Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 258 Paradise Elements

"It's uncertain, but it's very difficult. Furthermore, we weren't involved much in the development of DNF, so whether we can develop a decent spin-off game is also a question."

"Moreover, whether the emotions created in a single-player game can be released in the main game is also a question."

"StarCraft is acceptable because Final Frontline is essentially a PVE-focused character development game."

You know what, putting aside how well Tencent Games does, they are quite experienced in analyzing why others succeed. A group of people quickly analyzed the details of the success of "Final Frontline" very thoroughly.

The only problem.
They were just analyzing it.

Moreover, many of the analyses were not conducted by the game department, but by the game investment department.

~~~
Xiang Lixuan, who was also in the conference room, watched this group of people chattering away. On the surface, he didn't say anything, but he was actually a little sleepy.

He is the person with the "best relationship" with Xingchen within Tencent.

Xingchen's rapid development this year can be described as putting Xiang Lixuan's career on a roller coaster.

Initially, the success of Starry Wallpaper made Xiang Lixuan a star in Tencent Games' investment department. Subsequently, as Starry Wallpaper grew stronger, Xiang Lixuan's "plan" to invest in Starry Wallpaper became increasingly extravagant.

At one point, they even announced a "100 billion yuan investment plan."

However, after FGO became a huge hit last November, even a fool could see it coming.

Unless Tencent can clean up Xingchen and make Xingchen feel the need to access Tencent's resources, or Xingchen faces a major operational crisis.

Otherwise, Tencent would have virtually no chance of investing in Xingchen.

What's even more absurd is that in March of this year, media reported that after Tencent's failed investment in Xingchen Games failed, Xingchen Games actually bought 1 billion RMB worth of Tencent shares.

Although this amount represents a relatively small percentage of Tencent's shares compared to its massive market capitalization.

However, this incident was still used as a source of "mockery" by many media outlets.

Tencent's stock price even rose slightly as a result.

In any case, since October of last year, everyone has known that Tencent's investment in Xingchen is completely impossible, and Xiang Lixuan's "special task force" has been directly "dismissed".

Logically speaking, without the "Investing in Stars" award, Xiang Lixuan should have returned to the life of an "ordinary person."

But to my utter surprise
Starry Sky Games was so powerful, and after several blows this year, it has stirred up the waters of the Chinese game market again. As a result, he, who was once "the one who knew Starry Sky best", was now in trouble.

Within Tencent, he actually thrived thanks to his "Starry Sky Expert" status.

The work in the investment department didn't change much, but every few days he was invited to other departments to "analyze" the stars. At first, Xiang Lixuan found it quite interesting.

But after participating in too many events, he got a little bored.

Because over the past year or so, Xiang Lixuan had indeed frequently visited Xingchen and often invited Chu Chen to Tencent. It's absurd to say, but the relationship between the two sides had never truly ended.

Li Xuan would even ask Chu Chen for advice when he was unsure whether to invest in certain companies, and Chu Chen would sometimes actually give him some suggestions.

Because when Xiang Lixuan asked him about it many times, the matter was already settled. No matter what Chu Chen said, the investment was already decided.

To put it bluntly, they're just seeking psychological comfort.

Chu Chen would casually chime in, sometimes saying yes, sometimes no.

It’s not important;

All of Chu Chen's casual remarks eventually came true.
As the communication time went on...

Xiang Lixuan, on the contrary, developed a rather "strange" mindset: "Someone as awesome as Chu Chen would naturally develop awesome games. You bunch of nobodys think you can learn from him?"

This mindset is truly astounding. But Xiang Lixuan genuinely thinks this way, which is why he's always the most ardent "Xiang fan" at any Tencent internal meeting where he's present.

So when he listened to these people analyzing why Xingchen succeeded, he almost laughed. They analyzed it but couldn't learn from it. What's the point of their analysis?

However, objectively speaking...

Although the meeting was a bit dull, it wasn't entirely fruitless; at least one new group strategy was proposed: "strengthening investment in ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) companies."

"We will spare no effort to uphold Tencent Games' bottom line in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) market."

Tencent's ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) strategy has undergone several changes.

Last year, when Xingchen first started, their focus was on "exploring the ACG market," then on "entering the ACG market," and now, they're aiming to "maintain their position in the ACG market."

However, for Xiang Lixuan, this was not necessarily a bad thing.

Because he has a new job to do.

Following this meeting, Tencent not only decided to allocate more funding to existing anime-style games, but also to establish the Tencent Anime Game Studio to strengthen the development of anime-style games.

Externally, Tencent has also identified several new investment targets.

One of them is Paradise Element.

Many people think of Candy Crush when they hear the name Leyuansu, and their second impression is that Leyuansu is a subsidiary of Tencent.
In reality, Paradise is not a subsidiary of Tencent, and it also has strong capabilities in developing ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) games.

From "Merc Storia" released in 2014 to "Ensemble Stars!" in 2016...

From a global perspective, in the past two years, Paradise Games has been the "leader" in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) genre, with Ensemble Stars! even achieving the top spot in Japan.

Even Paradise is one of the few companies in China that has established a branch in Japan.

In the previous life, if it weren't for the higher-ups at the amusement park, who chose the "idol" route at these two important turning points in the world of anime and manga in 16 and 18.

They launched two virtual idol projects, "Star Dream Diary" and "Battle Songstress!", but ultimately missed the boom period of the "anime and manga" trend.

It wasn't until both idol projects ended in failure that he re-entered the world of anime and manga, and in 25, he released a trailer for "Silver City".

When many people heard that "Silver City" was made by Paradise Games, they were very confused. They thought that match-3 games were too far removed from anime and manga. But in fact, Paradise Games did have the ability to develop anime and manga games.

Therefore, when Tencent began to feel the "stellar pressure," it quickly thought of Paradise Element.
Tencent originally had no concerns about this investment.

Because Happy Elements' promotion channels in China heavily rely on Tencent, and as the agent, Tencent also controls the bulk of Happy Match's revenue.

Seventeen years ago, Tencent easily acquired 8.8% of Paradise Entertainment's shares.

However.
In this timeline, upon making contact with Li Xuan, he discovered that things were not as simple as he had imagined.

Tencent is changing.

The amusement park is also changing.

To reiterate, when Tencent was the only domestic channel, its channel value was premium. But now, there are many more channels in China besides Tencent.

To be honest, when I sensed that the other person was in this state...

Xiang Lixuan's first thought was, "President Chen is really awesome."

　Um, that thing.

　　That concludes the prelude to LeYuan's presentation. New content will be available tomorrow, so don't worry.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)