Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 93 also includes an Eastern one.

Not only on Twitter, but also on Yahoo! Japan that day, the search volume for "FGO developer" surged into the top three most searched terms.

Some well-known voice actors who are loyal players of FGO have also joined in.

For example, Nobunaga Shimazaki.

This well-known heavy spender of FGO directly expressed his gratitude to "Starry Night Games" on Twitter, followed by a crying emoji.

"Wait a minute, thirty stones... and a new storyline for Mushroom Teacher?! Is this... is this a dream?! Hoshino-san, arigato!!!"

In addition, some voice actors who don't play games much but have had in-depth collaborations with FGO also quickly pledged their loyalty to their "new employer".

For example, Aoi Yuuki posted one as well.

"Eh!? Mushroom-sensei's new storyline, I can't wait! Star Game! Fight!!"

These voice actors' posts undoubtedly added fuel to the fire.

The players' enthusiasm quickly created a chain reaction; wherever there was traffic, there was media.

While traditional Japanese media were slow to react, gaming bloggers on the Japanese internet reacted very quickly.

As soon as the announcement was released, they began searching for more information.

For example, what is Yaoyue Studio?

This wasn't hard to find; the group quickly located the introduction of Yaoyue Studio on the official Japanese website of Starry Night Games.

The studio is headed by Yosuke Shiokawa, and some of its members come from the original FGO development team. According to the official recruitment announcement, the studio is currently hiring a large number of people.

They are not only recruiting game developers, but also animators.

After this information was unearthed, even more related information appeared on the Japanese internet.

For players, the worst thing is for the development team to give up.

In the past, DEWORK was in a state of disarray. It made money but didn't improve the servers. The scripts were boring, and there was no way to fix them. It was just one boring script after another.

Someone who didn't know better might think it was some kind of "hypnosis app".

Now that Starry Night Games has launched, although they haven't announced the specific optimization plans yet, just looking at their excellent recruitment posters, you can tell that the development team has a passion for gaming.

This recruitment poster contains many references to FATE.

Some job descriptions even use FATE Command Seals class symbols as separators; for example, the Server Architect is preceded by a (Caster) Magician symbol.

These small details, although completely unrelated to the game.

But when players see or know this news, they will be affected by these details. If someone else publishes these details...

This creates the feeling that the new studio understands FATE.

What pushed this hot topic to its peak was a tweet from Kinoko Nasu the following evening, which consisted of only a photo of him at work and a short message.

"Stop asking, I'm really writing it."

Then he added a crying-laughing emoji.

Clearly, after DEW and Starry Sky Games released their announcements, Kinoko Nasu was subjected to an exaggerated media bombardment.

However, although the mushroom was "miserable"

But this incident was met with applause from countless players.

~~~
Just as Nasu Kinoko was frantically writing copy, and amidst the uproar, Chu Chen, who had been "stuck" in Japan for a week, finally boarded a plane to return to Shanghai.

The plane took off from Narita Airport, and the flight time was nearly three and a half hours.

A few days ago, when Chu Chen flew from Shanghai to Tokyo, his mind was full of calculations. Three and a half hours later, before he had even figured things out, he had already gotten off the plane.

When Chu Chen returned to Shanghai, he was incredibly relaxed.

This trip to Japan was very fruitful for Xingchen. Before leaving, Xingchen even obtained the license for Touhou Gensokyo.

This is actually another counterintuitive thing.

In many people's minds, Touhou Gensokyo is completely uncommercialized.

However, the reality is not like that. Although ZUN "does not support" commercialization, RUW, which is responsible for operating the commercialization of the entire Touhou Gensokyo, is very supportive of commercialization.

Especially after FGO was launched and made money in 15, they were even somewhat eager, and in 16 they licensed it to Aniple to create their first officially licensed mobile game.

That is, "Eastern Cannonball"

This game is completely unknown because it was exceptionally short-lived.

16年立项一直拖到19年才上线，2020年10月游戏就停止运营，仅存活12个月零14天。

After that, Touhou licensed several games, but most of them were barely alive. For example, the falling music rhythm game Touhou Danmaku Kagura was launched in 21 and shut down in 22, with a total lifespan of 14 months.

There's also *The Record of the Return of the Eastern Gods* and *Eastern Dungeon Dive*.

Compared to Fate/Grand Order (FGO), the commercialized mobile games of Touhou Project are all in dire straits.

It's fair to say that Touhou has never been anything but commercialized; it's just that their eye for talent is terrible. They're all guys who only think about making money off their IPs and have no intention of seriously making games.

Moreover, ZUN from Touhou Gensokyo is not like Kinoko Nasu.

Kinoko Nasu has a very open attitude towards commercialization, and he has opened up licensing for both anime and single-player games.

In contrast, ZUN is somewhat "resistant" to commercialization. For example, commercial anime adaptations are completely unacceptable to him, to the point that the anime adaptations of Touhou Project rely entirely on "doujin" circles for production.

However, ZUN's rejection was not a complete rejection, but rather a very "awkward" rejection.

This "rejection" may seem insignificant at present, but with the increasing number of ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) IPs in the future, and with "co-creation" becoming the mainstream, it will become increasingly important.

The limited promotional resources of major IPs, coupled with the reality that "creating works out of love" cannot "make a living," have led to a decline in the number of derivative works from the East, which have ultimately become relics of the past.

However, it was precisely because of people like RUW who were in charge of commercialization that it became much easier for Xingchen Games to acquire the Touhou Gensokyo IP.

There's actually a very interesting little detail here.

At the beginning, after Chu Chen explained his conditions, the other party did not agree, so Chu Chen planned to fly back to China as scheduled.

After all, for him, acquiring the Eastern IP would naturally be a good thing, but if he couldn't, it wouldn't really matter.

However, just before Chu Chen was about to board the plane.

After the news of the transfer of the copyrights for FGO and FATE broke, the other party suddenly became willing to sell.
It's almost like, "What?! Type-Moon is already selling? Should I buy one too?"

The subtle feeling.

If one had to describe it, Chu Chen's trip to Japan was like a domino effect.

They acquired the Type-Moon rights using a scenario from the future, and then used those rights to buy the rights to *Fate/Grand Order*.

The acquisition of FGO sparked heated discussions and influenced the decision-making of Touhou Gensokyo, thus securing the Touhou Gensokyo IP.
(End of this chapter)