Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 76 Such Negotiations
Anyone can see the potential of Starry Night Games.

This potential stems not only from the success of "Final Front" but also from Chu Chen himself.

"This is a marketing genius!"

This statement basically encapsulates the most profound impression that the capital market has of Chu Chen at present.

Looking at the entire gaming industry, most game developers are people who just bury themselves in making games, and these are the kind of people that are easy to deal with in the eyes of capital.

Many people would be satisfied if they were given some money to make their own games.

Therefore, it's easy to negotiate with such people, whether it's about profit sharing or acquisition.

But Chu Chen is different.

If the split marketing strategy used in the open beta of Final Frontline a few months ago could be called "luck," then...

So, it has been exactly 12 days since the open beta of "Final Front" began on May 5th.

The discussion surrounding the title "Final Front" on the internet has never stopped.

What is this concept?
It's no exaggeration to say that even Tencent, at its current level, would find it difficult to achieve this. Yes, Tencent can indeed launch a game nationwide within a single day.

But that's all it takes to launch the game. Tencent's operations team has no control over the game's reputation or how long the buzz surrounding it will last.

Thinking back on it this way.

Naturally, they would feel fear towards everything Chu Chen had done.

It is fear, and not any other emotion.

It's because you can clearly sense from the nodes where the stars release these things that they are intentionally generating buzz. With a little calculation, you can see that.

The other party releases something new approximately every 3 days.

Version 1.0 update, story animation, voice actor spin-off programs, season gameplay updates for the Japanese server launch, Korean marketing events, and now dynamic wallpapers and wallpaper rendering contests.

Anyone can do a similar marketing plan.

But who can ensure that every single marketing moment in this process generates a response?
You could certainly say that the quality, reputation, and gameplay of "Final Battlefront" itself laid the foundation for these marketing efforts, but success is what makes it successful.

It's because of the final result.

Whether it's luck or something else, someone who can achieve this level is definitely not an ordinary person.

As a result, Tencent's internal rating of Starry Sky has been rising again and again, and its internal valuation has increased from the initial 2 million to the current level after the Starry Sky wallpaper became a hit.

This valuation has reached an outrageous 80 billion...
It's worth noting that at that time, Starry Night Games' monthly revenue was only a little over 1 million. According to the usual multiplier at that time, the normal valuation should have been 50 billion. However, Tencent's internal valuation was doubled.

Moreover, this is only within Li Xuan's authority; if Chu Chen is truly willing to negotiate, this number could very well be even higher.

This number alone is enough to show Tencent's high regard for StarCraft.

In such an environment.

Xiang Lixuan is the only one in the entire Tencent system who has a connection with Xingchen and a good relationship with him.

Naturally, it also received considerable attention from within Tencent.

This emphasis has translated into increased resource allocation towards Xianglixuan within the group.

However, Xiang Lixuan is also well aware that the resources Tencent Group is currently giving him, as well as the power he has gained, are only temporary.

If he cannot translate this familiarity with the stars into investment.

What he has now will, in turn, become a burden.

Therefore, more than ever before, he is eager to collaborate with Xingchen and achieve a breakthrough.

This urgency is evident in reality.

Chu Chen had just sat down and his assistant had just poured the tea when he couldn't wait to speak.

"By the way, Mr. Chen, you mentioned that live wallpaper app on the phone yesterday. Are you planning to set up a subsidiary to operate it independently? Is that true?"

"Oh, that's true. The wallpaper app is just too popular; with so many users, management has become a problem."

"Haha, this is truly a happy problem,"

After giving a few awkward laughs, Xiang Lixuan abruptly changed the subject.

"Has Mr. Chen considered accepting investment for this subsidiary...?"

Chu Chen was stunned for a moment, and he was truly stunned.

Although he came with this purpose in mind, this is too fast!
"Brother Xuan, I don't plan to make money from this wallpaper software. Even if Tencent invests in it for ten or twenty percent, it won't make any difference."

Chu Chen needs to don Tencent's coattails, but how exactly to do so is different, since he needs more than just Tencent's investment; he also needs Tencent's traffic commitment.

Before he arrived, he had already prepared his lines, using a strategy of retreat as a means of advancing.

I just didn't expect the other person to seem even more anxious than I was.
However, this situation is not hard to understand. Although Star Wallpaper has just emerged, it is already quite popular.

