Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 475 Gabe Newell

Chu Chen gave an affirmative reply to Li Suhao's report.

Such synchronization of general direction is essential for a large company. After more than ten minutes, the voice on the other end of the phone gradually calmed down.

Chu Chen hung up the phone, and the sound of water in the bathroom stopped.

The Japanese market's response has been more enthusiastic than expected, which is certainly a good thing. The in-depth cooperation proposed by TV Tokyo is also a direction, but the details still need to be carefully considered.

Just as I was pondering this, the bathroom door clicked open.

Song Yueying walked out wrapped in a bath towel. Her snow-white skin glowed with a moist sheen under the warm light of the living room. Her long hair was wet and draped over her shoulders, with water droplets dripping from the ends onto her collarbone and then slowly sliding down.

"What are you thinking about?"

As she dried her hair with a towel, she walked over and sat down next to Chu Chen, bringing with her a refreshing mist.

"Thinking about company matters." Chu Chen opened his eyes and smiled. "Dongdian wants to deepen cooperation."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"That's a good thing, but we need to think carefully about how to make it even better."

~~~
For Chu Chen, after the 48-hour game creation competition became a huge hit, how to maximize the publicity and promotion by taking advantage of the momentum was a happy problem.

Why is it described as a happy trouble?

Because the next morning, on the other side of the earth.

Similarly, due to the explosive popularity of the Starry 48 Hours game creation contest, in the conference room of Valford headquarters in Bellevue, such troubles meant there was no room for happiness.

Most of the time, the atmosphere at Valve headquarters is relatively relaxed.

On the one hand, thanks to a series of classic Valve games such as Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Team Fortress, Dota 2, and Left 4 Dead, Steam has been developing rapidly almost every year since 2003.

08年用户超过2000万，11年3000万，13年7500万，15年1.2亿.
It's no exaggeration to say that Steam makes money effortlessly.

Moreover, its size has become so large that it shouldn't have any competitors. Just like Taobao and JD.com that year, no one believed that a third e-commerce platform could gain momentum.

But...
Starry Night Games was born.

Steam initially didn't take StarCraft games seriously, but soon, with StarCraft Tap and PUBG, StarCraft quickly entered a period of explosive growth.

Sitting at the head of the conference room, the broad-shouldered man felt threatened.

Don't let the players' perception of Gabe Newell as the good-natured Gabe Newell fool you.

In real life, however, he is also the man who built the entire Steam empire.

As a privately held company that is not publicly traded, Gabe Newell has complete control over the company, in addition to being the creator of this legendary game company.

Within Valve, it can be said to have absolute authority.

When many media outlets talk about Valve, they always say, "This is a company without a boss." In reality, there may indeed be no boss, but it's impossible to have no boss at all.

A company that can consistently produce a series of masterpieces, regardless of the management system it employs, will ultimately deliver a powerful and effective product.

However, in recent years, you can make money even while lying down.

Therefore, Newell's requirements for the project's schedule were not so exaggerated.

However, this feeling has changed quite significantly recently, or more precisely, since April 2017.

"Jason?"

Newell's voice was calm, unlike the "good guy" Gabe Newell that players had in mind.

Newell's presence in the conference room created a very oppressive atmosphere.

“From a purely data model perspective, Starry Night Games’ campaign was a textbook example of viral marketing.” Jason Miller, the person mentioned, is the president of Valve’s platform operations department in China. A typical white elite, he pushed up his glasses and tried to answer the question.

However, he had barely opened his mouth when he hadn't even finished a sentence.

Newell interrupted him.

“You know I don’t want to hear this, Jason. Say something useful.”

After these words, the meeting room fell silent again. Jason, who had been called out, was clearly a little embarrassed and didn't know what to say. Fortunately, Newell didn't make things difficult for Jason.

After letting out a short sigh, Newell habitually placed his hands on the table.

"You still don't take the stars seriously..."

If we're talking about who understands game platform operations best in the world, Gabe Newell (GabeN) is definitely one of them.

Therefore, no one understood the threat posed by the Star Game better than him.

Looking at Valve as a whole, apart from Half-Life and Portal, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Dota 2 all have one thing in common.

Those games are all multiplayer games.

They act like giant magnets, attracting thousands of players to the Steam platform, allowing them to communicate, team up, trade, and create.

Even now, CS:GO can easily maintain hundreds of thousands of daily active users, and although DOTA2 is not as good as LOL, its daily active users can still reach millions during promotional periods.

These players are the foundation of Steam's success.

Now, Starry Sky Games from the East is following the same path, relying on exclusive games to attract a large player base, and then using that base to leverage market share.

What made Gabe Newell even more uneasy was...

StarCraft isn't content to follow Steam's old path. Just like Taobao and JD.com in their early days, they're not afraid of creating another "new Taobao" or "new JD.com."

What they fear is the emergence of a "Pinduoduo".

The entire Starry Sky Games feels like a tireless "entertainment machine." Often, not only in the game itself, but even just by opening the Starry Sky Games platform, you can find enjoyment.

Just like this "48-Hour Game Creation Competition"

Valve has sponsored some game development competitions, but none of them have ever been organized like StarCraft Games.

Newell's first reaction after watching the video was that he found it funny.

Xingchen truly succeeded in turning an event into a game for everyone to participate in. Throughout the process, all participants enjoyed themselves and felt like they were part of the "game".

Faced with such manufacturers.

Faced with such a platform.

His executives are still analyzing data and feeling smug that the new marketing strategy implemented a few months ago has worked, briefly curbing the login activity of small and medium-sized platforms.
If this were 25 years later, he would be 63 years old and might be more at peace.

But now, he is only 55 years old. Although he can't be called the prime of his life, he is definitely not old either.

Aside from the threat posed by the Star Games, 55-year-old Newell also felt a long-lost excitement about their emergence.

On the contrary, his old buddies who have always followed him don't seem excited yet, even though he has said many times in private that he values ​​his rivals and competes actively.

But Newell sees it differently.

The current Steam is far from achieving the effect he wanted.

That's why he's using this 48-Hour StarCraft game creation contest to sound the alarm for Steam's battle.

(End of this chapter)