Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 68 Channels
The Hardcore Alliance implements business sharing, and Kawan Media can represent OPPO, vivo, Coolpad, Lenovo, Huawei, Meizu, Nubia, and Honor, a total of 8 mobile phone manufacturers, in negotiations.

Simply put, game developers used to need to communicate and cooperate with each mobile app store, but now they only need to contact Kawan.

Mobile phone manufacturers no longer need to spend energy maintaining a huge app market team.

Does this really seem like an organization that improves communication efficiency?
of course not.

Kawan Media isn't a charity. After unifying its channels, what they're going to do next is pretty obvious.

Helping game and software companies promote their products? The Hardcore Alliance has no interest in that.

However, the Hardcore Alliance is very interested in using promotion as a pretext to collect taxes.

Everyone says Apple's 30% cut is expensive, but the Hardcore Alliance takes a whopping 50% cut from distribution channels! If your app wants to appear in the app store, you have to "pay up."

Moreover, compared to Apple's egalitarian approach, the Hardcore Alliance can be described as "bullying the weak and fearing the strong." For large companies like NetEase and Tencent, they will negotiate a lower percentage separately.

However, they launched a heavy-handed attack on small and medium-sized manufacturers.

So what is a large factory and what is a small factory?
There is an interesting dividing line. For the hardcore alliance that is supported by several major mobile phone manufacturers, in short, apart from Tencent and NetEase.

The others are all small factories.
Even miHoYo, in its previous life, only obtained a 30% share after Genshin Impact became a huge hit. The game app could only be found by searching for Genshin Impact in the official app stores of various mobile phone manufacturers.

Moreover, mihayou is one of the few manufacturers that did not release it through channel services after it was launched.

Under this standard, what about the current state of StarCraft games?

Although it has a lot of influence in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) community, to a company like Hardcore Alliance that only looks at data, it's just a piece of leek that's long enough to be harvested by Hardcore Alliance.
Before "Final Frontline" became a hit, the other party hadn't even paid attention to Starry Sky Games.

Chu Chen knew that the other party was used to being domineering, so from the beginning, "Final Front" simply did not go through any official mobile app store channels.

Currently, there is only one Android download channel for Starry Sky.

It's distributed through the official website.

Although this method is less efficient in terms of dissemination, the promotion mechanism of "Final Front" is based on player splitting, so the download link of "Final Front" can be easily found by browsing Bilibili, QQ, or WeChat.

It's relatively easy to find.

Therefore, Chu Chen guessed that the other party's visit was probably about distribution channels.

Although I'm not a big fan of the Hardcore League.

But as the saying goes, you can't hit a smiling face, so Chu Chen still accepted the business card.

"Mr. Zhang, is there something you need?"

Seeing that Chu Chen's attitude was indifferent, Zhang Guangtai didn't care. He naturally withdrew his hand and took out another document from his briefcase, which was a bound cooperation agreement.

"Mr. Chen, you are young and promising. Starry Sky Games is on a roll lately."

Zhang Guangtai handed over the agreement.

"Our alliance has always welcomed new partners with potential. The Final Frontier has been very popular recently, but many users have reported that they can't find the app in the app store, which is very inconvenient."

"Some users have also reported that they keep downloading counterfeit apps, which has resulted in a high complaint rate on our end. I believe you have also received similar complaints."

"That's why I flew all the way from Beijing to talk to you about this, knowing that you were also going to attend this Android forum."

Zhang Guangtai's tone was very polite, but it was laced with barbs.

It's less of an introduction.

It's less a threat and more a blatant one, especially with the term "counterfeit app." That single word completely changes the tone of the statement. This is because the Android mobile game license system won't be implemented until July 1st of this year.

Therefore, the entire mobile game market is still in a state of chaos. As long as you want to launch a game, you can package an APK, find an app store, and your game can be launched.

Under such circumstances, it's natural that many "smart people" in this market will do "smart things."

Whatever game becomes popular, a swarm of imitations will appear. After "Final Front" became a hit, naturally, there were also imitations such as "Final Auto Chess," "Frontline Auto Chess," and some were even simply called "Final Front Battle."
These games, aside from their names, have virtually no connection to Final Frontline in terms of gameplay or even auto battler; they're just reskinned mobile games.
But these games can be launched online, and even appear openly in promotional slots on mobile platforms.

Behind this is naturally the push from the Hardcore Alliance.

Their purpose in doing so is very simple, just like how domestic low-quality web games like to use Jackie Chan and Nick Cheung as spokespeople.

First, they'll annoy you with pirated software. If you don't want these pirated games to drain your data and damage your reputation, that's easy too.

Just log in to our Hardcore Alliance.

Zhang Guangtai used this tactic with exceptional skill, especially against emerging manufacturers; it was almost always effective and never failed him.

really.

Although Chu Chen frowned slightly, he still accepted the cooperation agreement. Compared to formal contract documents, this agreement was relatively brief.

I casually flipped through it and glanced at it.

Chu Chen's gaze quickly settled on the most crucial point: the division ratio.

As expected, it's still the classic 50%.
However, since the other party came specifically to find me, this ratio is probably negotiable.

Although Chu Chen was very unhappy with the "hard alliance," he felt that if the other party could lower their prices a little, he could overcome the challenge of dealing with a channel that covered 70% of the mobile phone market.

For example, if the price drops to 30% to match Apple's, or even 40%, he could grit his teeth and accept it.

After all, some people do actually look for games by checking various charts in app stores, and mobile app ads are somewhat useful for promotion.

However, before Chu Chen could even open his mouth, he saw another clause.

If Starry Sky Games accepts the promotion of Hardcore Alliance, then all player accounts currently using Hardcore Alliance devices will need to be linked to the alliance.

What does that mean?

simply put.

In other words, after Starry Sky Games launched its app store, in addition to users who downloaded the app from major mobile app stores, users of these brands of mobile phones also need to bind their accounts.

In other words, the Hardcore Alliance not only wants to take advantage of new players, but it also wants to take advantage of existing players. It also wants to tax players who have already completed promotions for Starry Sky Games.

Good guy.

Upon seeing this, Chu Chen truly understood what it meant to want to laugh when you're speechless.

Clearly, the Hardcore Alliance didn't take Starry Sky Games seriously at all, treating them like a "pig" to be slaughtered. Given that, there was no need for him to continue negotiating with them.

“Mr. Zhang, I have felt the sincerity of the Hardcore Alliance.”

Chu Chen raised his head, his face expressionless.

"Mr. Chen, you're too kind. When making Android games in China, you can't bypass our alliance. After all, 70% of the market share is no small amount."

"Moreover, a 50% commission is already a relatively low tier, and we won't take this money for nothing; we'll exchange it for featured placements and traffic."

(End of this chapter)