Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 349 Recruitment
The second path is to start your own business.

This makes things even more difficult, as funding, distribution, publicity, and technical support are all mountains that can crush a small team.

Many teams, even before they create a demo, have already silently perished in the darkness before dawn.

Large companies are very satisfied with this ecosystem.

Because if you want to succeed, you have to find them and let them share the profits.

The industry rules are set by them; whether a project can be approved is decided by their marketing department and project review committee.

But Project Stars is different.

Due to ample funding, the global monthly revenue of just one game, FGO, fluctuates between 8 million and 10 billion RMB.

In addition, there was the huge success of PUBG, the continued operation of Final Frontline, and the platform revenue sharing from hit anime games such as Onmyoji and Honkai Impact 3.

Even Chu Chen, who spends money lavishly, possesses a kind of "composure" that suggests he has an endless supply of money to spend.

Therefore, this 500 million in cash is real cash, not just a slogan. With this 5 million in cash, we can invest in 5 projects worth millions each in China.

Don't worry about whether the games these small workshops ultimately produce can make money.

This idea of ​​"using the money of the stars to do your own thing" is incredibly attractive to those truly capable but fearful "pillars of society" who are afraid of failure.

One or two million is nothing to Xingchen at present.

But when it comes down to an individual...

Even in 2017, this was not a small number.

Asking them to empty their savings, sell their houses, and spend millions on games is something 90% of the world's population wouldn't dare to do; they'd only dream about it.

The pressures of daily life—food, baby formula, mortgage payments, car loans—make the cost of "trial and error" infinitely high.

But you could say, "I'll give you a million dollars, and you'll make the game."

This concept is completely different.

Many key members of established tech companies, after seeing this enhanced version of the Star Project, are considering whether to "start their own business."

This sparked discussions within the industry, with some believing that StarCraft was poaching talent from other companies.

However, when Starry Sky Games first announced the "Starry Sky Fund," most people were skeptical of Starry Sky's actions, feeling that it was just a case of "fools having too much money to spend."

After all, before this, only "large-scale" companies could succeed in the domestic game industry.

Without a standalone sales channel, small workshops simply cannot survive; it's a non-existent business model. Yet, Starcraft is now offering real money to support these small workshops.

In the past, these small workshops flourished everywhere, but it wasn't until Steam matured in the country that they were truly established.

2024年Steam平台共上架1600余款国产单机游戏（售价≥18元人民币的买断制游戏），较2023年增长约45%
Behind these 1600+ games are countless small workshops.

Although most of these small workshops don't make much money, they have access to distribution channels.

But it was still 17, and most domestic game companies believed that Chu Chen was "forcing growth," filling their platform's game library with "junk games."

"It would be a miracle if that even worked."

This theory doesn't seem wrong, since major companies haven't felt any significant wave of resignations after the launch of the Star Fund.

However, what they didn't realize was that many people, although they hadn't resigned, had actually started trying to organize their own demo sessions and apply for the Star Project after get off work.
In fact, this kind of scenario.

This has happened before in the US, and even more dramatically. If you look at many well-known small and medium-sized developers in the US, they're basically all former employees of large companies. Starting a game company is quite different from other things; it's a highly skilled industry, and small studios often don't try to be big or do everything, which is why they're more likely to create interesting works.

The reason why large domestic companies resisted Xingchen's approach was...

It's just that they've become accustomed to using agents and channels to leech off small studios, and now that they can't do that anymore, they naturally feel uncomfortable.

But for Chu Chen...

Take advantage of the fact that you can buy a team's equity stake for 100 million now—it's practically a fire sale.

These proposals, which originally existed only deep within the producer's hard drive and were rejected by the project review committee for reasons such as "not conforming to market mainstream", "poor monetization ability" and "too high risk", were all gathered on the Starry Sky Games platform.

Even if only a handful of these 500 game demos are ultimately made into games, it will still be a profit for Chu Chen.

Ultimately, games are "made," not "calculated."

Only when more people make games will good games emerge.

Among this "vast crowd," Zhou Xun was even luckier than the others, because after submitting the Star Project, he received a call from Chu Chen.

When Chu Chen called, Zhou Xun was smoking on his balcony at home.

People are sometimes like that. Before submitting the Star Project, Zhou Xun's attitude was that if it could pass, it would pass; if it couldn't, so be it.

But when he actually submitted the plan...

But I felt incredibly irritable.

The ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts, the sliding door to the balcony was tightly shut, and all sorts of thoughts were swirling in my mind.

Is the demo still too rough? Am I too hasty? Is it too much to ask for money for just one transportation chain?

If the Star Project is approved, who should be contacted, and which people in the company can work with him? The number of people cannot be too large, since the initial funding is only one or two million.

Too many people, too high costs.

But it can't be too little either, because you can't accomplish anything with too little, and you'll still need to rely on the demo to convince Star Capital to invest further.

If the Star Project fails, should I invest my own money and go it alone?

Zhou Xun stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, picked up his phone, and wanted to talk to someone, but after scrolling through his contacts, he still didn't know who to call.

Just then, the phone screen lit up with an unfamiliar number from Suzhou and Hangzhou.

"Hello."

"Hello, are you Mr. Zhou Xun? I am Chu Chen."

Even after hanging up the phone, Zhou Xun was still a little dazed.

The bad news is that he still doesn't know whether the Star Project has been approved or not.

Good news, he's been recruited by Xingchen...
It felt like a player who couldn't get a starting position on the Chinese national team suddenly receiving a call from Real Madrid president Florentino Perez, asking if he wanted to play at the Bernabéu next season.

Who the hell could refuse this? Do we even need to consider it?
~~~
In fact, before Zhou Xun joined Xingchen, Chu Chen had already been preparing to produce works based on Liu Cixin's IPs, mainly focusing on two directions: one was "Micro World," and the other was "The Wandering Earth."

However, the progress of neither of these games can be described as ideal.

(End of this chapter)