Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 577 EPIC
Meanwhile, in the hotel conference room south of the Los Angeles Convention Center, where EPIC employees are staying.

Unlike the excitement and tension on the Star Alliance side, a more complex emotion permeated the air here.

Davis Miller, head of the EPIC Games Store, is excited because E3 is just around the corner, and EPIC can finally unleash its big surprise that it has been preparing for two months.

On the other hand, Davis is under considerable pressure because he is about to unleash a major move he has been holding back for two months.

This pressure is no less than that of Feng Yi.

He was going through his speech, word by word.

Davis is a typical Silicon Valley elite: energetic, always wearing jeans and a custom T-shirt, passionate during speeches, and adept at impressing boards with grand narratives and disruptive concepts.

It was he who, against all odds, approved the two core strategies of "one free game every week" and "10% commission for developers".

According to him, "it's like cutting butter with a hot knife." Once EPIC launches, this combination of moves will sweep through the PC game distribution market, which has been dominated by Steam for many years, like a storm.

Davis is confident in this, after all, he attracts users by using the gimmick of free games and attracts tens of thousands with extremely low commission rates. Fortnite from EPIC has become a huge hit in Europe and America.

With the fuse, barrel, and gunpowder all in place, there's no reason it shouldn't explode.

It was precisely because the plan looked so perfect on paper that Davis received a tremendous amount of applause every time he gave an internal roadshow.

Since last year, the entire EPIC team has been working to accelerate the EPIC launch timeline.

The fiercer the competition between StarCraft and Steam, the more panicked they become, rushing to release their own products to crush Steam and StarCraft and become the big boss themselves.

However, just when everyone at EPIC thought that as soon as it launched, EPCI could easily dominate the entire platform game market with its low commission rates, free games, and the three-pronged approach of playing Fortnite.

Reality, however, gave EPIC a resounding slap in the face.

Since its official launch in March, the EPIC platform has shown impressive user data.

Whenever a new free game is given away, the number of registered users experiences a sharp increase.

However, the other curve, namely the sales revenue of paid games, is almost a flat line, with occasional fluctuations that are negligible.

In other words, EPIC encountered the exact same problem as Tencent.

The gaming platform became a launchpad for Fortnite, boasting a significant number of daily active users. These users would claim free games, but they wouldn't actually buy them.

Many users log off immediately after claiming the free game, and then log back in a week later to claim the next free game.

Before its release, EPIC was brimming with confidence, even making bold claims such as it would rival Steam within a year. When making these claims, EPIC didn't even mention StarCraft.

However, after its release, EPIC immediately faltered.

This huge disparity has put Davis's position on the board in jeopardy.

The bigger the promises he made back then, the greater the pressure he faces now.

In order to keep his position, he could only attribute the failure to the fact that the platform was still in its early stages of development and that too few people knew about them.

"Our strategy is not wrong, we just lack a trigger point, a stage that allows players all over the world to see us," he defended at the last board meeting.

"E3, that's the stage." So, for EPIC, this E3 expo is not just an event, but the final gamble that will determine the fate of Davis Miller and even the entire EPIC Games Store.

To this end, Davis mobilized considerable resources, all to ensure that this time, the same mistake would not be repeated.

Just as Davis was looking at his manuscript, a voice interrupted his thoughts.

Davis

Davis looked up and saw an Asian man in a casual suit with a standard business smile walk in. He recognized him; it was Zhao Ming, the head of Tencent's XGAME platform.

To some extent, Chu Chen does indeed know Tencent very well.

After being rebuffed by StarCraft, Zhao Ming turned around and came to EPIC.

"Zhao, you're here. How did the talks go?"

Davis casually turned off the data on the screen and gestured for him to sit down on the sofa next to him.

Zhao Ming didn't stand on ceremony and sat down with a thud, casually picking up the bottled water on the table.

"Heh, what else can we do? Young people, they get a little success and then they don't know their place. But we still chatted for a while, and I felt that they were under a lot of pressure."

"After all, his approach might work in China, but in Los Angeles, facing the eyes of the whole world, he knows best whether his wealth is enough."

"You're right, he must have felt the pressure."

Davis continued Zhao Ming's words and then began to ask follow-up questions.

"So, what did he prepare to cope with this pressure? Their pre-show press conference was right in front of ours, which is crucial. Did you find out anything substantial? For example, which game is their main focus? What is their platform strategy?"

Hearing this, Zhao Ming's expression became somewhat subtle. He had barely exchanged a few words with Chu Chen, and had even been rebuked, leaving him quite angry. He had no idea about Xingchen's actual strategy.

And even if he knew, he wouldn't tell Davis.

Ultimately, the two aren't true allies. EPIC is under a lot of pressure right now, but does that mean Zhao Ming isn't under a lot of pressure? Both WAGEME in China and XGAME overseas are barely surviving.

In its previous role, WEGAME's niche in the domestic market was supporting small and medium-sized domestic game developers. This role has now been taken over by StarCraft, leaving WEGAME essentially as a large-scale online game launcher.
XGAEM fared even worse.

Therefore, Tencent Games attached great importance to this E3 exhibition. In order to boost morale, Leng Zefeng allocated a lot of resources, including the previously successful online game to single-player adaptation, Monster Hunter Arena.

Tencent also spun off the QQ Speed ​​team to launch a higher-quality racing single-player game called "Magic Racing," and had the Mill Studio start a spin-off single-player game based on "Naruto."

They even pulled in the team behind "Moonlight Blade" to create a game similar to "Floating Dream Song".

This approach of having its affiliated online game studios develop small single-player games is partly Tencent's response to StarCraft, and partly Tencent's own attempt to expand its core user base.

In addition to the domestic resources controlled by Tencent, Leng Zefeng even persuaded Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, to initiate several single-player games derived from League of Legends ahead of schedule.

These are the games "King of Ruin" and "Hextech Blitz," which will be released 21 years later. These two games will also be unveiled for the first time at Tencent's booth at this year's E3.

(End of this chapter)