Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 203 You are the challenger

Zhao Ming stared blankly at the stock quotes on his phone.

At this moment.

The stock market hadn't opened yet, but the pre-market auction had already begun, and following Tencent Holdings' stock code was a number that made his pupils shrink.
-
3.2% -
3.2%!
-
3.2%! ! !

For a company the size of Tencent, stock price fluctuations are normal, as many things can affect stock prices. However, such a drop during the pre-market auction is quite unusual.

It could even be described as somewhat rare.

The last time Tencent experienced such a significant drop was in early 16, when the circuit breaker mechanism for China's A-shares was triggered on its first day, causing a sharp drop in liquidity in the Hong Kong stock market, which led to Tencent's pre-market decline of 4%.
But that was when the entire market fell!

The most recent drop occurred during the surge of Xingchen Tap in July.

But the drop at that time was less than 2%, and it quickly recovered with the WEGAME plan.

What's with this -3.2% drop? And let me repeat, this is just pre-market trading!! The market hasn't even opened yet!!
"Why did it drop so much? Didn't our WEGAME release a poster yesterday, which boosted the stock price?"

Zhao Ming's voice suddenly rose in pitch.

The other key members of the production team looked at each other, thinking to themselves, "We're not investors, how would we know why it's fallen so much?"

And is it possible that the stock price dropped so much today because you were talking nonsense and bragging yesterday, saying that the stock had 100 million users on the first day and that's why it fell so much?
But this analysis obviously cannot be shared with Zhao Ming.

Then we can only analyze it from a broader perspective.

"This drop isn't just due to the panic caused by FGO breaking 100 million sales yesterday, but also to Honkai Impact 3rd and Onmyoji."

The decline in Tencent's stock price is not hard to understand.

Before its release, everyone believed that FGO would most likely not surpass Onmyoji, and might even fall short of Honkai Impact 3.

Based on this expectation, and given the long-standing confidence that the capital market has in Tencent,

This was very evident after Tencent Games announced the WEGAME plan, showing that the capital market recognized Tencent's move.

Even though StarTap was very active in July and August.

Even though Honkai Impact 3rd and Onmyoji were both released recently, these things were overshadowed by Tencent's announcement that WEGAME would be officially launched at the end of October.

The stock price fluctuations remain within a controllable range.

Because of the large amount of capital and the market, everyone believes that Tencent's traffic can make WEGAME a success.

To put it more bluntly, even though StarTap has produced two games that generated over 100 million RMB in revenue in their first month, they still prefer Tencent's scale.

Can.
How do you say that?

The belief that you can't break through with one punch is simply because that punch wasn't powerful enough.

This time, StarCraft Games' release of FGO has clearly exceeded everyone's expectations.

The fact that the revenue exceeded 100 million in just 11 hours is truly terrifying, and the fanaticism of Japanese players, which resembles a "religion," is also terrifying.

In the history of China, has there ever been a game that garnered such widespread media coverage from Japan?

Not to mention, the sheer volume of money flowing in and the level of fervor.

It's almost certain that FGO's global monthly revenue will exceed 10 billion RMB, or even more.

With a monthly turnover of 10 billion, the annual turnover would be 120 billion.

If we also include Onmyoji (a popular mobile game) and Honkai Impact 3, then we can add the online game.

In just one month, Xingchen Tap has created a market with an annual revenue of 30 billion!
Three hundred billion!!!
What is this concept???
Tencent's total game revenue in 2015 was only 565.87 billion yuan. Regardless of whether Star Tap's success was due to luck or something else, and regardless of whether the 30 billion yuan target can be achieved, let's not worry about that.

But right now, right now, Xingchen Tap's 30 billion yuan target is a real possibility right in front of us. And simply having high revenue isn't enough.

When the online game "Onmyoji" became a hit, its revenue once surpassed that of "Honor of Kings," but the capital market did not see it as a threat to Tencent.

why?
The prevailing view in the past was that the success of Onmyoji was due to the Hard Alliance channel. But does the Hard Alliance channel have a direct competitive relationship with Tencent?

No, it doesn't.

Furthermore, the Hardcore Alliance's channels have a very clear upper limit. In other words, the Hardcore Alliance's channel capabilities are what they are now, and they will remain the same a few years from now.

Capital won't even glance at a company that's "unambitious".

However, Star Tap's three-pronged approach is completely different.

On the surface, Chu Chen's butterfly effect didn't seem to have much of an impact; all three games still achieved great success, although FGO's success might have been even greater than in his previous life.

In reality, however, from the perspective of capital, these are two completely different things.

On one hand, StarTap and Tencent are direct competitors because StarTap is going to launch the StarTap Games Alliance.

StarTap used three games to directly prove a fact that could shake Tencent's foundation: "You can still become a hit without relying on Tencent's traffic."

Once this path is finally defined by StarTap, will any manufacturers still seek Tencent's agency in the future?
Do overseas manufacturers still only seek out Tencent for IP licensing?
When overseas manufacturers enter China, is their first reaction still to seek Tencent's support?
do not know.

Besides these concerns, there is another core issue that caused capital to suddenly lose confidence and begin to doubt whether Tencent could suppress Xingchen.

The upper limit of Star Tap is unknown.

It's been less than a year since StarTap launched!

Less than a year!

This is like someone going to a casino and winning all three hands!
You're saying this is Chu Chen's luck?

Can you really grab all three of October's hottest games at a glance?

If you really want to say that, then you might as well say that Chu Chen has a time machine and traveled back from the future, which is simply impossible.

Therefore, we must eliminate all impossibilities.

There's only one reason why Startap has achieved its current success.

That's Startap. It really built its own channel by relying on a few 4399 mini-games and Startap's own reputation.

Although it's bizarre, that's reality, and capital is even trying to cover for itself.

"Oh, that's normal. We didn't understand why Bilibili could attract young people before either."

"Why does Star Tap have such great power? It's fine if we can't figure it out, but I have a feeling that the other party really has this strength."

Yes, even now, many investors still don't understand why StarTap has such power—the ability to single-handedly create games like Honkai Impact 3, Onmyoji, and finally Fate/Grand Order.

But this does not prevent them from making judgments.
Don't forget that StarTap also used FGO to prove once again a capability that Tencent currently lacks: the ability to promote overseas.

Each of these three points seems to be a matter of life and death for Tencent.

The stock price has only dropped 3%, which is already a significant drop compared to Tencent's past glory, and the overall Chinese gaming market is providing support.
Zhao Ming believed that once his WEAGEM was launched, it could easily crush Startap and achieve success, just like Tencent's other projects.

Even though StarTap did present him with a significant challenge, Tencent's massive user base easily overwhelmed this "challenger."

But now, Xingchen has given him a resounding slap in the face with her actions, saying one thing.

"Take a good look and see who the real challenger is."

(End of this chapter)