Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 481 Differentiated Strategy

For Chu Chen, these remastered licenses, though not very profitable, would definitely help boost the platform's popularity.

So a few months ago, in addition to negotiating with Sony, StarCraft also began preliminary work on the "Starlight Reboot" project, including titles such as Red Alert, Heroes of Might and Magic, Company of Heroes, Age of Empires, Rise of the Dragon, and Homeworld.
Starry Sky is negotiating with a whole host of well-known IP classic works.

These remastered IPs are actually relatively easy to obtain at this point in time.

Because the current game market is still a growth market.

In a few years, when the game market becomes a saturated market, many companies will start to "innovate by digging into the past." By then, it will be much harder to acquire each company's intellectual property.

At least in games like Age of Empires, StarCraft would definitely not be able to take it down.

Moreover, even now, many Capcom games, as well as Blizzard games that Chu Chen desires most, are still difficult to obtain.

The former is because Capcom has a habit of resetting games.

As for the latter, the Warcraft 3 IP that Chu Chen wanted was too valuable. Although Blizzard hasn't made it yet, it doesn't intend to sell the IP.

On the contrary, many of Sony's works, as well as many old IPs that are over ten years old, have lost their original development teams, and many of the companies that own these IPs have little emotional attachment to them.

For example, Ubisoft not only sold the remastered version of Heroes of Might and Magic, but also packaged and sold the development of a new game along with it.
Incidentally, at this time Ubisoft was busy with an anti-takeover war with Vivenda, so Ubisoft was also raising funds all over the world, which is why the sale was so quick.

Even during this process, Ubisoft repeatedly hoped that StarCraft would intervene in the acquisition battle.

Chu Chen tentatively agreed to the matter, planning to allocate 30 billion RMB, or approximately 4 million euros, to help Ubisoft weather Vivenda's acquisition battle.
Therefore, Ubisoft is currently in a "honeymoon period" with StarCraft.

I'm just hoping Xingchen will send the money soon.
They sold very quickly.

In short, at this point in time, Chu Chen has indeed picked up quite a few bargains.

The entire "Starlight Reboot" project is progressing smoothly, and Starlight has already gathered licenses for many classic IPs.

This is the card Chu Chen was referring to.

"But Mr. Chen, isn't it a bit too early to announce the Starlight Reboot Project now? Besides, we've only acquired the copyright so far; there's not even a hint of a remastered version of the game yet."

As the person in charge of the Starry Sky Games platform, Li Yifeng was naturally aware of the Starlight Reboot Plan.

Even many games are included, such as the three classic Chinese games: *Three Kingdoms Online*, *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, and *Qin's Legacy*, as well as *Meteor Butterfly Sword*, which A3 Studios has been eagerly anticipating.

He was the one who negotiated these old games.

The negotiation process was also quite complicated, since the ownership of these old game IPs was actually quite messy due to the dissolution of many companies.

However, Li Yifeng persisted in this matter because he also agreed with Chu Chen's idea that all the remastered versions of these games would be exclusive to the Starry Sky platform.

It is absolutely a moat that no one else can imitate.

The problem is, distant water can't quench immediate thirst.

Steam's Christmas sale is less than a month away, and the competition is already fierce.

The IPs acquired in the "Starlight Reboot" plan were mostly acquired in secret due to confidentiality agreements, with no external publicity or recruitment.

In other words, although the remake licenses for these IPs are in the hands of Xingchen, they haven't actually even created a "new folder".

How to fight this?
It's not like Steam will be overflowing with amazing deals, while StarCraft will just be showing a bunch of folder screenshots telling players, "The big one is coming soon, stay tuned," right?

That's not called a counterattack.
"Who told you that these remakes of old games have to be completely remade to have any impact?" Chu Chen replied calmly to Li Yifeng's question.

"what?"

How can you generate influence if you don't actually make a game? Are you just going to rely on wishful thinking?

Seeing Li Yifeng's bewildered expression, Chu Chen knew that his thinking was still limited to the traditional "product-to-product" business warfare model.

"Brother Feng, you need to change your approach."

Chu Chen stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and drew a square.

"What are we competing with Steam for now? Is it game sales?"

Although Chu Chen is very confident that he can make the Starry Sky gaming platform number one in the world in the future, there is still a huge gap between Starry Sky and Steam at present.

Steam's game library, built up over the past decade, is no joke.

"This time, what we are fighting for is public opinion, the right to speak, and users' confidence in the future."

Li Yifeng followed Chu Chen to the whiteboard. Looking at the words, he had some vague ideas, but he couldn't connect them.

"Mr. Chen, I still don't quite understand..."

"It's very simple."

"We don't need to make a remake of Red Alert or Heroes of Might and Magic right now. We just need to tell everyone that we're going to do it."

"It's...it's just an announcement?"

"Of course it's not as simple as just announcing it."

After saying that, Chu Chen drew a few more squares next to the squares on the whiteboard.

"The first step is for us to announce, in the official name of the Starry Sky Games platform, a list of all the classic IPs for which we have obtained remastering authorization to players across the internet."

"From God of War to Uncharted, from Red Alert to Age of Empires, from Heroes of Might and Magic to Homeworld, from Chinese Paladin to Meteor, Butterfly, Sword, we've played every card in our hands, leaving none untouched!"

"The second step is to launch a special page on the Starry Sky platform, which we'll call 'Hall of Stars' for now, and put all the information, original artwork, background stories, and even game reviews from back then on it."

"The third step is to open the voting channel! Let all players vote to decide the remake priority of these classic IPs! Which game remake do you most want to play first? Vote for whichever one you want to play."

Upon hearing this, Li Yifeng suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

He's no stranger to voting marketing; Azur Lane did it very well back then, and Azur Lane was just a ship girl IP at the time.

This time, it's a globally classic IP.
Besides, Chu Chen's move can be described as killing someone psychologically. What are Steam's advantages? A large number of games and a rich cultural heritage.

Instead of capitalizing on Steam's strengths, StarCraft is now taking a different approach, appealing to players' nostalgia.

"Mr. Chen, is this what you meant by 'I have what you don't'?"

Thinking of this, Li Yifeng immediately recalled what Chu Chen had once said.

This phrase is actually known to many people; to put it bluntly, it's about "differentiation." But how to differentiate yourself in a homogeneous market is something that not everyone can do.

(End of this chapter)