Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 515 Changes Brought by the Stars

The layman looks at the excitement and the insider looks at the doorway.

There are no laymen among those present.

They know better than anyone what these three numbers mean.

These figures may be inflated, but even after removing the inflated ones, the number is still quite exaggerated.

Why does Tencent have an unparalleled dominance in the domestic game market? Because it controls two huge traffic portals, QQ and WeChat, and can drive users to any of its new games at the lowest cost.

Meanwhile, Starry Sky Games is replicating, and even doing something more ruthless than Tencent in the global market.

Because Tencent's game users are general users, but the users on the Starry Sky platform are core users.

This point has already been proven in the promotion of "PUBG Mobile" after the "Night of the Stars" event, regardless of the IP of "PUBG Mobile" itself.

In reality, this is a super phenomenon that topped the global download and bestseller charts by relying solely on the single promotional channel of "Starry Night" and releasing it a day in advance.

This means that the marketing costs of Starry Sky are being spread out infinitely.

In the future, any new game from StarCraft, as long as it is of high quality, will not even need to invest too much in marketing and distribution through external channels.

Relying solely on platform-wide push notifications and word-of-mouth among players, it can easily achieve a level of success that many games, even with huge investments, cannot reach at the outset.

Its starting point is someone else's finish line.

Chu Chen's speech on stage was merely a way of using numbers to reaffirm this point and reinforce the audience's intentions.

Ma Huateng's hand, still holding the teacup, never let go.

The tea in the cup had lost its temperature, just like his mood at that moment.

Although Leng Zefeng had repeatedly emphasized at board meetings that Xingchen would be a challenge for them in the future, this perception was still somewhat veiled.

Coupled with Titok's attacks, he hadn't really thought carefully about the threat that Star Strike posed to Tencent.

Looking at it now, it feels like entering a haunted house. You thought the ghosts were far away, but when you turned around, they were already right next to you.

"President Chu... has really taught us a lesson."

Ding Lei was also muttering to himself.

If we're talking about subtle feelings, he was actually the one with the most subtle feelings, especially after failing in "Knives Out," he had already realized it.

At this moment, Wang Yi is like a warrior shouting that he wants to slay a dragon. Although he shouts loudly, when the real warrior with a sword appears...

My feelings are actually quite subtle.

After all, the one who looked like he was about to slay the dragon wasn't himself.

The entire venue was filled with a peculiar atmosphere because of these three sets of data.

The bigwigs in the front row, including the bosses of traditional giants like Wanmei and Xishanju, had different thoughts and solemn expressions, while the representatives of small and medium-sized manufacturers and developers in the back row applauded enthusiastically.

This actually represents two opposing forces in contemporary China.

These are the "old guard" game developers and the "emerging" developers represented by StarCraft.

So after Chu Chen's sharing, the manufacturers who were already on the Starship naturally applauded their "leading brother," and the big shots in the front row who heard the applause were also applauded.

Their feelings were even more complicated, including those of Mihayou's Dawei. His position wasn't at the very front, but it wasn't far back either; he belonged to the front row of the second tier. This position was delicate, much like Mihayou's current predicament.

As one of the earliest manufacturers to join the Starry Sky Tap platform, miHoYo can be considered a veteran of the "Starry Sky" ecosystem.

With the support of the Starship, their Honkai Impact 3rd has gained a foothold in the domestic market and even achieved good results overseas.

But today, when Chu Chen stood on the stage and casually tossed out those astronomical figures, Brother Dawei felt a strange, indescribable feeling welling up inside him.

"It's okay, everything will be different once the new game is released."

If we were to pinpoint the biggest change that StarCraft has brought to the domestic gaming industry, it would be the increasing number of people who "believe in the product."

This sounds like a pointless statement: if game developers don't believe in the product, then what do they believe in?
However, the reality is that for a long time, China's game industry did not believe in the products themselves.

Whether a game becomes a hit depends less on its quality and more on its data model, monetization strategy, and most importantly, whether distribution channels are willing to provide it with traffic.

In the era when "distribution channels were king," a game had to "kowtow" to distribution channels before it could be launched.

Revenue splitting is typically 30/70, while a 50/50 split is considered a benevolent move by the distribution channels.

If a game fails to meet performance targets in terms of first-day retention and conversion rates after its launch, the distribution channels will immediately cut off traffic, effectively killing the game.

Whether the game itself is fun or not, and whether players like it or not, is not important.

The important thing is that the channels like it.

This model has spawned countless reskinned, plagiarized, and pay-to-win games, and has also disheartened countless developers with genuine ideas.

The entire industry is caught in a vicious cycle: everyone is criticizing it, yet everyone is still doing it. Because if they don't do it, they won't have any food to eat.

This trend only emerged in the past with the rise of anime-style games, and then with Steam, a channel not controlled by domestic capital, becoming mainstream.

Only then did a fundamental change occur, but on this timeline, the appearance of stars accelerated this change significantly.

The success of StarCraft proves that players are willing to pay for good games.

Secondly, Starry Sky's distribution channels allow people who can make good games to focus on making games wholeheartedly. From this point of view alone, Dawei actually admires Chu Chen very much.

After all, ever since Starry Night Games became popular.

Within miHoYo, almost all discussions revolve around the Genshin Impact project itself, with almost no one discussing the game's marketing and promotion.

This is a typical example of changes brought about by the stars.

Although Dawei felt that it was somewhat inappropriate to completely hand over the publicity and distribution to Xingchen, he did hope that Xingchen could take the lead and expand the channel before creating a truly blockbuster product.

Chu Chen finished his speech amidst thunderous applause, and after he finished speaking, the entire meeting was almost devoid of any further highlights.

There was even an appearance where Ma Huateng shared Tencent's globalization strategy on stage.

The scene below, with reporters frantically typing away on their laptops, could be interpreted as them typing up Tencent news, but what these media outlets were actually typing was all the data Chu Chen had just disclosed.

no way.

As a private company, to be honest, it's actually quite difficult for the media to obtain accurate data.

This time, Xingchen truly showcased itself, and the data, whether released directly or used as the basis for analysis, is extremely valuable.

(End of this chapter)