Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 96 "Heroes" - Great Shared Views

"FATE has been taken down"

"So, is Starry Sky going to make Fate Auto Chess?"

"Never mind what they're doing, the question now is, what are we going to do?"

A coffee break area in Tencent's campus.

The afternoon sun slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows, creating dazzling patches of light. The shop was filled with the rich aroma of roasted coffee beans, and the background music was soothing jazz.

There weren't many people, just a few here and there, and you could hear some people chatting.

Xiong Youning had been sitting in a booth by the window for a while.

As the president of the mill work group.

Xiong Youning rarely gets directly involved in frontline work.

However, after March of this year, Xiong Youning frequently appeared in the production teams of several mill studios and frequently intervened directly in the direction of game development.

This is partly because Tencent's Mill Studio underwent a major transformation between 15 and 16.

Web games have seen their market share plummet rapidly due to the impact of mobile games. The revenue curve of "Roco Kingdom," once the studio's flagship product, resembles a waterfall.

The dramatic changes in the market environment forced the Mill Studio, which focuses on web games, to transform rapidly. Starting in 14, they began to try to shift their focus to mobile platforms by adapting IPs.

The backdrop to this transformation is Tencent's internal initiative, launched in 2014, to grant players "autonomous control over mobile game development."

This right to initiate projects independently allows studio groups to set up their own projects.

Although this independent project intensified internal competition within Tencent, it did indeed boost the initiative of many studios. The Naruto project of the Mofang studio was launched during this period.

By 2016, "the right to independently launch mobile games" had become the norm. Therefore, after "Final Battlefront" emerged in March of this year, many similar projects appeared within Tencent.

The mill was the quickest to respond and the most dedicated of the workshops.

The reason is simple: the mill at that time was really lacking in flagship products.

Revenue from older games is declining, and the new project "Naruto" has not yet been launched. In addition, given the positioning of Mofang within Tencent, it can be considered a pan-anime studio.

Therefore, after the success of "Final Front" they quickly launched a "Final LIKE" project.

In addition to the Mill Workshop Group, Yaoguang Studio Group also launched a "Final Like" project at the same time.

The reason Yaoguang participated in this project.

The main reason is that, under the internal competition mechanism, it failed to compete with Tianmei in the MOBA track.

"King of Glory" did not meet expectations, and the only game they can currently offer is "Happy Landlords". In the eyes of Yaoguang Studio, auto chess is also a game.

Therefore, it is only natural for them to initiate a competing project.

To some extent, the fact that it prompted two Tencent game development teams to initiate a project to "pay tribute" to it shows that the quality of "Final Front" is still rising.

As May arrived.

After the plot of Final Frontline exploded.

Tencent has launched two studios called "Final Like" internally, which is a welcome development.

At this point in time, Tencent rarely makes a mistake in "plagiarism," so in their view, the more traffic "Final Front" gets, the more traffic their own will get.

But this kind of joy.

With the rapid expansion of Starry Sky Games.

They gradually became less confident, mainly because the expansion of the stars was happening at an unbelievably rapid pace. Some people have made calculations.

Since its launch in May, the number of players in the Chinese version of "Final Front" has increased by 7% in just one month. Although the number may not seem like much, "Final Front" already has a large player base.

Based on this, the number of players increased by 7%, which directly led to the daily active users of "Final Front" stabilizing at around one million after entering June.

This doesn't even include the explosive popularity of the Japanese version of "Final Battlefront".

If we were to calculate it, the data would be even more alarming.

In addition to the continued development of the "Final Battlefront" game, StarCraft's external investments are also quite staggering.

As of today, Starry Night Games' external investments have reached 2 million yuan.

They launched star-themed wallpapers, created game-related programs, established their own voice acting channels, acquired an animation company, acquired Fate/Grand Order (FGO), and bought the development rights for a new installment of the nationally popular Japanese IP, Fate. They also reportedly acquired the IP of Touhou Project.
In Chu Chen's eyes, these were all necessary investments. To outsiders, it was simply unbelievable. How could you be so sure that the games made from the copyrights you bought at a high price would definitely make money?

That's two hundred million in cash flow!

It's worth noting that, including Japan, StarCraft Games' total revenue for the entire month of May was less than 5 million.

This is cash flow, not profit.

Even if Tencent invests 60 million in Xingchen Wallpaper, that's still 140 million. This huge sum of money would probably wipe out Xingchen's entire profit for May.

My savings from the previous months are probably all gone, and might not even be enough.

Who runs a company like this?
Go all in every hand?

But no matter how impossible it was, that madman did it anyway.

Under these circumstances, Xiong Youning from the mill's work group became restless. He felt that if things went according to the original plan, they would have to wait for the normal production and distribution process.

By next year, when his "Final Fantasy"-like game is launched, it is very likely that StarCraft Games' "Final Front" will have completely established itself.

After all, it's based on the Starry Sky gameplay.

It is highly likely that they will continue to increase promotion and marketing in the future. Given the revenue of "Final Front," if the other party really spends that much money, the final outcome is really hard to say.

Who knows, it might actually snowball into something big?
Once Starry Night Games truly establishes itself, even Tencent's massive user base might not be able to carve out a significant share of this niche market by next year.

coincidentally
Xiong Youning thought so, and so did Zhuang Zhihong, the head of Yaoguang Studio.

There was no other way; they were also terrified of being defeated by Honor of Kings. They had already experienced that snowball effect, growing bigger and bigger until it became unstoppable.

I really don't want to go through that again.

This is also why the two gaming giants, Tencent and Tencent Games, met here.

Although they didn't say it out loud, they were actually "afraid"—afraid that if they didn't act now, they wouldn't have the chance to act later.

"You mean, release it ahead of schedule? How do you choose the timing?"

"Shall we compare numbers?"

Xiong Youning didn't say anything, but simply extended his right hand, and almost simultaneously with Zhuang Zhihong, he made a seven.

The two of them then burst into laughter.

This kind of "great minds think alike" scenario is indeed very interesting.

After a few laughs, the atmosphere of the conversation seemed to liven up a bit, and Xiong Youning picked up his coffee.

(End of this chapter)