Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 457 Going against the current, if you don't advance, you'll fall behind.
After Ma Yuanyao joined Starry Sky Entertainment, her first task was to integrate Starry Sky Entertainment's program production resources.

Now, several months later, the quality of Xingchen's variety shows has improved significantly, and this improvement is reflected in the data.

The most obvious example is the two shows that Chu Chen produced himself.

The number of views for other stars' videos also began to rise steadily.

Moreover, with the overall improvement in quality, some previously unremarkable programs have begun to show signs of gaining popularity.

For example, there is a voice actor talk show called "Gun Girl Tea Party". The regular guests of this show are Jiang Yue, the voice actress of the popular character Mosin-Nagant in "Final Front", and Zhou Ling, the voice actress of Type 95.

These two girls are not only good-looking, but they also voice popular characters in the game, so they have a pretty good fan base.

Despite having two "big stars" in the cast, the viewership of "Gun Girls Tea Party" has been declining.

This is actually quite normal. Just like when a game was very popular in the past, voice actors could become popular for a while because of the game's popularity, but as the game entered a normalized operation phase...

If you don't have any work to do, your popularity will drop.

Not to mention, the content of this "Gun Girl Tea Party" is basically copied from the Japanese voice actor radio show, where the two of them read audience letters and chat. As for the effect...

It all depends on fate.

After Ma Yuanyao took over, she directly adopted the most mature process from Korean variety shows.

There were fewer chat sessions and more games. There were "dirt-dropping" sessions where people would complain about each other, and there were also mini-games designed by the production team that challenged voice actors to read embarrassing lines in different voices.

The most popular episode of that series.

In the "Surprise Blind Box" game segment, the two were challenged to recite cheesy pickup lines from the internet using their characters' voices.

When Zhou Ling drew a card from the box.

With a gentle, soft voice like a Type 95, she blushed and read aloud, "Baby, I went to get an IV drip today. What kind of IV drip? Nights I miss you."

As soon as she finished speaking, she couldn't hold back anymore and covered her face, laughing so hard she fell onto the sofa.

Jiang Yue was even more exaggerated, laughing so hard she almost passed out.

The next second, she herself was also asked to draw a card. After holding back for a long time, she finally read it out in a cool and arrogant voice like Mosin-Nagant, without any expression.

"You must have been a carbonated drink in your past life, because I feel so happy whenever I see you."

The two of them felt extremely ashamed after reading it aloud.

They burst out laughing and were judged by the production team to have failed the challenge. They also had to accept a punishment: they had to recite lines face to face, and whoever laughed had to eat wasabi sushi.

Let's leave the final outcome aside for now.

This episode was truly a huge success.

Many of the formulas used in variety shows have been overused, even if you simply dissect them.

There wasn't a single new element in the structure of this episode.

Just like books that teach people how to succeed are everywhere in bookstores, but very few people actually succeed, you really need some skill to make these basic methods into something entertaining.

While the quality of the programs on Starry Night Japan is quite good, Starry Night Japan relies on its mature voice actor system. It's no exaggeration to say that Japan's top voice actors are essentially no different from Japanese entertainers.
But Xingchen Huaxia is truly starting from scratch.

Therefore, Ma Yuanyao's move quickly transformed her from an outsider to a powerful figure. After the viewership ratings improved, Ma Yuanyao began to consider revenue. Currently, the revenue of video content production studios like Xingchen mainly comes from two parts.

One part comes from the production funds allocated internally by StarCraft, advertising fees from other game companies, and the other part comes from the sale of peripheral products.

For example, the T-shirts worn by the planners in the program "Torture the Planners" with the slogan "Jade must be carved to become a gem" and the "essential gift pack for staying up late to watch anime" co-branded with several snack brands have sold quite well.

The profit share for these peripheral products is very high, generally reaching 50%.

In other words, if the studio makes a profit of 100 million, it can keep half of it, which is a positive incentive.

However, so far, among all the video content studios in Xingchen, only the Xingchen Japan production team of "FGO: Feast of the False Believers" has truly made a lot of money using this rule.

Strictly speaking, this production team is not actually the production team of Starry Sky, but a joint production team of TV Tokyo and Starry Sky.

Although it's a collaboration, this show has become incredibly popular.

After the original program became a hit, the several spin-off programs produced by Xingchen also garnered incredibly high viewership, especially the voice actor version of "The Feast of the False Believers."

What's that saying again? The success of your peers often inspires envy.

Ma Yuanyao and her team jumped ship to Xingchen, not just to make a few fan-oriented, self-contained little shows.

Her inherent competitiveness prevented her from losing to anyone, not even her own colleagues.

Starry Night Japan has proven that variety shows adapted from game IPs can have a very high ceiling, and Ma Yuanyao now holds an excellent opportunity, an opportunity that could allow her to catch up with or even surpass the Japanese branch.

"Star-Engine 48h Game Jam".

Game Jam is a long-standing "extreme challenge" in the gaming industry.

Participants are typically independent developers or enthusiasts who need to complete the task within a very short timeframe (usually 48 or 72 hours).

Based on a theme announced on-site, starting from scratch, we planned, programmed, designed, painted, and composed music to ultimately develop a playable game prototype.

This is an activity purely for passion and challenge, full of improvisation, creativity, and a romanticism of "working yourself to the bone".

Some of the more well-known ones include Ludum Dare and Global Game Jam.

Every year, it attracts tens of thousands of developers, resulting in countless imaginative works.

However, strictly speaking, what Starry Sky created, the Starry Sky 48-Hour Game Making Contest, is not the same as a regular contest.

The reason they are not the same thing is because their goals are different.

As we approach 18.

The challenges facing the Starry Sky Games platform are becoming increasingly clear.

In addition, Steam continued to exert pressure, disrupting the efforts of small and medium-sized developers who were constantly joining StarCraft Games through its strategy of pushing more internal promotions on a single platform.

Within the industry, Tencent is eyeing the market covetously. After its defeat in early August, although Tencent has stopped its large-scale spending spree, it has not given up on continuously introducing games and expanding the platform's content.

In addition, EPIC is a new player that is about to enter the market.

Therefore, the current PC game platform market is like rowing against the current; if you don't move forward, you fall behind.

(End of this chapter)