Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 311 Blood Bun
Just as Chu Chen was eating breakfast.

Tencent Building.

Different floors have completely different atmospheres.

In Zhao Ming's global gaming platform division, everyone was busy, and the atmosphere was very tense.

On another floor of the same building, the scene was completely the opposite.

"Did you see it? It was Xingchen's press conference yesterday."

"I can only say it's awesome. This morning when I woke up, all I saw was discussions about 'Floating Dreams and Long Songs'."

"Well done, Chu Chen! My Superman!"

The most lively places were Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group, Mill Studio, and Night Spirit Project Team.

Almost everyone present had a smile on their face.

If outsiders saw this scene, they would find it unbelievable: Tencent employees were celebrating wildly the success of their biggest competitor, StarCraft Games.
It sounds absurd, yet it's all too real.

"Brother Qi, did you see Zhao Ming's face in yesterday's live stream? When the camera panned across him, it was as black as the bottom of a pot. I almost burst out laughing!"

A slightly chubby planner wearing glasses was laughing so hard he was doubled over when he looked at Qi Zhihong, the producer of the "Night Spirit" project.

Qi Zhihong is also the producer of "Night Spirit".

In normal times, he is actually a very mature person, which is why Xiong Youning, the boss of the mill studio, chose him to "pay tribute" to "Final Front".

Even the usually composed Qi Zhihong couldn't suppress a smile at this moment.

But he still patted his colleague on the back.

"Alright, keep your voice down. If someone hears us, they'll think we're traitors."

"What's there to be afraid of! The whole company is probably laughing at us right now, who has time to care about us? Besides, we're doing this to 'learn from the barbarians to subdue them,' what's wrong with studying the spirit of our competitors' product launches in advance?"

He spoke with such conviction that those around him burst into laughter.

As mentioned before, the internal competition within Tencent is more intense than the external competition. The games "Night Spirit" and "Gun Girl Auto Chess," which were launched in March of last year, are now quite well-developed.

Especially "Night Spirit"

After all, it was copied from StarCraft's "Final Frontline," and it's a 2D game. If they hadn't added some "ingenious ideas" and some systems for monetization, it might have already been released.

Even with modifications, the normal development cycle for a game is roughly one to two years. Anything exceeding that time is either a large-scale project, involves internal corruption, or the producer simply doesn't know what they're trying to achieve.
For example, the game "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" from the previous game was launched immediately when Genshin Impact became a huge hit 20 years ago. It cost 300 million yuan and took five years to develop, but in the end, it turned out to be nothing.
Of course, even more outrageous is "Zhu Xian World," which was initiated 15 years ago and spent ten years honing its craft, only to produce a half-finished product.

Although Tencent has similar projects, few people dare to take the plunge on key projects.

Therefore, the completion level of "Night Spirit" is indeed quite good. Even though Mill added a lot of its own ideas, the completion level is still quite high.

They even held an offline trial session before, and the players' satisfaction was surprisingly good.

After all, the offline demo didn't include any pay-to-win elements, and "Night Spirit" features anthropomorphic melee weapons, medieval zombies, vampires, and werewolves. Whether it's fun or not is unknown, but it certainly looks pretty good.

Because of the positive player satisfaction, Mill Studio actually values ​​"Night Spirit" quite a bit, and logically, they should be moving on to the marketing and launch phase.

However, following Tencent's launch process...

They have far fewer internal ratings and group publicity resources than one might imagine.

Tencent Games' top management is currently torn between two major strategies.

One side is the "platform faction," represented by Leng Zefeng and Zhao Ming. They believe that Tencent's core advantage lies in its traffic and channels, and that the channels should be established first.

On the other side, there is the "anime/manga/game" group, mainly composed of studios like Mill Studio and Radiant Studio. Originally, this was because of the stars.

Tencent's influence in the "anime and manga" (ACG) sector remains strong.

Unfortunately, in July of last year, "Night Spirit" and "Gun Girl Auto Chess" were completely outmatched by StarCraft in their initial reveal, failing to generate any buzz.

On Tencent.

If the initial explosion lacks impact, it will be difficult to ignite a similar momentum later on.

At least obtaining resources at the group level has become extremely difficult, which is why XGAME's debut was turned upside down by Chu Chen alone.

They only got so excited when they saw Zhao Ming get humiliated and turn green with anger.

~~~
Aside from the exciting Night Spirit Studio.

Another Tencent studio was also inexplicably affected.

Tianya Mingyue Studio

As usual, Cao Yongqiang was in his office communicating with event planner Chen Lin about the operational situation.

As the lead planner of Tianya Mingyue Dao.

He's been living a pretty carefree life lately.

As one of the main titles promoted by Tencent's Arctic Working Group in recent years, Tianya Mingyue Dao has been quite competitive from its open beta launch last July to this year.

Like traditional MMORPGs, Tianya Mingyue Dao also suffers from an extremely high user churn rate, and since its launch, both its reputation and revenue have shown a clear downward trend.

However, the massive player base of Tencent's games, coupled with the martial arts theme, made them a significant factor.

In 2016 alone, the number of registered users of Tianya Mingyue Dao exceeded 100 million, with a peak of over one million concurrent users, and annual revenue exceeding 3 billion RMB.

Even with a significant loss of users and a halving of player numbers this year, daily active users still reach 300,000 to 400,000, and the return of old players on the first anniversary of the open beta in July has also been quite effective.

This is quite an achievement for a game that has been running for a year.

"I think the revenue of 'Tianya Mingyue Dao' should go up again next month, taking advantage of the anniversary celebration."

"Yes, we definitely need to push harder. We need to pay more attention to the live streaming channels and the rebel army."

I won't go into what the "livestreaming channels" refer to here; the so-called "righteous army" is actually just a bunch of shills.
Cao Yongqiang and Chen Lin chatted and smoked for a while, and after a few words, the topic turned to whether they should go out and relax that night.

The two were bragging when the office door was suddenly pushed open.

A young assistant walked in, breathless.

Cao Yongqiang frowned.

"What's wrong? Why are you so impulsive? Is the sky falling down?"

The person who came in didn't reply; they just held their phone.

"Look, look at the Arctic Snow Working Group! General Manager Luo has spoken!"

Mr. Luo is the direct person in charge of the Arctic Snow Studio Group and also their boss.

Cao Yongqiang's heart skipped a beat. Something that made General Manager Luo personally call him out in the work group must be something big.

(End of this chapter)