Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 561 Open World

In addition, the once-disappeared "rational and objective" individuals have reappeared on various game forums and communities.

"Compared to this, isn't Starry Sky Games taking a 15% cut a bit too much? I used to think President Chen was amazing, but now it seems that all capitalists are the same."

"Don't be so harsh on Steam. Compared to Steam's 30%, 15% is already pretty good."

"How can that be the same? Steam is a foreign platform, and it's international practice for them to take 30%. StarCraft is our own company. President Chen has made so much money, what's wrong with giving back an extra 5% to the developers and providing some benefits to the players?"

"Exactly! That's too narrow-minded! Look at EPIC, they give away games right from the start, that's real generosity!"

A bizarre logic began to emerge: Steam taking a 30% cut is "international practice" and understandable.

EPIC taking a 10% cut is "industry conscience" and deserves praise.

Caught in the middle, Xingchen, which initially broke the channel monopoly with a 15% commission, has instead been labeled "unscrupulous capital."

The entry of two international giants has created an overwhelming sense of pressure, and what has made the entire industry even more uneasy are the two pieces of news from the official sources.

On March 20, the government abruptly suspended the issuance of all new game licenses in China without warning.

Logically, this news should be the biggest news in the industry. Although the official explanation is that it is a technical adjustment, a suspension is still a suspension. This kind of policy uncertainty is extremely fatal for game companies.

In fact, the suspension of game license issuance was indeed big news in the previous life, but in this timeline, this news was overshadowed by another piece of news from the official sources.

On March 20, another policy was quietly put into trial use: the "Administrative Measures for the Approval of Online Game Licenses in Overseas Markets," and the first batch of more than 3 "overseas game licenses" were also released at the same time.

There are actually many examples of "reviewing" domestic goods exported overseas.

For example, the "Notice on Regulating the Order of Automobile Exports" introduced in 2007 included an export license system for complete automobile products.

This kind of overseas review is essentially a national-level regulation to adjust the external competitiveness of a certain industry.

In the gaming industry, this would essentially grant officially recognized "legitimacy" to the overseas expansion competition between Tencent's X platform and Starry Sky Games platform.

For the stars, this "legitimacy" is certainly good news.

However, this is also good news for Tencent, AMD, and EPIC.

The reason is simple: without this policy, both Steam and EPIC operate in a gray area in China.

They exist, yet seem not to exist, as they could disappear at any moment with a single official document.

This uncertainty hanging over our heads is what all capital abhors most, but now, the state itself has stepped in and set the rules for "going global".

Although this road is nominally built for "domestic drivers", Starry Sky can apply for an overseas license, Wanmei can also apply, and Tencent can also help EPIC apply.

This is tantamount to the Chinese government implicitly acknowledging the existence of this market and accepting this competitive approach.

To use a somewhat inappropriate analogy, it's like Tesla entering the Chinese market.

Tesla poses a threat in China when it can only be purchased through import channels without official permission, but the threat is limited.

But once it was approved to build a factory in Shanghai, its nature completely changed.

It is no longer an "outsider," but a "competitor" incorporated into the same system.

It enjoys the benefits of policies and abides by the rules. It will force all domestic new energy vehicle companies to stand on the same stage and fight a real battle.

The same applies to the gaming industry today. The introduction of the "Administrative Measures for the Approval of Online Game Licenses in Overseas Markets" is like Tesla entering the Chinese gaming world.

This also shows that the government really trusts Xingchen, just like when Tesla was introduced, because the government believed that the domestic auto industry could compete with it.

The same applies to the gaming industry.

In other words, without Xingchen's achievements on a global scale over the past two years, the official authorities would never have mentioned this matter.

While a future-oriented perspective reveals that, regardless of whether China acknowledges it or not, the ultimate outcome is that overseas platforms like Steam and Epic Games will occupy a dominant position in the domestic ecosystem.
Regardless of how you look at it, this information did trigger a series of chain reactions.

The stock market reacted the fastest to this.

The stock price of Perfect World surged at the opening, and all the previous concerns about whether "Steam China" would be suppressed by the official authorities disappeared. The soaring stock price clearly shows the capital market's recognition of "Steam China".

Following closely behind, Tencent Holdings' stock price also rose all the way up, exceeding 3% at one point during the day. For a company of Tencent's size, this increase is quite remarkable.

As Tencent's stock price rose following the completion of the magnesium project, public opinion swung from one extreme to the other.

"The industry has reached a historic turning point! The entry of two giants into China and the adjustment of the game license policy mark the official start of the 'era of great overseas expansion'!"

"Wanmei World: With Steam in hand and the world's largest PC game content library at its disposal, its value urgently needs to be reassessed."

"Tencent Holdings: With EPIC's low revenue sharing strategy and brand appeal, it is expected to achieve a leapfrog development in the PC distribution field."

Just before the Lunar New Year, with the huge success of PUBG Mobile and the massive popularity of Final Zone during the Spring Festival, the market was booming.

The topics of discussion were still whether Starry Games could defeat Tencent in 2018, and whether Chu Chen could become the richest man in China.

Even though Steam and Epic Games have expressed their intention to enter the Chinese market in a report by JPMorgan Chase, without official "endorsement," most people believe that StarCraft can still dominate these foreign companies in China.

Now, on various social media platforms and gaming forums, there are increasing voices expressing concern about the stars.

"To be fair, President Chen is indeed very capable, but Xingchen's success benefited from the times. Now that times have changed, the real test has just begun."

"Those who were hyping up Xingchen before should take a break. The international giants haven't even started yet. Now that they're getting serious, it's hard to say who will win or lose."

Suddenly, a storm was brewing.

Even some companies within the Star Project sensed the crisis and began to worry about whether Star could survive this great battle.

However, while everyone was focused on this battle of giants, Dawei from miHoYo was staring blankly at the list of games that had passed the first batch of overseas license approvals.

Among a plethora of games, some media outlets have unearthed two new games from StarCraft.

Starcore: Reboot and its spin-off Starcore: Extinction.

For the vast majority of players and industry professionals, these are just two names. Even for Starry Sky, with the increasing number of studios, there are many projects that are approved and rejected every year.

If you said this was a domestic license, then it might be worth taking a look, but this is an overseas license, and two new names are hardly news.

However, David stared blankly at the two games for a long time.

Because after those two names, in the game type label, four words were clearly written.

Open world.

(End of this chapter)