Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 491 Cannot Be Replicated
On Weibo, a topic titled "#StarPlatformCanBeAbleToBeAgainForeigners#" rose to the top of the trending list at an inexplicable speed within just a few hours.

The content under this topic is bizarre and full of all sorts of absurd yet real amusement.

One player posted screenshots of their chat with European players using broken English and translation software, the conversation veerging from game tactics to "How much is a bottle of Coke where you are?"

A player recorded himself playing Red Alert, fighting the Japanese until they had only one base left, then stopping and repeatedly typing "Do you submit?" in the public chat.

Of course, there are also examples of "good neighborliness," such as a screenshot that is being wildly forwarded under the top trending topic on Weibo.

The game is Heroes of Might and Magic III, and the chat box shows a conversation between two players.

The user, whose ID started with "[CN]", first sent a tentative message: "Are you from Japan?"

Immediately afterward, a player displaying the Japanese flag (JP) typed "wrong" replied: "Yes."

After a brief silence, the Chinese player typed out a string of mysterious code.

“MIAA-087”

The other end responded with a new string of code almost without any hesitation.

“SSNI-487”

These headlines and events, so often exaggerated and difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, act like injections of stimulants, constantly arousing everyone who sees them.

Many players who hadn't originally planned to download these "old-fashioned" games...

I also decided to give it a try amidst the discussions with the streamers and those who were doing these kinds of antics.

At this point, the "barrier-free" experience brought by the Star Platform acts as a lubricant.

~~~
In Chu Chen's office, Li Yifeng, the operations manager of the Starry Sky Games platform, was excitedly reporting data.

"President Chu, from last night until now, the number of registrations on our platform has surged by 150% compared to before the event! Our daily active users have exceeded 20 million. If we only look at yesterday, we're only 10 million behind Steam!!!"

Chu Chen nodded, thinking to himself that StarCraft's influence overseas still needs time to build up, and even with such a large-scale event, it still couldn't beat Steam.

But then I thought again, I realized that I had gotten a little too carried away.

It's only been a few years. In 17, with the Chinese single-player game market so small, being able to compete with Steam was already beyond his own expectations.

Therefore, Chu Chen, unusually, did not "spoil the mood."

They chatted for a bit, following Li Yifeng's lead, and also talked about the upcoming New Year's Eve event and the server.

"The server held up! It's just... our customer service department is going crazy."

Li Yifeng's expression became somewhat strange when this was mentioned.

Although many screenshots on Weibo and Twitter are suspected of being "intentional".

In reality, Starry Sky did receive many complaint emails, such as a French and British pair of players arguing while using Google Translate.

Because of the censored words on Xingchen's website, I didn't get to vent my anger, so I filed a complaint against Xingchen.
These bizarre stories are so funny that just hearing about them makes you want to laugh.

"That's good. You can talk about it next time you're interviewed."

Overall, the atmosphere in Xingchen's office is relatively relaxed.

But as the saying goes, for every person who laughs, there's someone who can't.

~~~
Thousands of kilometers away, at Valford headquarters.

The coffee in front of Jason and Mark had gone cold. Even though the heating was on full blast, the two of them felt no warmth at all.

Since the launch of the classic game remastering event on StarCraft, it has been visibly noticeable that the number of active users on the entire Steam platform, across all regions, has been declining.

This situation is actually quite rare.

Because in 17, the global PC single-player market was actually in a period of growth. Steam's monthly active users increased from 17 million in 6700 to 25 million in 1.8.

In eight years, the data has tripled.

While the growth in the Chinese market and the opportune timing brought by masks certainly contributed to this, the overall natural growth of the market and the changes in the broader environment are also real factors.

This natural increase, even due to the stars, is more pronounced in China than in the previous life.

Therefore, even in August, when Starry Sky and Tencent's hedging marketing was at its most intense, this was still the case.

The overall user base of the Steam platform has only slowed down, rather than declined.

Including this time, if the heads of the three platforms were to gather together for a meeting, they would find that before Xingchen "dragged out this remastered version of the magic trick".

In fact, the number of users and active users on all three gaming platforms, including Tencent Games, are increasing.

In this situation.

By the third day, during the promotional event, Steam's data had dropped.

what does this mean?
This means that StarCraft's event not only took away new users from the market, but also a lot of old Steam users who skipped it; otherwise, Steam's data would not have dropped.

"Resetting a classic game can actually cause such a huge reaction?"

Mark rubbed his temples, his voice full of exhaustion and confusion.

"Why haven't we thought of this? No, why hasn't anyone in the entire industry considered it as a platform strategy?"

This isn't just a question Mark is asking.

At this very moment, almost everyone in the gaming industry and in gaming media is asking, why? Why Starfall? Why can a remastered event generate such a huge amount of energy?
Actually, this issue is not complicated. Just like before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, no one would have thought that civilian drones costing a few thousand US dollars could become core equipment that determines the course of the war.

The same applies to the war between gaming platforms.

In this timeline, although Steam is the leader, it has never experienced platform competition in the process of becoming the leader.

On the other hand, although Xingchen had not experienced platform competition, Chu Chen had. He had seen EPIC and how Tencent failed.

This is why Chu Chen did not choose to continue the price war, but instead used activities to attract new users while constantly looking for "exclusive" games to expand his game library.

The problem is, Chu Chen knows he can't beat Steam in a price war, so he resorts to many "unconventional" and "ingenious" tactics.

But others don't know.

As a result, every move Xingchen makes feels like being stabbed unexpectedly, and from a completely unimaginable place.

"Now is not the time to discuss how they came up with their ideas. What we need to discuss now is how to prepare our report for the boss tomorrow."

Ultimately, that's why the two of them are silently drinking coffee here today.

If you say that Xingchen has increased the discount this time, or used some kind of marketing gimmick, that's fine; the only question is whether to follow suit or not.

The problem is, this time Xingchen's project is impossible to keep up with, and that's what makes people feel most powerless and frustrated.

(End of this chapter)