed by players, because the players who ridicule them are not the same group of people as their target customers.

Being criticized is fine as long as it doesn’t affect their ability to make money.

In recent years, the mobile games produced by Zhuchang have at least made some new ideas.

As for Tencent, the mobile game League of Legends receives the most internal traffic.

The judges' comments perfectly fit in with Tencent's tradition: we only need to repeat successful experiences that have been tested in the market.

With massive traffic in hand, copying other people's successful experiences is enough to make a fortune.

Chen Ran has been working at Tencent for so many years, so he naturally knows how to achieve low risk and high returns. His original idea was no different from that of the judge.

However, any producer who truly loves games will eventually feel unwilling to give up and hope to do something different.

Chen Ran was moved by Chen Chi because of his love for the game and his remaining passion.

After organizing his words, he slowly said: "We can't be sure which game will be popular. We can only say that every producer is always confident in his own work."

"For example, before Onmyoji was launched, no one in the company was optimistic about it. At that time, there were no Japanese-style monster card collection games. But it became a big hit that year."

"No one can guess which game will be successful before it is officially launched, and judging from experience may not be correct. I just think we need to do something different." "Just now you also said that brain-computer connection VR is a brand new ecosystem. There is no successful experience for us to learn from in a brand new ecosystem, so we need something new to reconstruct the image of Tencent in the minds of players."

The judges present were generally not optimistic about Chen Ran's team's proposal, mainly because there was no successful experience of this type of game in China.

Even the world-renowned games like Sekiro and Elden Ring have a long history of evolution and have also experienced failures.

Tencent's game team had no experience, or rather no production experience, and the judges did not believe that they could grasp this subject matter.

Just like if an author who has been writing science fiction suddenly wants to switch to the fantasy section, the editor will also advise you to consider it seriously.

And when Chen Ran finally talked about it, he just had confidence, enthusiasm, and a careful plan.

Of course, Chen Ran answered some questions about game design very well, and it was obvious that he had prepared carefully.

(I don’t know much about game design myself, so I won’t go into details)

Ren Yu concluded: "Very good, very thoughtful."

"The judges' questions made sense, and Chen Ran's answers were also very good."

"The most important aspect of your Souls-like games is the combat system, but there isn't much of it in your demo."

"I think we can give you some more time. Once you have made a demo of the first battle scene, we will decide whether to increase our investment."

"Mr. Li, what do you think?"

Li Miaomiao is so young but she is already the vice president of Ke Chuang Biotechnology. With her outstanding appearance, she has been hyped by the media several times.

She is quite well-known, and almost all Tencent employees sitting in the audience know her. Even if they don't remember her appearance, they can still remember her by looking at the name on the nameplate.

Li Miaomiao felt that the painting style of this work was very close to Zheng Li's requirements, and it would not be abrupt to add some weird plants to the Chinese Cthulhu style.

She said directly: "I think it's great. Domestic games need this kind of fresh blood and the spirit of daring to innovate."

"After watching it, I really want to try it out. If you make a beta version, I can help you test it for free."

As for Souls-like games, Li Miaomiao had only seen clips of others playing them on Weibo, those videos that were only a few dozen seconds long, and she had never played them herself.

Firstly, she didn't have time to play, and secondly, she thought she was too clumsy to play such a difficult game.

"Mr. Ren, today, whether it is the brain-computer connection VR system or your company's internal program selection, it has opened my eyes. Tencent is indeed a domestic Internet giant with a wealth of talents."

There were about fifty proposals, and each was given a maximum of ten minutes to present.

At the end of the day, Li Miaomiao visited the development progress of the brain-computer VR operating system and experienced the demo version of the system.

In order to facilitate the transfer of manpower, the developers of the VR system were assigned to Ke Chuang Future, but their work location was arranged in the Tencent Building in Pengcheng.

Dami has transferred hundreds of people here, senior developers of the MIUI system.

Tencent was able to create Tencent Cloud, so it does have the technical strength.

As a core component of Tencent's future strategy, Tencent has reached a consensus that the VR operating system can be said to be one of the tickets to the future metaverse.

With the advancement of technology, Kechuang Biotechnology has taken brain-computer connection a step further, allowing electrical signals to be converted into brain nerve signals. For example, it is very possible that brain-computer connection VR can make people feel pain.

With such a high level of attention, the brain-computer connection system performed very well, at least in the eyes of Li Miaomiao, an outsider, it met her expectations.

Ren Yu said modestly: "The brain-computer connection system still has many shortcomings, whether it is interface calling, image optimization, or compatibility with hardware, there is still a lot of work to be done."

"We have allocated as many people as possible to work on this project without affecting the normal business operations of the company."

“It will definitely not affect the release of brain-computer connected VR this fall.”

“Whether it is our headquarters or our partners, we will definitely provide a batch of high-quality VR games to enrich the ecosystem.”

Since the launch of the first generation iPod was held in the fall, Apple has maintained the habit of launching new iPhones in the fall.

Since then, many electronic product launches, especially mobile phone launches, have tended to be held in the fall.

Kechuang Future chose to release it in autumn, which has both the meaning of paying tribute and opening a new era.

In the view of Ke Chuang Future, brain-computer connected VR is the new generation product that is closest to the concept of the metaverse and has the potential to become a groundbreaking product.

Li Miaomiao: "I believe in Tencent's progress, and today's game plan also left a deep impression on me."

"Especially the Chinese Cthulhu Souls game, I think we need to have our own masterpiece. If Tencent has any doubts about this plan, Kechuang Bio is willing to invest with Tencent."

(End of this chapter)