Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

The controversies caused by these manufacturers have not caused any substantial harm to TGA, which is why TGA has the confidence to do so.

However, TGA only saw Spark as a game developer, but not as a platform.

You're showing Xinghuo so little respect, but right now there are plenty of manufacturers in the industry who are just looking for an opportunity to curry favor with Xinghuo.

It's important to understand that many manufacturers know they have no chance of winning the TGA award, compared to actually winning it.

Furthermore, a closer look at Sekiro's voiceover is quite interesting. The person wrote that TGA's comments on mobile games were not very professional, which both boosted Spark's reputation and made themselves look good.

That means my "best single-player AAA game" title is still quite valuable.

Following Sekiro's statement, Hades' development team also voiced their support. Hades' team's support was much more interesting; they directly boycotted TGA and stated that their game would no longer accept TGA nominations.

This immediately attracted widespread media coverage.

Many players who were unhappy with TGA also came to support it, and since Hades itself is a pretty fun game, sales even saw a slight increase.

This immediately caught the attention of some small studios, who followed suit and voiced their support.

Many have also announced that their games will no longer be eligible for TGA nominations.

In reality, these studios that came out to provide support knew they had no chance of being nominated.

The related public opinion is becoming increasingly serious.

TGA CEO Jeff was so angry he almost vomited blood.

"What the hell are you rejecting? Look in the mirror! Do you even have a chance of being nominated? A bunch of trash."

No matter how much Jeff criticizes, the negative public opinion pressure from the manufacturers is far greater than that from the players. In essence, TGA was still promoted by the manufacturers.

Now that manufacturers are no longer supporting it, even if it's only a small portion, what impact will this have on the future?

No one knows.

As a result, in the end, Spark's fans were dissatisfied, casual observers felt that TGA was too corrupt, and even the manufacturers joined in the criticism, leaving TGA officials with no choice but to remain silent.

However, not everyone was dissatisfied with the result.

If the vast majority of Spark players felt insulted after the TGA announcement, then Tencent Games launched a marketing frenzy.

With Tencent's promotional efforts, numerous media outlets began to publicize Call of Duty Mobile, the first domestic game to win a TGA award.

Moreover, compared to overseas public opinion, domestic players who follow TGA do not constitute an absolute majority within the entire Chinese gaming community, and this is compounded by a large number of "rational and neutral" observers.

Therefore, the pressure from public opinion in China is not that great.

In fact, when the overseas public opinion was just beginning to ferment, Tencent was also struggling with whether to carry out the publicity and distribution as originally planned. They were even a little worried that TGA might not be able to withstand the pressure and would eventually be re-elected.

In the end, it was Ma Xiao who made the final decision.

"Xuan, don't be afraid. Even if the TGA is dead, they will never be re-elected. If they are re-elected, they will be truly finished."

Ma Xiao had a broader perspective; he knew very well that once the TGA awards were presented, the results were set in stone, and there was no possibility of a re-election.

Subsequent developments also confirmed Ma Xiao's prediction.

Even after being criticized for several days, TGA remained steadfast, playing dead and refusing to answer or respond. Its only response was to release a questionnaire asking whether people were satisfied with TGA.

Then, by modifying the data in the backend, the satisfaction rate was maintained at 60%.

And then? And then there was nothing more.

Anyway, once the players have finished complaining, they'll just disperse. In the field of game awards, TGA is already an absolute oligopoly. A year later, TGA will be back to its former glory and won't be afraid of anything anymore.

