Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 114 Buying Confidence with Money

"Refreshing! So refreshing!"

"Holy crap, look at the video demo!!! During the Noble Phantasm animation, the UI even automatically shrinks and becomes transparent! Wow, this is a truly immersive experience!"

Domestic players, after all, have experienced and seen the good things.

Players in Japan went even crazier. The comments section on Nico Nico Douga, which had just been restored, went wild again, even though the players themselves knew it.

Sending comments at this moment could very likely cause the live stream, which has just resumed, to explode again.

But... this is just too much!! All sorts of ambiguous interjections and praises flooded the entire screen like a tsunami.

"beautiful!!!!"

"This is...FGO? You must be kidding me."

"I hereby declare that Starry Sky Games is the god of the new world!!"

For Japanese gamers, the visual impact was overwhelming.

It's like suddenly replacing a person who's used to watching an old CRT TV with static when the signal is bad with a brand new 8K OLED ultra-high-definition TV, and playing carefully restored high-definition content.

That feeling can't be described by the words "clear".

It was a shock of realizing that "the world can be like this."

"The character model currently being shown is the remastered version..."

Because it was a pre-recorded video, Shiokawa continued his introduction in the video in a methodical manner.

"The battle models of the Servants that have already been implemented have all been remastered in high definition, and more details of their idle and attack animations have been added."

"This is a comparison..."

On the screen, the old version of Saber, which was somewhat stiff and had limited movements, contrasted sharply with the new version of Saber, which was agile and whose skirts were clearly visible as they fluttered.

"My wife is even cuter when she's moving!"

"Starry Sky Games!! Well done! Well done!"

The players' emotions were like a rollercoaster ride, with one wave of frustration followed by another.

"At the same time, we know that the charm of the FATE series is inseparable from its wonderful animation performance."

Shiokawa then changed the subject, showing the PPT behind him that each major update to the main story of FGO would include at least 20 minutes of animated content.

Meanwhile, individual character animations are also in production.

Here, Shiokawa demonstrates an animation of him eating with Jeanne d'Arc alongside his Master.

This is an animation that lasts only a dozen seconds.

In the scene, Jeanne d'Arc tilts her head slightly, a speck of cream on her lips, looking at her "Master" off-screen with a mixture of confusion and satisfaction.

As soon as this roughly ten-second animated demonstration was shown, the comments section exploded with activity.
After all, many Japanese players have experienced what the main story animation of "Final Battlefront" looks like, and they are excited to see that level of presentation appear in FGO.

Just imagining it makes my whole body shudder...
If they also added the highly praised character interaction storylines from "Final Battlefront," then this would truly be a masterpiece.
Many players have noticed that Joan of Arc in this animation is wearing a new outfit. Just watching this animation makes many people feel like their wallets are about to burst.

"Of course, the soul of FGO is still the story."

With adjustments made to the art direction, the copywriting naturally follows suit.

With a simple animation, the words "Nasu Kinoko" appeared on the screen, and the density of Bilibili comments visibly doubled. "Mushroom! Alive!"

"Brother Fungus, save me!"

"The plot is salvageable! It's salvageable!"

Immediately after a greeting, Kinoko Nasu, wearing a strange headgear, appeared in the video and personally announced that the story of FGO would be completely rewritten from the prologue onwards.

"Starting from the prologue, redo everything?!"

The reason why FGO was so badly managed in its previous life was that the FGO managers were inhumane, and DEW, or rather Japanese society, took the concept of "not offending anyone" too seriously.

Even if the reputation is bad, even if the writing is terrible, even if the card art is disappointing, the operations team will still keep those same people writing. That's what "human relationships" mean.

However, because Starry Sky Games is an outsider, it can do this without any restraint, as if to say, "I am a Chinese company, what do your Japanese customs have to do with me?"

This is especially true for Chu Chen.

He wanted to make FGO a game that attracts new players, so naturally all the boring plot at the beginning had to be deleted and rewritten. As for "offending" the scriptwriter?

Chu Chen wasn't worried at all, because he wasn't a "Scrooge" like Shoji.

"To ensure the quality and diversity of the storyline, we allocate 1 million yen to recruit scriptwriters worldwide for each major version, and at the same time recruit players to preview the storylines on multiple servers around the world."

As mentioned before, the core issue with FGO is no longer its framework.

However, this is subject to regulation.

The problem is, art design is relatively easy; you can simply take it back and do it yourself. But copywriting is much more difficult because there's hardly a "standard" for it.

Furthermore, because the early writing of "FGO" was so badly flawed, players have lost confidence.

Therefore, Chu Chen needs to use a very forceful method to restore the players' confidence while also solving the script quality problem.

This violent method.

Just one word.

money!
When Chu Chen proposed a major plot twist involving 1 million yen during internal discussions, almost everyone present was stunned.

Including Nao mushroom.

At this time, no one knew that in 2018, the global revenue of "Fate/Grand Order" would reach an astonishing $24.2 billion! Just how astonishing is this number?

In short, at that time, the annual revenue of "Honor of Kings" in China was only US$19.3 billion.

For an IP that can rival Honor of Kings, Chu Chen felt that investing six million RMB in a major version update, with four major updates a year totaling 400 million yen, was practically free.
Is 40 million a lot for a game with an annual revenue of 17 billion?
It may not be a small amount, but for a story-based game, this money is necessary.

However, this theory is, after all, based on Chu Chen's "values," and when these "values" are applied to the present day, they seem a bit too exaggerated to outsiders.

One hundred million yen is roughly six million yuan, and over one million US dollars.

Of course, Chu Chen has money and is willing to spend it, but he's not stupid, so he carefully reads the rules.

In fact, the 100 million yen prize is divided into two parts: one is the "adoption award," which is a prize of 50 million yen for the script being adopted.

The other 50 million is for participation prizes.

Starry Night Games' writing team uses an invitation system, inviting scriptwriters from around the world to write scripts. Typically, 20 people are invited for each version.

(End of this chapter)