In addition, for investors, what kind of capital is the most reassuring to invest in?

The real target audience isn't newcomers who can articulate their business plans beautifully, but rather those who have already achieved success.

Investing is about investing in people.

When others make live wallpapers, Xiang Lixuan doesn't even glance at them, but when Chu Chen makes live wallpapers, he absolutely has to look at them.

And the facts have proven that Chu Chen is indeed capable.

From offering free skins with downloads of "Final Battlefront" to a rendering contest, this wallpaper app has become more popular on the internet than anyone imagined in just a few days.

Therefore, almost the instant Chu Chen finished speaking, Xiang Lixuan became anxious.

"It's good that we don't make money, it's great that we don't make money."

"Back then, Bilibili also suffered losses all the way, but did that stop its market value from increasing dozens or hundreds of times? Did that stop it from becoming a trendy community where young people gather?"

"Users! Traffic! Ecosystem!"

"This is the true path to success in the internet age! As long as your live wallpaper can attract a massive number of users and create a unique user stickiness and community atmosphere, it will be an inexhaustible gold mine!"

As for making money?

"Once we've built up a large user base and established user habits, then it's up to us to make money however we want! Advertising, value-added services, paid content... there are so many models!"

Chu Chen listened quietly, and of course he understood everything Xiang Lixuan was saying.

However, his understanding of "not making money" and Xiang Lixuan's understanding of "not making money" are probably worlds apart.

However, he did not explain these things.

Seeing that Chu Chen remained silent, Xiang Lixuan felt inexplicably uneasy, mainly because Chu Chen had never been interested in Tencent's investment.

This "aloofness" caused Xiang Lixuan to completely lose his professional judgment from the very beginning, and he couldn't even do the most basic thing like inferring someone's intentions from their expression.

Therefore, even though the negotiations had just begun, Xiang Lixuan kept increasing his demands.

"Mr. Chen, I understand that you're worried about us influencing your decisions when making games. We can gradually build trust through our long-term understanding."

"But we really can't wait for the live wallpaper thing."

"We at Tencent have considerable experience in this area. Your creativity, your product, plus Tencent's promotion."

"It's not impossible for us to make Star Wallpaper the number one in China, or even the number one in the world."

Chu Chen listened for a while, then rested his chin on his hand.

"Is Tencent willing to help me promote my stream?"

"Of course, not only the software, but also that rendering competition, we can promote those too..." Chu Chen nodded.

It seems that Xiang Lixuan is even more anxious than he imagined, so perhaps this tiger skin could be even thicker.
"I roughly understand what Brother Xuan means."

"How about we wait a few more days?"

"Don't wait a few more days, let's do it today."

"today?"

Xiang Lixuan nodded.

"Yes, today, Mr. Chen. We can discuss any price you're willing to name."

Upon hearing this, Chu Chen suddenly thought of a few months ago.

In the conference room of Starry Sky Games, when discussing investment, Xiang Lixuan was much more aggressive, asking for 50% of the shares.

Now, without realizing it, it has become Chu Chen setting the price.

