Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 222 Stanning?

Imcheon International Airport, South Korea.

The huge glass curtain wall filters the afternoon sunlight into a soft and bright light. Inside the terminal, people come and go, and announcements in various languages ​​intertwine, creating a sense of busyness and order in a modern city.

Chu Chen pushed a simple suitcase and followed the flow of people out of the arrival passage. He was dressed in simple casual clothes, just like the other travelers around him who were hurrying by.

Just as he turned a corner, a commotion at the exit ahead caught his attention. A group of young girls had gathered near the arrivals exit, holding up various support signs and banners.

"There are indeed a lot of fans of celebrities in South Korea."

Chu Chen muttered to himself, glancing at the scene again as he walked. In a way, this could be considered a form of material collection.

It has to be admitted that South Korea's idol culture truly lives up to its reputation. At first glance, it seems quite chaotic, but upon closer inspection, you'll find that this group even has a division of labor!
Some people held up posters, some held up light boards, and some took photos.

Impressive, impressive.
However, as Chu Chen drew closer, he suddenly sensed something was amiss. He couldn't quite understand the Korean writing on the support signs, but some signs used Chinese characters.
Hmm? This celebrity's name seems familiar.

Doesn't this guy have the same name as me?

Chu Chen was stunned for a moment, thinking to himself that it was quite a coincidence that there was a celebrity in South Korea with the same name as him.

Further ahead, he could finally make out the poster in the crowd. It was a photo that Chu Chen himself didn't know when it was taken; it was a picture of him wearing a suit and grinning foolishly.
The photo was printed out and made into a sign.

Chu Chen was stunned for several seconds.

"Holy crap? Huh?"

Chu Chen felt like his brain was going blank.

What's going on? I work in the gaming industry, how come I have fans waiting for me at the airport in Korea?

"Mr. Chen."

Just as Chu Chen was feeling a bit confused, several middle-aged men in suits appeared next to him, led by a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses.

The person in charge was Park Tae-jung, the head of the South Korean branch.

Before joining StarCraft, Park Tae-jung was an operations manager at NCsoft, a long-established South Korean game company. Chu Chen chose him as the head of StarCraft Korea because he could "pay his dues".

That's right, this operations manager's skill lies in being able to "give away money," and even "give away less money," "get more done," and "get more done."

Don't underestimate this point; the smaller the country, the more closed off it tends to be.

The South Korean market is actually quite exclusive. Unlike Japan, where the size of the market is such that as long as you pay taxes and follow the rules a bit, there are basically no problems.

South Korea is a bit more complicated.

Park Tae-jung was able to pass the interview because he did have some connections.

Following Chu Chen's gaze, Park Tae-jung glanced at the group of girls "chasing stars" and explained with a smile, "President Chen, I told you on the phone before that we did some image management for you in Korea. You are very popular in Korea."

When talking about this, Park Tae-jung sounded quite proud.

In any company, newly hired executives always try to showcase their strengths and make a good impression on their boss, especially in East Asia.
As a South Korean, it's no exaggeration to say that Park Tae-jung was able to become a high-ranking executive at NC before joining Starry Sky by working his way up from the bottom.

Moreover, his experience leaving NCsoft was not "pleasant". After joining StarCraft, as the head of StarCraft Korea, he naturally had the idea of ​​slapping his former employer in the face.

Having a positive attitude is certainly not a bad thing.

Compared to the heads of other regions at StarCraft, Park Tae-jung, despite years of experience in the gaming industry, knew very little about game development. Therefore, his enthusiasm was channeled somewhat "subtly"; shortly after joining the company, Park Tae-jung found a "track" that truly belonged to him.

This track is for "packaging bosses".

Looking at the entertainment industries of the three East Asian countries, they each have their own strengths in terms of scale.

But when it comes to industry concentration and maturity, and how to package a 'person', there is no doubt that South Korea is top-notch, where everything can be turned into entertainment.

Therefore, after Park Tae-jung entered the Star Game.

In addition to promoting the game, Starry Sky Korea's operations department also used some resources to brand and promote Chu Chen as an IP.

This is a "celebrity producer" promotion method.

It actually exists in China and Japan as well.

Even Chu Chen himself is making attempts in this area. Excluding the official Starry Sky account, he has several million followers on his personal accounts on Twitter in Japan and Weibo in China.
His popularity mainly stems from his videos.

For example, there's "Starry Sky Hot Comments," which has already aired over ten episodes, and its continued appearances in spin-off programs of "Final Battlefront."
Although the viewership of these programs varies depending on how interesting each episode is.

Overall, the viewership is quite good, especially the "Don't Do Challenges" version of Final Front. Now, many viewers who don't play Final Front watch every episode.
Besides the programs themselves.

Because Chu Chen not only talks about the shows, but also about games on these shows, there are a lot of video bloggers whose daily work is to cut out the games or interesting things Chu Chen talks about on the show and put them on video websites.

This is what is commonly known as "slicing".

These types of videos, due to their higher information density, are popular not only in China but also on Twitter.

After all, it's simpler and faster to create subtitles for short videos.

Some classic slices even break through existing circles and achieve cross-cultural transformation.

For example, Chu Chen went to Japan in January of this year.

Incidentally, he also participated in that episode of the FGO spin-off program. In that episode, Chu Chen seriously discussed how Rin Tohsaka's black stockings helped the popularity of FATE.

And what comes off from this topic.

The new FGO character, Archer Rin, was initially designed to wear white stockings. After much debate with the FGO development team, the current Archer Rin character was created with half bare feet and half black stockings.

"However, I heard they're planning to add a feature to Yumi Rin's skin that allows for changing stockings."

If they were truly employees of Starry Sky, they would know immediately from this topic that Chu Chen was telling a "story".

Because within the stars, Chu Chen held great respect for artistic creation.

Unless it's something blatantly personal or involves some high-level aesthetic, Chu Chen basically only does the final review of the art.

In other words, just take a quick look before it goes live.

The truth of this story is that when Chu Chen was wandering around the studio in Japan, he saw the artist drawing the character illustration for Yumi Rin and they chatted for a bit.

And this segment did indeed have an effect; its total online viewership at one point surpassed that of the program itself.
Even in Japan, the inexplicable hashtag "Rin Yumi wears black stockings" made it into the top ten on Twitter.
In China, many players also enjoyed watching.

(End of this chapter)