Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 81 Making a Grand Vow
David suddenly remembered a newspaper he had seen before.

That was a newspaper article from the Suzhou-Hangzhou Metropolitan Daily featuring an interview with Starry Sky Games. Normally, interviews in such newspapers are mostly just casual remarks.

However, in the episode where Chu Chen was interviewed...

Chu Chen put forward a very interesting argument: that existing domestic game products can no longer meet the needs of players in the next few years.

If domestic manufacturers don't make changes, they will be eliminated just like smartphones eliminated feature phones.

He uses 2016 as a dividing line to divide the history of Chinese multiplayer games into two parts: the "prepaid card era" and the "free-to-play era."

Chu Chen proposed a visionary "era of incremental payment".

"Free-to-play online games have overturned the time card system by offering permanent free access plus in-app purchases."

“In this model, manufacturers create paid demand by stimulating PVP emotions, such as the siege of the city in Legend of Mir and the gambling-style enhancement system.”

“Every game has various exorbitantly priced items that can directly disrupt the game's balance.”

"Paying is winning is the prevailing sentiment at this time."

"At this point, the core profit logic of manufacturers is to create anxiety, such as combat power rankings, to drive RMB players to invest infinitely, and then let RMB players crush ordinary players, so that RMB players feel that their money is well spent."

"In this context, ordinary players are basically just tools for paying players to experience the game."

"The resources that ordinary players accumulate over time are worthless in front of RMB players, which is why I say that current free online games are actually free labor simulators."

"Essentially, if you don't spend money, then in the game you're just playing the role of a background character to highlight the players who spend real money."

To be honest, what Chu Chen said is already considered a consensus within the industry.

He wasn't the first person in the news industry to speak out.

However, since there has never been anyone of Chu Chen's "level" before, what level is Chu Chen at now?
He is at least a producer who has already "successfully" achieved success.

In the past, most successful game developers in China would avoid discussing these topics and would never talk about them in public.

Because you're saying these things, although you might gain the support of the players.

But in essence, this is smashing one's own rice bowl.

Even Feng Yi, who would later become famous, only started criticizing the chaos in the domestic game industry after leaving Tencent.

So why did Chu Chen bring these things up in public? The answer is because he introduced a new concept: "incremental payment."

to be frank.

The last time David read the newspaper, he threw it away right after getting to this point.

He felt that Chu Chen was being a bit too pretentious.

What is this about? Establishing a new school of thought?
So at that time, Dawei didn't continue watching, but then again, "Final Front" has been constantly making its presence felt over the past two weeks.

Moreover, it's a step-by-step process, seemingly leading to greater success with each step.

This reminded David of that newspaper.

David is, after all, the owner of Mihayou. When he needs something, he can find it very quickly. In just a few minutes, the report was found and projected onto the big screen.

The so-called "incremental payment"

In fact, it was Chu Chen's exploratory paid model.

In today's traditional games, the top 1% of wealthy players dominate, mid-level players are forced to "play along," and bottom-level players quickly leave due to frustration.

This is why, although traditional free-to-play online games have high ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), their user churn rate is generally over 60%, or even higher.

Some games may seem profitable, but in reality, they may only have a few thousand paying users.

In the early days, when player demand was low, this model could still operate because even the most ordinary players could have a lot of fun, even if they were just NPCs.

Simply put, even if they get wrecked by rich players in PvP, they still find it fun.

Sometimes, people are even misled by the game developers' marketing, thinking that since they've spent money, they should be tormented.

However, with the development of the times and the improvement of living standards and entertainment levels,

There are fewer and fewer players like this.

Without ordinary players, there's no point in whales spending money, so this model would gradually disappear even without the emergence of Stars.

The simplest example is the world of Jade Dynasty, which still dares to sell mounts for millions after 24 years.

Putting aside the game content, this kind of marketing might have been acceptable 10 years ago, but if the same approach is used in 24, players will immediately think that you are selling a mount for a million.

Everything else is irrelevant—the gameplay, the content, the monetization model—none of that matters.

