Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 410 Marketing and Selling Points
What are the core selling points of Azur Lane?
Yuwan recognized the question. He had been asked this question by Chu Chen, by himself, and by everyone on the team since the project was launched. He knew the answer by heart.

The selling point is...

The selling point was the three words "fish balls," which almost came out of my mouth, but I suddenly stopped myself as soon as I said it.

wrong.

Mr. Chen wasn't asking about "selling points," but rather "marketing and promotional selling points."

One word difference makes a world of difference.

Seeing that Yuwan paused, Chu Chen did not urge him, seemingly waiting for Yuwan to think.

At this, cold sweat broke out on Yuwan's forehead again. He was scared when he was outside the door, but now he was completely stumped by the question.

What is a selling point?

The selling points are the core content that attracts players to the game. They are what makes players stay after downloading the game and pay for it. The selling points of Azur Lane are the port, daily activities, and the better graphics. He knows these things.

But what are the key selling points for marketing and distribution?

In this age of information overload, amidst a deluge of advertisements and news, something can instantly grab a user's attention and trigger their impulse within three seconds to think, "Holy crap, what's this? I want to download it and see."

These two things are related, but they are definitely not the same thing.

"Is it... is it the character art and the differentiated bullet hell gameplay?"

Fish Ball tentatively answered.

"Yes, but not entirely."

Chu Chen shook his head.

Normally, if there were no other issues, Chu Chen would probably let Yuwan go back and think it over before coming to him again.

However, there's still Song Yueying outside.

Chu Chen then found a place to sit down and gave Yuwan some hints.

"Beautiful character illustrations, black stockings, white stockings, are definitely the first step in catching the eye."

In 17.

Character illustrations are indeed very important for anime-style games. It's common for a good-looking character illustration to directly boost a game's revenue.

However, for Azur Lane...

"More importantly, it's about the characters. Players are currently more familiar with the ship girls from Kantai Collection and Kantai Collection R, but they are not as familiar with the ship girls from Azur Lane."

"Therefore, the focus of the promotion is not the gameplay, but the promotion of the characters, making the ship girls the main characters. Many players who play ship girl games may not even look at the game section, but they will look at the animation section, browse the artist circle, and watch MMD."

Chu Chen's words were like a window, instantly opening a door in Yuwan's mind.

"You mean we should allocate more promotional resources to creators of anime and manga content?"

Chu Chen nodded.

"Our strength lies in the illustration of ship girls. We will contact a group of high-quality artists to create secondary works and organize a fan art incentive event."

"Then we'll find content creators in the animation section, provide them with materials, and make story videos and meme videos about the characters."

"And those tech gurus in the MMD section, we can send them the models of a few popular characters in advance and have them make dance videos. In short, the goal is to bring these ship girls to life before the game is even released."

"Then the promotional PV should also focus on the daily interactions of the ship girls."

"It would be best to have a few more videos of ship girls calling for the commander to return to port. You know, many of our potential players are actually former Kantai Collection and Kantai Collection players who have already quit. Letting the ship girls call them back, even if the waifu has a different skin, as long as the name is still the same, will have an effect." The more Yuwan listened, the brighter his eyes became.

If his previous project proposal set the general direction, then what Chu Chen just said gave the publicity content a clear direction.

Or it could be a line of thinking; after all, anyone can promote a game, and even just putting up a poster counts as promotion.

But what you need to promote to attract players is a very important consideration.

That's the only thing to say! That's the difference!!

This trip was definitely worthwhile!!
“There’s also server stress testing,” Chu Chen turned to the next page. “The final report shows that the peak capacity is 500,000 players online simultaneously, which is too conservative.”

"Oh? Well, actually, we were planning to do...compensation marketing."

"Don't do it that way."

Clearly, Yuwan's marketing strategy borrowed from the recently popular "FGO" compensation plan, making it a typical example of bandwagon marketing.

However, it is clear that fish balls belong to the type of product that people know how to make but don't know why.

It's not that you can achieve the same success by completely replicating the marketing and promotion strategy of a game; the core of each game is completely different.

"The Kantai Collection IP comes with its own audience, and many players will try to capitalize on it, but the enthusiasm of these players is limited, especially on the first day of the server launch."

“Any negative experience can be magnified infinitely, causing permanent player loss.”

"Instead of engaging in compensation marketing, it's better to offer online rewards, such as giving out rewards based on the number of registered users."

"These rewards could also be made available for a limited time to attract players who entered the game on the first day back, and to attract players who haven't entered the game yet. That's a viable option."

"The reason why FGO's server crash compensation was successful is because FGO has already established a good reputation, and the items given away have already been valued. What's the point of giving away a thousand summons as compensation for a new game? Isn't that just reckless?"

Chu Chen's words sent a chill down Yu Wan's spine.

He only saw the hype and player excitement brought by FGO's compensation marketing, but completely ignored the most fundamental difference between the two: the players' sense of belonging.

Without a sense of belonging, the gifts you give have no anchor value; without anchor value, no matter how many gifts you give, it's useless.

This is actually why many upcoming sequels, which frequently offer hundreds of free draws, fail to achieve any promotional effect. To put it bluntly, if your game isn't fun, I wouldn't bother clicking on 10,000 free draws.

Thinking of this, Yuwan nodded heavily.

"I understand, Brother Chen! I'll rewrite the proposal right away!"

When I arrived, my mind was filled with a thousand thoughts, but when I left, all my ideas were crystal clear.

Chu Chen only read the report for less than twenty minutes, and his insight was beyond what the word "amazing" could describe.

Absolutely terrifying!
This is Chu Chen!!

Filled with admiration, Yuwan walked to the door. But as he reached the door, he seemed to remember something. After a long pause, his gossipy nature finally overcame his fear.

He blurted out a sentence

"Um... Brother Chen, when are you and Sister Yueying going to...?"

Unfortunately, the level difference between Yuwan and Chu Chen was too great. Faced with Yuwan's gossipy attacks, Chu Chen only used one sentence.

"Mind your own business."

They sent the kid away.

(End of this chapter)