Game Development Giant

Jester came to the stage.

There was silence in the venue, and everyone looked at him expectantly.

Because everyone knows that Jester is the finale of this E3 conference. Although some people have introduced many games that Mars Entertainment will release in the future, most of them are like Mark Saini or It's people like John Carmack who are trying to spread the pie, saying that our games will be much, much better in the future.

This is also the company's plan. What Jester wants to do is to introduce what the next generation of games will be like to players as soon as possible.

This gives players a sense of anticipation for the next generation.

Of course, there are also several works that will be released in the second half of this year, mainly for consoles, and they are not particularly heavy masterpieces. In addition to being a rehash of previous works, the works with new copyrights are just small productions. Such works cannot be said to be It has no appeal to the players or the media in the audience.

But compared with the works of real heavyweights, it is still much weaker.

Jester looked around the scene on the stage with a smile on his face. He did not talk about the two games he was working on at first, whether it was an American RPG with Richard Garrett or what he said New RTS games that have been released several times have been the focus of attention.

It is said that the novel of the new RTS game is being written and will be released before the game is officially released.

This is a new thing in the gaming world.

It’s not that no one has adapted games into novels. For example, Mars Entertainment has done this before. The famous Tom Clancy was also invited, but later Mars Entertainment fell out with Tom Clancy because of Jester's back.

but. This was also done after the game was released.

Writing a novel for a game before it is released is the first time this has happened in the entire gaming industry. Of course, this does not mean games based on novels.

"Before I talk about the game I am planning to release, I want to ask everyone about something. This matter is closely related to what I am going to say next. It can even be said that it is closely related to what I am going to say next. That is..." said At the critical point, Jester was silent for a moment, as if he was hesitating whether to speak or not.

Of course, the players and media below the stage are naturally looking forward to it. At the same time, they shouted something like "Just say it."

Jester also smiled and nodded.

"Actually, when Mars Entertainment was first established, I gave a speech to the first batch of people who entered Mars Entertainment. I said a lot during the speech, and they were all words from the bottom of my heart. Among them, I mentioned one issue, that is, In your eyes, how should you view a game?"

After Jester finished speaking. Seeing that everyone in the audience seemed to have some confused looks in their eyes, they did not understand the meaning of what he said.

then. He explained again.

"To be specific, that is, as you know, in the beginning, when people talked about art, there were only six kinds, that is, what many people said were the six major arts, architecture, music, painting, sculpture, poetry and dance, and Later, with the advancement of technology and culture, film also became a new art, known as the seventh art. Later, television appeared, and the eighth art appeared."

"So I was wondering, have you ever looked at a game the way you look at a piece of art?"

"I don't just think that this is just a game for entertainment, a toy to coax children to play. It has no deep value and there is no benefit from it. It is not like watching a movie. Sometimes it is tender and solid. To be spiritually elevated.”

"Of course, I'm not saying games can do that."

"What I mean is very simple. Have you ever seen games as more than just entertainment toys? Have any games ever given you this feeling? Oh, this is not a commodity, but a product. artwork."

After Jester finished speaking, the scene fell silent again.

Looking around at the players below, interviewers from the media, or visitors from other game companies, Jester's face was expressionless. He simply looked at it, waiting for everyone's answer, but for a moment, it seemed that everyone Everyone was stunned by his question, and no one raised their arms to answer Jester's question.

And Jester was not in a hurry.

In fact, when asking this question, Jester was also reminded of an old incident before he traveled through time. It was also a debate on a certain forum in China about what the game was - of course, that debate It's not as explicit as it is now.

At the beginning, the post was from the perspective of a game planner in the industry looking at why good games are not available in China.

The person who posted this post claims to be a senior player with 15 years of PC gaming history, 8 years of WoW history, and has played some domestic online games that most World of Warcraft players have never experienced. Moreover, this poster is currently working for One of the top five game companies in the industry in China serves as the planner, and is still following up on new games in recent years.

Of course, this poster is mainly talking about online games.

In the first sentence at the beginning, the poster succinctly explained his most fundamental view on the game.

That is.

“It comes down to a commodity.”

Then, this domestic game person who was a planner at a well-known domestic game company began to make a very detailed review of how a product should be produced. How did he make the review? There was a lot of nonsense, and it was impossible for Jester to remember it so clearly, but he still remembered some of the general key points.

For example, since it is a product.

So how to design this product is very simple. You only need to focus on the most important factors of a product.

For example, products must abide by market rules, and businesses, that is, game developers, must choose the direction that is most beneficial to them to develop products. What kind of development direction is most beneficial? It's very simple, and it's true for everyone. First of all, this direction is low-risk.

As the name suggests, if the risk is high, then if it fails, doesn't it mean losing everything?

Secondly, it needs to be highly profitable.

If the profit is low, even if you succeed, you won't make much money, so why spend so much time?

As for domestic game developers, how should they understand these two points? What did the other party, a senior player and senior planner, say?

The first point is the so-called low risk.

It's very simple. The risks of mature things made by others are far less than those of new things made with new ideas and new ideas, ranging from subject matter, form, core gameplay, system framework, to every design and even the naming of a prop or an item. Even if we don’t talk about the huge difference in workload and only talk about the risks, copying is better than making new ones. Of course, this is for merchants, that is, developers.

So in the eyes of this developer, how does one explain high returns?

How to get more revenue, there are two ways - let more people pay or let the people who pay pay more.

This is the purpose of the two charging methods of time charging and item charging. Why more and more games use item charging. The domestic planner explained that the reason is that the gradient difference in the consumption power of online game players in my country is too high.

How to understand this sentence?

In fact, we can use WoW as an example to understand. In fact, many players who like online games like WoW do not have a deep understanding of this concept and sneer at the so-called local tycoons. In the era of players, everyone spent a little money to play WoW and could not see the gradient. Later, When I opened a mall, some people said I was rich when I bought a Xingzhu for one or two hundred yuan; later I played Sword 3 and spent several thousand yuan to become a big Chengwu and everyone worshiped me. , Only then did I really meet the coal boss who spent millions.

Many people think that these are entrustments. In fact, this is not accurate. This domestic planner explained.

What is the situation?

There are indeed some, but the vast majority of them are not. For players whose consumption reaches a certain level, the project team will take the initiative to get the player's contact information, gather groups to find out, regularly ask for opinions, and hold meetings. In other words, this This type of player is what these planners value the most.

As for those ordinary players, in the eyes of these planners, you are nothing.

And how big is the difference?

Players at the bottom can't even afford to spend 15 yuan a month on point cards, and players at the top can spend 100,000 yuan a minute without blinking an eye. Under the time charging model, these two people can only collect points worth dozens of yuan a month. In the stuck money and item charging mode, these two people may dig out millions. Such a simple mathematical problem, if you were a game planner, what would you do?

Of course, because it is a forum where wow players gather.

Therefore, this poster likes to use WoW players as examples. For example, after he finished talking about the huge gap, he continued to use WoW as examples.

One mistake that players, especially WoW players, often make is: if no one is playing here and no one is playing around, the game is dead.

It is also important to emphasize here that WoW players are only a small part of the Chinese player group, although this group is very distinctive. Players' perspective on the success of a game is obviously different from that of businesses. The former often start from their own perspective. At most, they see the average number of online players. Generally speaking, I don't play this game, my friends don't play it, and I don't see this game being discussed on the forum. died.

But is this what it is?

Jester also thought about it at the time.

Probably not. (To be continued...)