Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 406 The Master of Stirring Up Trouble
Late at night on August 6th.

The slight turbulence of the plane landing woke Chu Chen from his light sleep.

Stepping out of the Suzhou-Hangzhou Airport terminal, a familiar breeze carrying moisture greeted me, instantly dispelling the dryness and fatigue that lingered in the cabin.

A black minivan was already waiting by the roadside.

The car door opened, and the driver quickly came forward and took the suitcase from his hands.

"Brother Chen, you've worked hard."

"It's alright, it's not exactly tough."

Chu Chen sat in the spacious back seat, leaned back, and casually rubbed his temples.

The city at night is less noisy and more tranquil, making it easier for people to sink into thought. This trip to Japan has been far more rewarding than expected.

Although many things had been laid out in the early stages, Chu Chen was just the final step.

For example, the collaboration with Sony, and many of FGO's marketing decisions. But just like in football, without that final kick, there would be no final result.

By tonight, after several days of high activity, FGO's media buzz worldwide has begun to cool down.

Like any storm, after the most intense phase, things will eventually calm down.

The public's attention span in the media and online is limited; new hot topics and new gossip will always replace old headlines.

However, although the media frenzy has subsided, the game's popularity hasn't actually diminished much.

Since its launch, FGO's global daily active users (DAU) have steadily increased over the past few days due to promotion and user expansion. By the time Chu Chen left, it had stabilized at around 900 million.

If nothing unexpected happens, it might even break ten million in the next two days.

If it truly surpasses 10 million daily active users, then FGO will become the second game in the "Starry Sky" series, after Onmyoji, to achieve this milestone.

Considering that Onmyoji had already passed its peak at this time, FGO's still rising data is even more remarkable.

After all, the IP threshold of "FGO" is indeed very high. It is truly astonishing that such a high threshold can still achieve more than 900 million daily active users.

However, while everyone else was surprised, Chu Chen was not surprised at all, and even felt that there was still room for improvement.

On the one hand, a large part of this daily active user count is driven by "FGO Kill".

In its previous life, "Goose and Duck Kill" and "Space Kill" easily had over a million daily active users at their peak, but both of these games were paid games, while "FGO Kill" was completely free.

There is a significant difference between paid and free services.

Secondly, at this point in time, the "optimized version of Werewolf" gameplay is indeed a very new thing.

In addition, the publicity and promotion were overwhelming.

This data is not surprising.

Based on the extremely high number of players, there is an exaggerated revenue, as many gaming media outlets have predicted.

If it can maintain this level of performance throughout the month, its global monthly revenue is very likely to exceed 20 billion RMB, and may even surpass that of "Honor of Kings".

It became the world's highest-grossing online game.

This news caused an uproar among Chinese media outlets, which are among the most concerned globally about how much money manufacturers are making.

Chu Chen saw such things before he even boarded the plane.

In-depth analysis: How did FGO, with 900 million daily active users, defeat Honor of Kings, which has 4000 million daily active users?

"Monthly revenue is projected to exceed 2 billion! How long can the crown of Honor of Kings last?"

To be honest, Chu Chen wanted to laugh every time he saw these news reports.

When it comes to stirring up trouble, Chinese media are second to none. For example, in the report about 900 million beating 4000 million, they went crazy praising Xingchen.

From profit model to production attitude, community atmosphere, reputation, and gameplay, they've touted it all. If you only look at this news and combine it with the data, it seems like Xingchen is far superior to Tencent. Otherwise, how could it surpass Tencent in revenue with only a quarter of the daily active users?

But what is the truth?

There may indeed be differences in operations, after all, in terms of reputation, Xingchen still far surpasses Tencent.

But the biggest difference is not just the reputation of StarCraft, but that of FGO's 900 million daily active users, more than 600 million are from Japan.

This data is twice that of FGO at its peak in its previous life.

Behind the huge Japanese player base lies something quite intriguing: exchange rates. We actually discussed this topic a long time ago.

The difference between Japanese players spending 648 RMB and domestic players spending 648 RMB is completely different.

This is why, after Genshin Impact became a huge hit in Japan, its global revenue at one point surpassed that of Honor of Kings.

A game can earn 1 million yen in Japan versus earning 1 million yen in China.

The difficulty levels are completely different.

In the previous life, by 2025, when FGO's daily active users had dropped to only a few hundred thousand, its peak revenue was still around 20 billion yen, which is roughly 1 million yuan.
Based on this data, FGO should have had 200 billion daily active users when it had 20 million.
Of course, this is just a very rough algorithm. After all, the larger the user base and the more general users there are, the more revenue will be generated.

Anyway, whatever.

The core goal of this round of StarCraft is to make FGO a national game in Japan through the anniversary version, and they have already accomplished more than half of it.

And it's not just in Japan.

in the country, the barrier to entry for FGO's killing gameplay has been lowered.

The daily active users of "FGO" in China have easily reached 200 million.

If we don't compare it to games like "Honor of Kings" and "League of Legends" which are extremely popular, 200 million daily active users is actually a rather exaggerated number.

Looking across the country and even the world, there are only a handful of games that can achieve this number of daily active users.

It's no exaggeration to say that as long as Starry Sky operates steadily and without any unexpected problems, it will be a success.

Then FGO is a super golden ticket to a meal.

This "meal ticket" brought more than just revenue. As the revenue figures for "FGO" became increasingly outrageous, Xingchen also clearly felt a change in the attitude of Type-Moon Studio when dealing with them.

The most direct manifestation of this is that, apart from the anime adaptation of the FGO game itself, Starry Sky Games has unsurprisingly joined the production committee for all other newly initiated Fate series anime projects, and its investment share is quite considerable.

This doesn't mean that the "big shots" who occupied the production committee suddenly became generous and willing to share the profits.

It's because if you don't cooperate with StarCraft, you won't benefit from FGO's traffic boost when your anime is released.

In this era where even the best wine needs advertising, even if you are the original creator of an IP, you are still at the mercy of others if you don't control traffic, just like Tencent in its past, which relied on its absolute advantage in traffic and channels.

It's like gradually turning the developers of "CF", "DNF" and "League of Legends" from equal partners into de facto "subsidiaries".

Unless Type-Moon can come up with a game with the same reach as FGO, Stardust's influence in the entire Fate series will only increase.

Although I was in the car.

Chu Chen had many thoughts, but these thoughts quickly vanished once he got home.

Due to the long journey.

Chu Chen could fall asleep the moment his head hit the bed.

~~~
The next morning, the morning sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains, casting a narrow strip of light on the bedroom floor.

Chu Chen's biological clock woke him up from his sleep on time. A few hours of sleep had slightly dispelled the fatigue of the international trip.

Wash up, change clothes, and go out.

(End of this chapter)