Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 390 Cooperation
Chu Chen paused and looked at Hirai Kazuo.

"Of course, we also have a small request."

Upon hearing the word "request," Kazuo Hirai breathed a slight sigh of relief, thinking to himself that this was the kind of negotiation he was familiar with, and nodded.

"please say."

“We know that it is industry practice for platforms to take a 30% cut. We respect this rule.”

Chu Chen extended one finger.

"But we also believe that FGO and StarCraft's current games can create unimaginable value on the PS4 platform. We hope that this value can be reflected more fairly."

Chu Chen looked at Li Suhao, who immediately understood and distributed a prepared document to the Sony attendees.

"Simply put, we hope that Sony can reduce the percentage of revenue they charge based on the total annual revenue of all our games on the PSN store."

"When annual revenue reaches $100 million, the commission rate can be reduced from 30% to 25%, and when it reaches $300 million, it can be reduced to 20%. If it reaches $500 million, we hope that the rate can be reduced to 15%."

"Furthermore, we hope to settle these rebate commissions virtually as a promotional fund for StarCraft at Sony."

Upon hearing Chu Chen's words, the only sound in the meeting room soon became the rustling of turning pages.

The revenue generated by the second game on console platforms has not been verified, which is both a bad thing and a good thing for StarCraft.

Five hundred million dollars is no small sum for Sony Games. Last year's release, Horizon Zero Dawn, was a blockbuster hit, generating only $4.6 million in revenue.

Final Fantasy XV generated $3.6 million in revenue, while NieR: Automata generated $2.4 million.

Therefore, if StarCraft can truly achieve annual revenue of $500 million, it would essentially be equivalent to contributing two copies of "NieR: Automata" to Sony every year.

Although Sony takes a cut from these third-party gaming platforms, it cannot claim the full amount.

However, game revenue cannot be solely determined by commission rates; user reach must also be considered. If StarCraft can truly generate $5 million in revenue annually, it will be far more than just commission rates for Sony.

Apart from that, this plan poses almost no risk to Sony.

If StarCraft's games perform poorly on PS4, Sony will still take the standard 30% cut.

However, once a game becomes a hit and revenue soars, even though Sony makes concessions on the commission rate, the overall revenue and the resulting impact will snowball.

More importantly, Chu Chen proposed virtual settlement.

For example, if StarCraft's total revenue reaches $5 million in a year, Sony should take $1.5 million based on a 30% commission. However, according to the profit-sharing subsidy, Sony can only actually take $7500 million.

$7500 million was lost all at once.

Under normal circumstances, the two sides would definitely argue about this ratio for a while, since even if the possibility is small, it is still a possibility.

Sony isn't stupid.

However, Chu Chen, as a "stepping stone," had already considered that Sony wouldn't relax the conditions so easily, even though Chu Chen used the threshold of 500 million US dollars.

Therefore, Chu Chen directly proposed that Sony should not actually hand over the "7500 million US dollars" to Xingchen, but instead deposit it into a special fund account jointly managed by both parties.

This fund account will only be used to purchase more Sony marketing and promotion services.

Isn't this just... transferring money from one hand to the other?! As long as the money is in your pocket, everything else is negotiable.

Furthermore, if StarCraft can truly achieve annual revenue exceeding 500 million on console platforms through free-to-play games, what can Sony say?
In fact, Sony didn't say anything.

After reviewing the cooperation proposal provided by Xingchen, Kazuo Hirai's first question was, "Mr. Chu, why are you so confident that a game that's free to download but has in-app purchases can succeed in the console market?"

Although the two met for less than half an hour.

But Kazuo Hirai had already developed a great interest in this confident young man, and when he asked this question, all the Sony executives in the conference room turned their attention to him.

Chu Chen responded to Hirai's question with a smile.

"Mr. Hirai, regardless of the platform, the players' needs are the same."

"If I remember correctly, as of now, the PS3 has sold a total of 8740 million units, and the PS4 has sold a total of 7900 million units worldwide. During the same period, the PSN had approximately 7000 million monthly active users."

"That means about 50% of the devices are idle. Of course, this includes a large number of PS3 devices, but the idleness of the consoles is indeed a core issue."

Hirai Kazuo asked this question purely out of curiosity.

To everyone's surprise, Chu Chen actually started analyzing, and his analysis was quite good.

Chu Chen's logic is that although Sony has a high number of consoles in use, at the same time, the idle rate of these consoles is also quite high, and free-to-play, long-term service-based games fill this gap.

For this type of game, being free is secondary; the key is long-term operation, just like how CS:GO has been on the Steam charts for years.

At this time, there were no games like Genshin Impact or Naruto to support Chu Chen's argument, so no one knew whether the argument was right or wrong.

But after saying that...

This still caused many Sony executives present to ponder deeply.

Hirai Kazuo didn't know whether Chu Chen's words were right or wrong, but that didn't affect his judgment. He stood up and extended his hand.

"Mr. Chu, welcome to the PlayStation family."

Chu Chen also stood up and grasped the hand that had once held up the PSP and PS4.

"It's a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Hirai."

The two hands clasped together symbolize the beginning of a new era.

Although many details were still unresolved, the handshake between the two had already set the tone for their cooperation.

The following negotiations were less about negotiating and more about finalizing the details.

StarCraft's first-party games, including *Final Battlefront*, *Fate/Grand Order*, *Final Survival Guide*, and *Final Battlefront: Origins*, will be adapted for PS3, PS4, and PS Vita as soon as possible.
Sony will provide a range of top-tier resources, including technical support, marketing, and channel promotion.

The framework for the collaboration was finalized in just two hours.

As the meeting ended and everyone prepared to leave, Kazuo Hirai seemed to suddenly remember something and casually said something to Chu Chen.

"President Chu, as Xingchen is our most important partner in China, if you encounter any minor troubles in business expansion in Japan, please don't hesitate to contact us at any time."

"After all, creating a good business environment is beneficial to all of us in the industry."

Chu Chen smiled and nodded upon hearing this.

"Thank you for your concern, Mr. Hirai. We will."

The two looked at each other and smiled, saying nothing.

(End of this chapter)