Build a game empire from scratch

On Tuesday, deserted island morning meeting.

The boss, Bian Xiao, sat at the conference table, frowning.

Now the most immediate question they face is: when exactly will Iron Fist be released?

The promotional video did not specify the time, one is to wait for the player's equipment to be updated and modified, and the other is to avoid Yunmeng.

But you can't wait like this forever.

The strategy laid out at last week's meeting was: "Keep it steady and keep hopeful."

To put it bluntly, it’s just waiting to see if there is a turnaround.

As a result, after a week of waiting, the popularity of "Pokemon" has not dropped, and even "Chang'an" has started a closed test.

Although before, he said that "Chang'an" is not as threatening as "Pokemon", but you don't want to come together, do you?

What should we do now? Wait another week?

The problem is that this is not a game release, but a test. Who can guarantee that after another week, "Pokemon" will not be officially released?

"Pokemon" is released, so should "Chang'an" be released too?

There is also a virtual reality version of "Last Moment Reset", which is said to have been basically completed.

Do we have to wait forever?

But one week after another, one week after another, and if we wait any longer, it will be Chinese New Year!

"How is the progress of equipment modification?" Bian Xiao asked.

"The current aggregated data, since the release of the promotional video, has received a total of 6.2 million refit reservations. In the past week, a total of 4.1 million refits have been completed nationwide. The efficiency has been squeezed to the extreme. It is arranged according to the time of player reservations. All refit requests can be completed over the weekend.”

"The rest of the appointments that are not easy to arrange, add up to about 180,000 copies, and there are more than 2 million devices. The owner has not submitted an application for door-to-door modification. I am afraid that only the official release of "Tekken" will cause a strong enough wave of players. Only then can we hope to activate this part of users.”

Xin Jing, the manager of the marketing department, quickly reported the data, and the expectation was not only not heavy, but also a little relaxed.

Although "Pokemon" has completely overwhelmed "Tekken" in popularity in the past week, the modification and progress of the deserted island VR equipment is still very fast.

I have to say that the effect of [free], [door-to-door], and [optional time] is really immediate.

Hearing these numbers, Bian Xiao felt a little better, and asked, "About the release date of the game, when do you think it's appropriate?"

"In my opinion, as soon as possible!"

"As soon as possible?" Bian Xiao was a little surprised, ""Chang'an" just started its closed beta test last night, so the Internet should be full of discussions about this game, right? We're releasing "Iron Fist" now, isn't the risk too high?"

"Speaking of this..." Xin Jing's expression was a little subtle, "It is true that "Chang'an" is being discussed on the Internet, but the content of the discussion may be different from what you imagined, boss."

"Different?" Bian Xiao was puzzled, "What's the difference?"

He was used to Yunmeng releasing a game, and the players would blow it up without thinking about it, and never thought about other possibilities.

But now, that "other possibility" happened to appear.

*

Only an hour after the closed beta test of "Chang'an" started, a lot of related topics began to emerge.

After all, Yunmeng only banned the sharing of images, but did not require players to keep the game content secret - and all kinds of gameplay are not open, and there is nothing to keep secret.

In the beginning, the players were still blowing their minds.

Bragging about how awesome, lively, and reductive this city is, every building, every NPC, the crowded streets, the cries of the market, the smoke and fire of the residents, everything about basic necessities of life, food, housing, and transportation are all included. The details are astonishing.

Being in it, there is a strong illusion of traveling through time and space.

These feedbacks made the players who didn't have invitations get excited too, and the popularity of the Internet skyrocketed!

But it didn't take long for the atmosphere to change strangely.

I was praising the city, but was quickly overwhelmed by the "emptiness" of the game content.

The quest system is not open, and players cannot receive quests—not at all. They can interact with NPCs as usual, but without system prompts, it is difficult for players to tell whether they are doing quests.

Not to mention that there is no digital "task reward", even if the task is completed, all you can get is some money or something else.

"No main missions", "no side missions", "cannot become stronger", "exploration is limited", "a large number of buildings cannot enter", "crushed by guards and passerby NPC combat power"...

If you don't find something of interest, the longer the player stays in the city, the more boring it will be.

It seems that the entire city, even outside the city, has a large number of open areas to explore, but the lack of goals and positive feedback greatly reduces the motivation for exploration.

You can't be a hero, you can only be a passerby who was hacked to death by a hero.

You can't do whatever you want, and if you dare to do bad things, you will be caught in prison—well-known anchors A Yi and Yelang are still in prison.

Even as an honest tourist, life is very difficult because of penniless money - a piece of cooking cake costs a penny!

Players are very real.

Since the game experience is extremely poor, there will be no mercy when complaining:

""Chang'an" is not a martial arts game at all! This is [The Sims·Da Tang], the most realistic and difficult one."

""Rebirth of the Tang Dynasty: Starting from a Beggar"."

"Shit! I played for four hours and spent three and a half hours in jail!"

"I've had enough! I'm going to burn, kill, and loot Night City. I want to do all kinds of evil!"

"Let's just say, isn't the guard a little too strong? We are a team of five, with knives, swords, bows, and forks, and we were all hacked by an elite monster! Just one guard!"

"When will the bosses of the blacksmith guild settle in? Order a set of heavy armor! The blacksmiths in this game can't make armor, rubbish!"

"Can you enter Chang'an wearing iron armor? Otherwise, I won't be able to play anymore!"

...

A lot of complaints and complaints quickly overwhelmed the previous praise of the city by casual players.

——There are no photos, only empty words, such compliments are not convincing.

Even the game media, which has always supported Yunmeng, kept cautiously silent.

So by the next morning, the word-of-mouth of "Chang'an" had even turned into mostly negative reviews.

Bian Xiao looked at the online players' comments on "Chang'an", and then looked at the [RANK-popular game rating list], the game rating has dropped to [6.3], overjoyed.

He is the founder of Desert Island, and he knows the game industry very well. Of course, he will not think that the game "Changan" needs Waterloo as soon as he sees this score like Zhao Yucheng.

Bian Xiao clicked into the rating details, read a few pages of player comments, and immediately realized:

Players give low scores to the game, more like expressing their dissatisfaction with the status quo of the game in this way.

As long as Yunmeng unlocks more game content and improves the player's game experience, ratings and word-of-mouth can easily go up.

After all, there are only a little over 160,000 players participating in the ratings, but the total number of closed beta players exceeds one million, and the number of players after the game's release has steadily exceeded ten million.

But none of this matters!

Since the popularity and word-of-mouth of "Chang'an" has not exploded, now is an excellent game release window!

Bian Xiao looked up at the senior executives present: "The countdown to the release of "Iron Fist" can begin!"

"This Friday?" Xin Jing asked.

"No! It's too late to make a difference. Make the final preparation today and release it tomorrow! After that, spend all the publicity and distribution budget in it for a week!" Bian Xiao's voice was full of courage.

"Success or failure depends on it!"