Because at this point, the publicity and promotion chain comes to a complete halt.

~~~
Following the "free-to-play era," according to Chu Chen, games entered the "incremental monetization era."

The rise of anime-style games is a prime example of this.

Take "Warship Girls R" as an example.

Why did Warship Girls R become a phenomenon? Besides its anime-style aesthetic, its monetization model is also a very important reason.

In traditional games, players who pay nothing or very little may only experience 10% of the game experience.

However, in "Warship Girls R", players can enjoy at least 95% of the game experience with zero or low spending.

However, Chu Chen actually kept something to himself and didn't mention it in the news.

That is, this pure "incremental payment era," which is a model of low-cost experience of 95% of content, plus emotional payment, did not last long and failed to become the mainstream model.

This type of game, which allows for massive "building" using free resources, did not become widespread. Then...

Then, in 20, Genshin Impact appeared.

Many people believe that Genshin Impact's explosive popularity is due to riding the wave of the anime-style game era.

However, this statement is not entirely true. The rise of Genshin Impact is both a reflection of the rise of anime-style games and a consequence of the excessive "misdeeds" committed by traditional game developers.

In the mainstream market of 19, games that forced players to spend money were everywhere.

Don't play if you don't spend money; this is a real-life example, including miHoYo's own Honkai Impact 3.
In this market environment, miHoYo's Genshin Impact emerged out of nowhere, using constellations and high-priced characters to encourage heavy spenders to spend more money, while leaving mid-spending players with nothing to play.

This effectively reduces the exploitation of low-spending players.

In Genshin Impact, players can access most of the content except for speedrun PVE with a small amount of money.

This is why many traditional MMORPG players are drawn into it. Of course, in order to sell characters and exclusive weapons, some gameplay issues arise, such as making map exploration boring, which is another matter.

Furthermore, Genshin Impact happened to coincide with the mask-wearing season and the overall expansion of the number of Chinese players.

The combination of favorable timing, geographical advantage, and popular support ultimately led to an impressive but ultimately underwhelming base of support.

This "core foundation" has given miHoYo the capital to operate in a "high-end" manner, and has indeed allowed miHoYo to reach 25 years in a "constant rhythm".

Moreover, even after 25 years, Mihoyo still has the potential to turn its reputation around by releasing just one more blockbuster product.

But
Chu Chen didn't want to take this road.

reason?

It's actually quite simple: you can't defeat Mihoyo by following the same path as Mihoyo.

The current state of the Chinese gaming industry.

Just like when smartphones were about to replace feature phones, there was a huge trend in the market, and if you could handle it well, you could very well be the one to lead that trend.

Chu Chen had no problem with miHoYo, but he wasn't blindly optimistic about success. Many things aren't necessarily right just because they're successful; otherwise, the games made by Tencent and EA would be the best games in the world.
Starting with Genshin Impact, miHoYo has always focused on content.

This is why miHoYo has never added a skip button, because content is the lifeblood of miHoYo.

At the same time, this is also the reason why miHoYo keeps its pace. After all, no matter how good an online novel is, when its word count reaches tens of millions, or even twenty million, it will eventually fall apart.
There must be some tedious and boring content in it.

Furthermore, if insufficient attention is paid to content, and management goes wrong, causing problems with the vital content, then it could lead to a major crisis.

This isn't something that any one person can change, but rather something that will inevitably happen in content-centric games.

This is true for Genshin Impact, and it is also true for Naruto.
Praising a good storyline and criticizing a bad one is something online novel authors are used to, but game creators don't seem to be used to it.

This debuff is then subjected to "cold treatment".

Rhythm is naturally unavoidable.

Of course, Chu Chen didn't think that Mihayou's path was wrong, but rather that when everyone was taking this path, it became a dead end.

So 24 years later, including some older works such as Arknights, and some newer works such as Alien Ring, Infinite, End of the World, Blue Starfield, and Silver City, they are all exploring another path.

It is a model that combines "gameplay + content + anime/manga elements".

The same model applies to games like "Final Frontline": gameplay secures the core player base, content enhances the emotional value for players, and then monetizes based on that emotional value.

Although this path seems idealistic, then again, if it weren't idealistic, Chu Chen wouldn't bother taking it.
After all, the wider the reach of anime-style games, the more StarCraft, as a leading company, can benefit from them. Just like Tencent certainly hopes that as many people as possible will play games.

Chu Chen's current hope is that more and more players will "only play good games".

In addition, the future Tap platform will also need incremental growth.

Therefore, he proposed his own paid model, "incremental payment," in the newspaper, and Chu Chen used many examples to illustrate this model.

But in the end, it all boils down to one formula.

"Fun gameplay + excellent storyline + paid content (maximum 10%) + emotionally engaging monetization through game characters"

However, Chu Chen, who made those grand pronouncements in the newspaper, probably didn't expect...
Mihoyo will pull this report over for a closer look.
After reading it, David didn't offer any comment, but simply asked others to give their opinions.

"What do you think?"

The operations team spoke first as usual.

"I don't know if Xingchen can keep going, but at least for now, their formula and emotional payment system are indeed having some effect."

David waved.

“That’s not what I meant. What I meant was, if StarCraft insists on this approach, do you think it can bring any changes to the existing market?”

"."

These words were so grand that the conference room fell completely silent for a moment.

The idea of ​​changing the entire market with a single game sounds like a pipe dream.

But before Xingchen fails, who dares to say that this dream is definitely just a dream?
Moreover, regardless of other factors, the pricing system of "Final Frontier," currently the leading anime-style game, has indeed had a certain impact on the entire industry.

So, this question seems to have an answer, yet it also seems to have no answer.

After a long while, Dawei himself sighed.

"I remember we prepared a Plan B during the planning and operation phase. Let's discuss it again."

"Also, could you please check if Xingchen will participate in the CNJOY summit forum this year?"

(End of this chapter)