Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 414 The Student Surpasses the Master?

Due to a lack of copyright, after PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) became a global phenomenon, Tencent immediately assembled its most elite team to work day and night on a "high-level tribute."

Their sole objective is to leverage Tencent's distribution channels to quickly and comprehensively capture the market before the official mobile game of Starry Sky is released.

Moreover, as far as Tencent knows, it's not the only company in China planning to do this; NetEase is also doing it, and Xishanju seems to be making moves as well.

It's fair to say that the competition in the battle royale mobile game market is even greater than in the anime and manga market.

After all, as a paid single-player game, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) has been around for more than half a year now.

Sales have reached nearly 20 million units.

Twenty million copies!!!

Among them, the proportion of users from China is not small. Starry Sky Games has gained a lot of users on the PC platform thanks to "PUBG". Although some media jokingly call the Starry Sky Games platform a "PUBG launcher".

But no matter what kind of launcher you use, these users are real people.

Moreover, this is data from paid users. If we put it into the free mobile game market, which has a much larger user base, the user base would be at least ten times larger.

Therefore, Yaoguang devoted all its resources and energy to the "Battlefield" project.

Although the development of "Gun Girl Auto Chess" is basically complete, its subsequent operation and investment obviously cannot receive the highest priority support.

Since we don't have the energy, we might as well go with the flow.

"After Naruto, Mill has always been the benchmark for our internal ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) research and development."

"This time, it's up to you, Mr. Xiong, to take the lead."

After those words, the ball was firmly kicked to Xiong Youning's feet.

Xiong Youning did not refuse.

Or rather, he never even considered refusing. From the very beginning, he wanted to fight this battle, partly because of his initial confidence, and partly because he was very clear about the reasons behind it.

Only under this competitive publicity plan can he obtain the most top-tier publicity resources.

"Mr. Leng, let's go then."

~~~
The first day after the National Day holiday ends.

The gaming industry was completely detonated by a bombshell.

Without any prior warning, Tencent Games' official Weibo account, WeChat official account, and major partner media channels simultaneously announced the release date of the new anime-style game "Night Spirit" with prominent headers and push notifications.

It was launched globally on October 17th.

Also revealed was Tencent's ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) strategy, which includes increased investment, a focus on user experience, reduced user burden, and the introduction of more ACG IPs, such as "Fairy Tail".

Meanwhile, "Night Spirit" serves as the core of Tencent's new ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) strategy, showcasing Tencent's sincerity to a wide range of ACG fans.

This news was like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, creating ripples everywhere.

"Holy crap? What is Tencent up to? This is a surprise attack!"

"October 17th? Isn't Azur Lane supposed to start on the 18th? This is going to be a head-on confrontation!"

"The PV for 'Night Spirit' looks awesome! It feels much better than during the closed beta. The graphics and special effects are even more impressive than 'Final Battlefront'!"

"Stop bragging, upstairs. It's a Tencent game. If you believe even half of the PV, you win. But to be fair, this marketing campaign is really powerful."

Tencent's offensive was more intense than anyone had anticipated.

If the announcement the previous day was an air raid sirens, then the next day was a massive, overwhelming bombardment. It wasn't just Tencent's internal channels; even websites like 1717 and GamerSky prominently displayed huge dynamic ads for "Night Spirit" on their homepages.

The front-page news was even more straightforward and blunt, with headlines like "Tencent's Ambitious Work: Redefining Anime-Style Mobile Games."

Interview with Mill Studio: How to Create a Brand New "Night Spirit" World in One Year

These articles basically praise Night Spirit to the skies, from its world view, game graphics, art style to its core gameplay. The most outrageous thing is that many of Night Spirit's lighting and shadow techniques, which are obviously "borrowed" from Starry Sky HD-2D, are also touted as amazing.

At the same time, many content creators in the Bilibili gaming section...

Overnight, they all became enthusiastic advocates for "Night Spirit."

"Holy crap, guys, let me tell you, Tencent has really hit the nail on the head this time! Look at the quality of this PV, the lighting, the particle effects, it's top-notch!"

Following this, videos such as "Foreign players watch Eidolon PV and exclaim 'Awesome!'" and "10,000-word analysis to help you understand the Eidolon worldview" also flooded Bilibili.

Many players who saw this scene felt a strong sense of déjà vu.

Clearly, Tencent is completely following the marketing strategy of Starry Sky. Unfortunately, while they can copy the surface, they can't capture the essence.

Many things in StarCraft are generated by players spontaneously creating content based on the traffic.

Tencent, on the other hand, does the publicity and promotion first, and then segments the content.

Not only did the video fail to reach its target number of views, but some overseas bloggers were also surprised that someone was actually paying them to watch the PV.

Regardless, Tencent's promotional efforts did have an effect, and for a time, the entire market's attention was drawn to it.

In particular, its release date of October 17th is one day earlier than that of "Azur Lane".

Many people are saying that this is Tencent getting revenge for its early start at the Summer Games Festival on August 20th.

Amidst this uproar, an interview pushed the tension of this "war" to its peak.

The well-known domestic game media "Game Tea House" released an exclusive interview with Qi Zhihong, the producer of "Night Spirit".

During the interview, the reporter posed a question.

"Many players feel that Night Spirit has many similarities with StarCraft's Final Frontline in terms of gameplay and style. What do you think about this?"

This is actually a rather pointed question, but as part of Tencent's publicity efforts, the fact that they dared to release it suggests they were prepared.

as predicted.

In front of the camera, Qi Zhihong showed no sign of panic when faced with this question.

"First of all, I have great respect for Starry Sky Games and Mr. Chu Chen. They are indeed pioneers of ARPG mobile games in China and opened up the market for this genre."

He started with a polite remark, but then abruptly changed the subject.

"However, the Trail Blazers are not the terminators."

“Every genre needs to evolve and needs stronger products to drive it forward. Final Frontline is an excellent game, but it is limited by the technology and concepts at the time and has some regrets.”

"And 'Night Spirit' was created to make up for these regrets."

"We have more refined modeling, a smoother motion system, and more strategic combat design."

"If *Final Front* opened a door for players, then *Night Spirit* leads them into a true palace. We are confident that we have surpassed our predecessors."

(End of this chapter)