Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 538 Xiao Yi Must Strive
Beijing, the headquarters building of the World Magnesium Corporation.

If Valve felt the "chill" of the future, the "threat" from the stars, then Wanmei felt a "harsh winter" that had already seeped into her bones.

As the newly appointed CEO of Wanmei, Xiao Yi frowned deeply as he looked at last year's financial report.

Throughout 2017, most traditional Chinese game companies, apart from NetEase and Tencent, did not fare well, with Wanmei performing particularly poorly.

The data is terrible, extremely terrible.

In the PC game market, apart from the licensed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CO:GO) which has shown some improvement, almost all other PC games are declining.

The mobile game market is a bloodbath. Their heavily invested "Zhu Xian Auto Chess" is already outdated before it even launches. Products like "Zhu Xian Mobile", "Final Fantasy: Awakening", and "Torchlight" are also outdated due to their product positioning.

Basically, it was just a flash of light, and then it was defeated by those phenomenal masterpieces from Starry Sky, without even making a splash.

This is actually quite scary.

What's scary isn't that these games failed; in fact, from a profitability perspective, even in 17, many of Wanmei's games were still profitable.

What's truly terrifying is that the path dependence that Wanmei has maintained for the past decade or so has been broken.

What was the past pattern of Wanmei?
IP adaptation + traffic monetization.

This is a model that has been proven countless times over the past decade and can be described as a "money-printing machine".

Find a big IP, such as a PC game, a novel, or an anime, then reskin it and turn it into a mobile game or web game. Then, attract users through paid advertising or channel promotion, and finally monetize the traffic using a mature numerical payment system.

This model is used by Wanmei to perfection.

But now, this model is no longer working, and it's not that the printing press is broken, but that nobody is using the printed banknotes.

To some extent, this is a dimensional reduction involution initiated by Xingchen. It can be said that Xingchen, on its own, has made all Chinese manufacturers "travel" to ten years later, or even twenty years later.

Games like "Final Battlefront," "Fate/Grand Order," and "PUBG" are available for 9.9 yuan on StarTap, along with a large number of domestic and overseas single-player games.

Players' tastes have been rapidly elevated, and those old tricks of reskinning and buying traffic are like rusty gears, no matter how they turn, they can't generate any power.

The effect is that the entire magnesium alloy is like a giant ship that is slowly sinking.

What gave Xiao Yi even more of a headache was that Wanmei was facing not only problems with its game products, but also bigger internal problems, such as inefficient communication and execution, a talent gap, flawed governance structure, unclear responsibilities, and ineffective supervision.

Some studios that have been developing for years without producing any results are allowed to continue developing simply because these studios "once" succeeded.

For example, the project "Zhu Xian World" was launched in 2012, but several years have passed and it still doesn't even have a framework.

Its efficiency is so low that it is probably only slightly better than the high-speed rail projects in the UK and the US. Some of the "veterans" in the project team, who clearly have no idea what kind of games the current game market needs, are still in high positions because of their seniority.

All of this is like boiling a frog in lukewarm water.

While Wanmei was still profitable, it seemed that it could still manage to get by until 23 or 24, when the entire company began to suffer significant losses.

They were only just realized what was happening when they laid off 40% of their employees in an attempt to save themselves.

Unfortunately, it's too late.

If it weren't for her good fortune in finding a studio behind "Tower of Fantasy," Wanmei would basically be out of the spotlight. And for Wanmei right now...

The bad news is that with the emergence of StarCraft, the market is changing faster, and Wanmei is facing a more direct crisis. Moreover, Wanmei has gained nothing from its acquisition of ACG game companies.

After all, if you can get investment from Star Capital, why would you need your stinking magnesium money?

The good news is that because the market changes so quickly, Wanmei's boss was caught off guard and thus relaxed his authorization to Xiao Yi a lot.

Xiao Yi is actually quite capable. He joined Perfect World in 2008 and became a director and general manager in August 2017. In his previous life, 2018, he acquired Black Gold Studio under Suzhou Snail Digital, which later became Tower of Fantasy Studio.

His continued collaboration with Valve demonstrates that he has a certain foresight regarding the future of the market.

However, the problem of magnesium deficiency is an issue that has accumulated over more than a decade, and solving it is not so simple.

Putting everything else aside, just look at the group of executives in this conference room. Everyone has a serious expression on their face, but Xiao Yi himself knows very well that some of them are not really thinking about the meeting.

Their minds were already on vacation, on year-end bonuses.
"The financial report looks bad, the new projects aren't making a splash, and we're almost out of money. Now there's an opportunity right in front of us, but nobody even has the interest to discuss it?"

Saying that in this context is a bit too harsh.

Soon enough, someone objected.

"It's not that we don't want to discuss it. It's just... this matter needs to be handled carefully."

The speaker was Li Weiguo, the vice president in charge of self-developed business. Li Weiguo was in his early fifties and was a veteran who had followed Wanmei through thick and thin.

He is also the head of the "Zhu Xian World" studio.

He was already dissatisfied with Xiao Yi, and upon hearing this, he frowned even more.

"Steam has a great reputation, but we don't know what they're really up to this time."

"Besides, even if we cooperate, what then? The domestic game platform market is now dominated by Tencent and StarCraft. Tencent has QQ and WeChat, while StarCraft has content and distribution channels. StarCraft's Tap, Bilibili, and Titok are all developing very rapidly."

Before Li Weiguo could even speak, someone immediately echoed his sentiments.

"Yes, Mr. Li is right. It's too late for us to start building a platform now."

"Furthermore, Mr. Xiao, we can't just look at the benefits and ignore the risks."

The CFO also spoke up.

"Partnering with Valve, building the platform, localizing operations, server costs, promotion expenses... this investment is absolutely astronomical. Our financial report this year is already quite bad, and starting such a large new project, what if it fails..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone present understood.

Soon, dissenting voices rose and fell in the meeting room, forming a disheartening chorus.

Looking at the room full of complaints, Xiao Yi really had a headache. Even though he had just taken office this year, he still felt a sense of powerlessness that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

However, at this time, he was still a "newly appointed official" and still had some spirit.

(End of this chapter)