That's why Jeff dared to manipulate Spark.

~~~

Amidst this hustle and bustle, the last day of 19 arrived.

Devil

Clear Games

This is a young game studio.

6:30

Although it was already half an hour past 6 p.m. when people were supposed to leave work, the studio was still brightly lit, and the office building was bustling with activity. The sounds of keyboards clicking, discussions, and arguments filled the air.

As a startup, Qingche Games' office space is not large; in fact, it could be described as somewhat cramped.

However, none of this had much to do with Zhou Shenlin. As an employee of the company's community operations department, he had his own corner.

Moreover, logically speaking...

As the community operations manager, he doesn't actually need to work overtime with the development team at this time.

It was only because he had only been working at the company for a few days that he felt everyone was working overtime, and it would be too abrupt for him to leave alone, so he stayed.

I found some operational materials to study.

Actually, Zhou Shenlin, who just graduated this year, is quite satisfied with this job. Although it is different from his major, it is a game company!

Although the salary isn't very high, it's a game company!

As a gamer, Zhou Shenlin has an inexplicable fondness for game companies, especially those that make anime-style games.

So he came, and the reason he was able to find this job was actually related to Xinghuo.

Chapter 487 The Influence of Sparks

In the past two years, with the development of the Spark platform and the continuous record-breaking performance of Spark games, the platform has grown significantly.

In various management experience sharing sessions and analyses of Xinghuo's success, community management is a detail that is almost always mentioned.

As a result, many companies, especially those producing anime-style games, have gradually begun to pay more attention to community management and feedback systems.

It's no longer just about having employees work part-time.

Even small companies often have a dedicated person in charge of community activities.

Take, for example, the Clear Game that Zhou Shenlin plays.

The company's owner is said to have previously worked at a studio under the Spark Project, but later left to start his own business due to differences in development philosophy.

With his extensive industry experience and a business startup book.

They secured their first round of investment, and recently received a second round of additional investment from the Spark platform.

The entire company, including Zhou Shenlin, has fewer than 40 people.

Compared to large companies, this number of people isn't large, but for a game studio, this size is actually quite significant.

The project currently under development is titled "Mercury Lone Boat".

It is a 2D game that incorporates some elements of life simulation gameplay. The main premise of the game is that the player wakes up in a world that has been submerged by the sea.

Upon waking up, players find themselves on a deserted island. On the island, players can plant, cultivate, and harvest crops, and even row a boat to rescue a girl and encounter other people.

You can also explore other maps.

This type of game, which focuses on gameplay and incorporates certain anime/manga elements, was rarely seen in my previous life.

This gameplay style is incompatible with the character-selling system of the post-Genshin Impact era. Players' enjoyment comes from the gameplay, not from pulling characters.

If the game were to be forcibly modified to accommodate a pay-to-win system, it would disrupt the gameplay itself. Therefore, in the previous life, such games were extremely rare, or even nonexistent.

However, under the market rules dominated by Spark.

In this world, this type of game is actually becoming more and more common.

The reason is simple: top companies are making too much money from character gacha. Unless the script is excellent and the setting is very interesting, they can't make money from the character gacha model.

That's too difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises. Instead, they might seek other paths to survive.

Take Mercury Lone Boat as an example. Its overall setting framework borrows some elements from Mercuryworld, but its gameplay is completely different from Mercuryworld.

Character gacha is a side feature; the core gameplay revolves around adventure and management.

The payment method is a monthly pass. After purchasing the monthly pass, players can obtain more fuel and visit more and more distant islands.

Aside from that, there are no other ways to spend money in this game.

The gameplay and art style of "Mercury Lone Boat" are quite good, and the setting at the current point in time is also quite interesting, so it has a certain degree of popularity online.

The first PV has accumulated over 200 million views on Bilibili and Xinghuo platform.

It was precisely because the first promotional PV was a great success that the company owner decided to hire a community operations manager.

Zhou Shenlin wasn't originally a professional, but fortunately, there aren't many people with a relevant major for the current community operations position, so he relied on his past experience working part-time at Xinghuo.

With his understanding of anime and manga games, Zhou Shenlin successfully rose to prominence.

Although the salary isn't high, he's in the gaming industry after all. For someone like him who comes from a relatively well-off family, working for his interests is naturally the best choice.

Although I work out of interest.

Working overtime is quite annoying, but seeing that everyone else is staying, he felt embarrassed to leave.

He simply turned on his computer, put on his headphones, and started watching the live broadcast of the Spark Awards Ceremony and the New Year's Eve Gala. He figured he could wait a little while longer, and once someone in the company started leaving, he could follow suit.

The Spark Awards ceremony officially begins at 7 p.m.

There were still a few minutes until 7 o'clock, so Zhou Shenlin took the opportunity to browse the New Year's Eve website. The website was no different from the websites of other Spark events.

A homepage, then a video player, and below that, various activities.

Many websites do this, so it's very common and familiar.

However, unlike other platforms, Xinghuo's website has a row of sub-venues below the header, from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Bilibili, to Douyin, and even Youku, iQiyi. If you expand on them, you can also see Niconico and a whole bunch of overseas websites that Zhou Shenlin has never seen before.

Zhou Shenlin couldn't even open some websites.

In addition, the language switch in the upper left corner of the page also reminds viewers that this webpage is being viewed by players all over the world at this moment.

"Spark's prestige is really getting bigger and bigger."

With a sigh, Zhou Shenlin turned his attention back to the introduction of the awards ceremony.

When Spark first announced that it would be holding an awards ceremony this year, almost everyone's first instinct was that this was Spark's counterattack against TGA.

My second instinct was that since Spark was both the organizer and the judge and the contestant, there must be some behind-the-scenes manipulation, and Spark Games would definitely sweep all the awards.

There are actually quite a few players who hold this attitude, including many of Spark's own fans.

Spark's competitors, especially The Game Awards (TGA), took advantage of this to launch a fierce attack on the Spark Awards ceremony.

After faking his death for several days, Jeff from The GTA couldn't hold back any longer and posted more than ten tweets to satirize the Spark Awards as Spark's self-entertainment.

Besides TGA, many other game award media outlets, such as Golden Joystick, also expressed their incomprehension of Spark's "sullen" behavior.

There are also many doubts and criticisms online.

However, these doubts gradually subsided after Spark announced its nominations and the scoring methods for each award.

First of all, the nominations for this Spark Awards ceremony are open to all games worldwide, regardless of whether they are logged into the Spark platform.

Secondly, Spark's award design and its ticketing method are very interesting.

In the officially released version.

Spark uses a selection mechanism that combines player votes, player ratings, top 100 ratings, and media ratings, with a weighting of 2:3:3:2.

Player voting is essentially popularity voting. It's very simple: Spark releases all the nominated games, and all players vote. That's player voting.

Player ratings are something new; in short, Spark will provide a survey for all players worldwide before the ticket sales begin.

The questionnaire contains players' ratings and reviews of the game.

Chapter 488 TGA is in a hurry

This questionnaire isn't the kind that's just a perfunctory one where players give a score and that's it; its format is similar to those used for top 100 players, media, and reviewers.

It's just been simplified slightly.

However, players still need to provide detailed reasons for their ratings after the rating is completed, so answering this questionnaire is actually quite tiring.

However, Spark will definitely not let players work for nothing. As long as players complete the scoring seriously, they will receive a 7% discount coupon for the Spark platform, as well as the achievement and electronic badge of the 2019 Spark Awards Ceremony judge.

In addition, Spark turned this player rating into a viral marketing campaign. After players completed the rating, not only could they see it themselves, but the Spark Awards Ceremony's official website would also display all players' reviews on a loop.

Players can also share their completed evaluation forms.