Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 180 The First Answer Sheet

Early October.

The National Day holiday has just passed.

Under the watchful eyes of countless people, Star Tap quickly submitted its first report.

Honkai Impact 3, developed and operated by miHoYo and exclusively distributed on Android by StarTap, has officially launched.

This 3D action-adventure mobile game had some influence in the anime and manga community before its release, but it didn't cause much of a stir.

However, the market reaction after the game's release exceeded everyone's expectations.

The game's built-in traffic, combined with the splash screen push from Star Tap, and the limited-edition interactive wallpapers from Star Wallpapers, all contributed to the success.

Although this "interactive wallpaper" is essentially just a separate recording and release of the animation of the main interface of "Honkai Impact 3" and the interaction between the Valkyries.

However, the effect was still quite good.

In addition, the event of giving away Star Tap coupons with no minimum spend for downloading the app added to the appeal of multiple parties working together.

This quickly brought the first wave of traffic to Honkai Impact 3.

Before its final release, this version of Honkai Impact 3rd did not change any of the pay-to-win gameplay, but due to the influence of Final Frontline and the overall environment, some adjustments were made to its launch benefits.

A new selection pool has been added, and more early-game draws have been given out.

That's it.

However, the depth of a game's monetization system actually affects its long-term operation. Significant player churn will only occur once most players realize the depth of the game's monetization system.

In the short period after the server launch, this loss is not obvious.

Just like judging a girl by her face, when it comes to boosting sales at the start of a new server, first impressions are crucial.

If we only consider the visuals of Honkai Impact 3rd, it was quite impressive in 16.

The elevator animation is incredibly immersive, and the Valkyrie is interactive, with her breasts jiggling – players can even touch her and interact with her!
Kiana and Mei, these vividly designed characters, further enhance the enjoyment of this interaction.

In addition, the rendering technology for 3D anime games, which was absolutely top-tier at that time, brought a completely different experience to anime fans.

This series of "BUFFs" allowed the previous version of "Honkai Impact 3" to achieve a revenue of 1.6 million RMB in its first month, relying solely on Bilibili and its promotion within the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) community, without any additional channel support and with fewer than a million pre-registrations.

And on this world line.

Although Honkai Impact 3rd still lacks promotion, with Star Tap as a traffic portal, the traffic it receives is indeed far greater than that of its predecessor.

This traffic is not just the traffic of Honkai Impact 3 itself.

There's also the Star Tap mini-game, "Final Battlefront," which has increased the overall player base for anime-style games.

When Honkai Impact 3rd was being announced, many players of Final Frontline were discussing trying it out.

This point was actually discussed in depth within StarCraft.

Many people in the Starry Sky operations department are worried that the large-scale promotion of Honkai Impact 3 under the Starry Sky system may affect the revenue of Final Frontline.

Chu Chen's answer at the time was very affirmative.

"will not"

The reason for this answer is simple: games, especially anime-style games, don't really have a strong "repulsion" factor unless they are exactly the same as other games. Moreover, given the aggressive monetization tactics of Honkai Impact 3, most players of Final Frontline would probably shake their heads in disbelief.

The current rush in is simply because people want to "try it out."

Even if some players do survive, Chu Chen is not worried.

Because the entire ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) market is currently a huge growth market, what Chu Chen needs to do is not to "keep it to himself," but to use "Honkai Impact 3" and "Onmyoji" to make Star Tap famous.

To allow more people to access anime and manga games.

Wait until they start playing anime/manga games.

When they feel "tired" or "too pay-to-win" after playing games like Honkai Impact 3rd and Onmyoji, someone will naturally tell them that there are "fun, non-pay-to-win secondary games" in this world.

"What! You don't play Final Battlefront?!"

Just like top online novel authors, they are never worried that someone will write a better book than them; they only care about whether their platform can attract more people who don't usually read novels to read them.
This is exactly what Chu Chen needs.

Therefore, he is really "very concerned" about promoting Honkai Impact 3 at this time, not only for the Japanese server of Honkai Impact 3 distributed by Starry Sky Games, but also for the Chinese server.

He even recorded an episode where he and Dawei tried out Honkai Impact 3. Judging from the results, this series of promotional activities was quite successful.

Its own good quality, plus the additional promotion from StarTap.

On the fifth day after the game's launch, miHoYo released a celebratory poster announcing that its global revenue had exceeded 50 million.

As soon as the news came out, public opinion was in an uproar.

"Are you crazy? A 2D mobile game, only five days old, and already 60 million views!? This data isn't fake?"

"Is StarTap's promotional power really that exaggerated!?"

If you compare it to the previous life, you'll understand that while Star Tap did have an effect, it wasn't as significant as you might imagine. In the previous life, Honkai Impact 3rd's revenue in its first week was around 30 million RMB.

However, this time Star Tap has added a Japanese server and a PC emulator.

The former is because half of the Japanese players use Apple products, so the experience is relatively better. The latter provides another channel for many domestic players whose mobile phones are not as powerful but who still want to play.

So the figure of 60 million is an improvement, but the improvement is not that exaggerated. In fact, if we consider that Star Tap has done almost twice as much to drive traffic to Honkai Impact 3 in terms of promotion, it is even more significant than in the previous game.

This figure is actually lower.
The lower-tier part, besides optimization, is the reputation of pay-to-win.
However, in any case, Honkai Impact 3rd can be considered a successful start.

This achievement sent the entire miHoYo company into a frenzy of excitement. Before the game's launch, they were actually quite uncertain about its future, and were even prepared for the possibility that the first month's revenue would fall short of expectations, requiring them to sell assets to continue investing in research and development.

Now, all worries have vanished.

In interviews, David repeatedly expressed his gratitude for the significant help he received from StarTap.

His gratitude was not just a polite remark. At this point in time, from a third-person perspective, almost everyone who sees this stream of data would unconsciously attribute a large portion of the credit to Startap.

The reason is very simple.

If your child gets into Tsinghua University, can you say it wasn't because of the help of "teachers"?
Not to mention that this "teacher" had a huge amount of publicity before the exam, and the daily server revenue alone exceeded 1500 million in seven days, not to mention others.

Even miHoYo themselves were shocked by the terrifying marketing power of StarTap and the incredible marketing influence of StarGames in Japan.
Not to mention the media's frenzy.

(End of this chapter)