Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 256 Avoidance Effect
For Chinese gamers who have been playing for 25 years, while Chinese games may not be top-tier globally, they are certainly not lacking either.

Whether it's the rise of anime-style mobile games or the emergence of single-player games.

All of this prevents Chinese players from feeling frustrated, and with the increasing number of Chinese players and the expansion of the Chinese game market, most games now come with Chinese language support by default.

Conversely, what was the domestic gaming industry like seven or eight years ago, in 17, or even earlier? It's actually hard to say; the top-selling mobile games were all pay-to-win games.

Since 10, the rankings for PC games have remained almost unchanged, consisting of the same few titles: World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Dungeon Fighter Online, and Fantasy Westward Journey.
As for single-player games, selling a few hundred thousand copies is already considered a "big hit".

Under these circumstances, the changes brought about by Starry Night Games in just over a year since its explosive growth in 16 have been revolutionary.

For veteran gamers who have been playing games for over a decade or even two decades, this feeling is particularly complex.

They lived through the era when "translation groups were like fathers."

Back then, when playing a foreign single-player masterpiece, the first thing to do wasn't to go to the official website, but to 3DM or GamerSky to see if there was a "kernel localization patch".

It seems to be a settled conclusion that foreign games are more fun than domestic games.

If a domestically produced game receives feedback from several Western gamers at an EA exhibition, it can already be hailed as a "shining example of Chinese gaming."

If you could win an "Indie Game Award" overseas, that would be even more incredible; you'd want to celebrate it with fanfare and spread the news far and wide.

Whether it's overseas media or award ceremonies, they all seem to have an aura of glamour in China. We won't delve into what lies behind this phenomenon, but this sentiment has always been buried in the hearts of domestic gamers.

Therefore, when the slightly clumsy yet charming four-panel comic drawn by that American player was "exported and then re-imported" into China, it not only ignited the meme of "StarCraft losing money" itself, but also ignited the emotions that had been pent up in the hearts of the players for a long time.

This is no longer simply a matter of "the game is fun" or "the game sells well"; it's a bizarre phenomenon of "cultural inversion."

~~~
The next day, in the capital.

The CEO's office at the headquarters of Paradise Element.

A ray of early spring sunlight pierced through the blinds, casting dappled light and shadow on the rosewood tea tray.

Cheng Le, the founder and owner of Paradise Paradise, was looking at the report in his hand. For Cheng Le, he rarely personally managed such front-line matters anymore.

After all, the amusement park has an annual revenue of over two billion.

Some people earn billions a year, but they're already thinking about the next billion, how to dominate the global gaming industry, and how to lead the Chinese gaming world.

Some people, when their annual revenue reaches billions, are already thinking about what they'll do after achieving financial freedom.

Cheng Le was the latter.

Therefore, although he also handles various company affairs, such as project initiation and planning, he doesn't pay much attention to things outside the company. For example, he might write a report of more than ten pages about the success of a particular game IP.

He really rarely watches movies.

However, as the owner of Paradise Su, he still had to look at it today, and that's what he was thinking.
Boom, boom, boom.

A gentle knock on the office door interrupted his thoughts.

"Please come in."

His secretary, a capable young woman, pushed open the door and walked quickly to the desk.

"Mr. Cheng, the people from Tencent have arrived and are in the reception room at the front desk."

Cheng Le was taken aback upon hearing this, and subconsciously frowned.

He reached for the schedule on the corner of the table, flipped it open, and glanced at it to make sure he hadn't misremembered. "Wasn't it supposed to be at 2 PM? Why the rush?"

Who came?

He looked up, his voice full of confusion.

"It's Xiang Lixuan, the director of Tencent Games Investment Department."

Cheng Le nodded. Although the meeting was scheduled for 2 p.m., everyone had already arrived, so there was nothing he could say. After thinking for a moment, he asked his secretary to prepare for the meeting ahead of time.

After informing the secretary.

Cheng Le stood up, flipped through two more pages of the report, sighed, and walked towards the reception room.

"The gaming world has been really lively lately."

"I never imagined that I would see Tencent in such a hurry in my lifetime. How strange!"

~~~
Is Tencent getting anxious?
do not know.

After all, Tencent is a huge entity, and it's difficult to judge the actions of the entire Tencent Group based on individual cases. However, the fact that it's "lively" is certain.

If we're talking about excitement, the gaming world has been incredibly lively lately.

Whether it's the sales of "Final Front: Origins" exceeding ten million, the anniversary version of "Final Front" topping the charts in multiple countries, or the derivative marketing model of single-player + online games.

This star seems to have been specially sent to "lecture" the executives of domestic game companies.

Every time there's a new development, domestic game developers either don't understand it or they want it.

It's better if you don't understand it. All you have to do is submit a report. At worst, we can offer some advice: "You can't learn this. What kind of company is Xingchen? What kind of company are we?"
That's about it.

The key issue is that Tencent, which "wants everything" and "can have everything," is a real problem.

Moreover, this time is different from usual. With the huge success of StarCraft Games' "Final Frontline," Tencent felt a real "crisis."

Before coming to Leyuan Su, Xiang Lixuan had just attended a joint meeting at Tencent last night, a rare "joint meeting" within Tencent.

Not only were the heads of several studios in Tencent Games called to the meeting, but even people from Tencent's investment department were summoned. Xiang Lixuan attended the meeting as a member of Tencent's investment department.

The reason this meeting is so serious is because of a piece of data.

"Based on our monitoring data"

"Within 72 hours of the release of 'Final Front: Origins,' the average online time of users of several of our flagship mobile games, including 'Honor of Kings,' 'League of Legends,' and 'DNF,' declined by 3% to 5%."

"This number may not seem like much, but considering our user base, this decline still leads to the conclusion that the 'Final Battle' IP is eroding a larger player base."

"What's even more noteworthy is this."

The PPT switched to the next page, which showed the revenue curves of several games. One curve was the estimated revenue of "Final Frontline", and the other was the total revenue of several games under Tencent.

"Our game experienced a very obvious avoidance effect in terms of revenue after the Starry Night anniversary celebration began."

"Final Frontiers reached an incredible peak within 48 hours before starting to decline, and its stable baseline is still significantly higher than before the update."

(End of this chapter)