You know what, it's actually quite interesting.

~~~
With things having progressed to this point, the subsequent negotiations were essentially effortless for Chu Chen. After discussing the initial intentions, Chu Chen did not rush to leave Tencent.

Instead, they easily found their way to the sixteenth floor of the Tencent Shanghai Building.

There's another big fish waiting for him to catch.

Tencent Blue War Studio.

As Tencent's only self-built and self-operated ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) studio.

The Blue War Studio has a rich history. Since its inception in 14, Tencent has placed high hopes on this studio.

As the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) market becomes increasingly popular, this studio wields immense power within Tencent, getting whatever it wants, and its staff has grown from dozens to over a hundred people.

Furthermore, because the engine did not use a common engine, but rather a foreign open-source engine, the project also involved an engine team of more than 30 people, who adjusted the engine to adapt it for rendering anime-style games.

The production team also made a bold claim.

They just hype up the players, saying things like all the characters are fully 3D modeled, there's a separate dormitory system, and so on, and that there's an interactive character experience.

However, as time went on, 16 years passed.

With the first test of Blue Warfare and the release of the data feedback from that test, Blue Warfare suddenly went from being highly sought after to being on the "edge of a cliff."

As a successor.

Chu Chen knew clearly that this project would ultimately end with Bao Si.

Moreover, Bao Si was in a corner where no one was paying attention.

The reason for using Bao Si was unavoidable from the very beginning of the project, because it was a two-dimensional game made by following Tencent's thinking.

In terms of gameplay, it's basically a 1:1 tribute to the arcade mode of Kantai Collection, except that the ship girls have been replaced with mecha girls.

The game uses the same payment model as the one where resources are replenished over time and there is a gambling ship.

It was precisely because of this payment model that its data was very poor under Tencent's standards. In addition, there were already too many similar games at this time, and players were already tired of them.

Tencent has a weak appeal in the ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) field. Many people laugh when they see Tencent + ACG, and core ACG users simply don't bother to click on this "crippled" game.

In addition, after the game's first test launch, various issues such as lag and bugs caused by 3D resulted in revenue falling short of expectations.

Ultimately, after the first test, the entire project was cut short, unlike the previous Blue Wars team which continued to work on it for a while.

It wasn't until the second, desperate test failed in June.

The entire team was completely disbanded.

From a broader perspective, whether it's the failure of the first test or the potential cancellation of the project and disbandment of the team, it's undoubtedly bad news for the "Azure Wars" project team.

But for Chu Chen...

This is good news, though. For Chu Chen, "Azure War" is a treasure trove of talent and a goldmine.

Tencent is currently the leading company in China. Regardless of how bad the games they make are, they are incredibly good at attracting talent.

The poor performance of Tencent Games is largely due to the management's excessive pursuit of KPIs and their reliance on established market models. Under the inertia of making money through traffic, Tencent "needs" and "cannot" create what players expect.

Countless people who left Tencent Games have transformed into industry leaders, which is enough to prove that people who aren't from Tencent Games are incompetent.

Traffic made Tencent successful, but it also hindered Tencent.

The same goes for "Azure Wars". Its art, modeling, and programming are among the best in the country's current ACG game development teams.

When such a studio is dissolved, there will inevitably be a large outflow of talent.

Don't be fooled by Tencent's claim of having an internal "fresh blood" mechanism, where employees can freely apply for vacant positions. You need a team of hundreds of people like the one in "Blue Wars".

Tencent does not have a second ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) project.

When the group actually disbanded, most of its members were recruited by other domestic anime-style game development teams.

Therefore, in this world line.

When Chu Chen first came to the Tencent building and discovered this studio, he set his sights on the people inside.

Chu Chen set his sights on this team because they were among the first in China to attempt and actually create 3D anime-style games.

In the eyes of many people.

3D anime rendering is a very simple thing, but if you turn the clock back to 2016, you will find that, apart from miHoYo's "Honkai Impact 3" and NetEase's "Onmyoji", there are many other examples.

It's almost impossible to find a third large-scale 3D anime-style game.

Even Chu Chen himself had no such experience.

This means that if StarCraft wants to build its own 3D development team after the 2D project "Final Front".

He would need to start from scratch.

Reality isn't a game where a single command can summon a whole team. In the real world, money is merely a necessary condition for leading a team.

People are the core of a team.

Chu Chen had seen too many projects where people spent money to ruin their teams, but ultimately, instead of increasing production capacity, they collapsed.

Especially in 3D projects, due to their unique nature, a single project can require hundreds of people, and projects like Honkai Impact 3 and Genshin Impact can require even more.

When the team size reaches this level.

The overall quality of the team members becomes very important. In the current Starry Sky Games, Chu Chen can work like a teacher, managing the work of twenty or thirty people on his own.

Let's all make progress and learn together.

But when the number reached over a hundred, Chu Chen found himself overwhelmed.

If Chu Chen continues doing this when the number reaches several hundred, he can basically buy a burial plot for himself ahead of time.

at this time.

Then look at "Blue Wars," a studio that has been paid by Tencent for two years and will definitely disband in the future. It's incredibly appealing.

Not to mention that the team uses an open-source engine, and therefore has a separate engine studio.
without any exaggeration.

It was because Chu Chen saw this studio that he was able to build a good relationship with Xiang Lixuan back then.

My repeated visits to Tencent, ostensibly to learn advanced management experience, were also for this purpose.
(End of this chapter)