Game Development Giant

You know, most of Mars Entertainment’s previous games took less than a year to develop.

For the vast majority of people, half a year is enough.

In fact, they have been developing this for a long time. Although this is no longer the game development environment that just emerged from the wilderness six years ago, there are still many game developers, especially some small studios. , the time it takes them to develop a game, from project establishment to completion, including debugging, may be just over two months.

Four years just to develop a game.

Putting aside everything else, can it really sell the volume that four games that took a year can sell?

Even for the games developed by Jester, Jester's current console games will basically not be less than five million units. If four units are used in four years, it will be 20 million units. Jester can really Can the game I want to make sell 20 million copies?

You know, for so many years, the only ones that can stably sell close to 10 million units are the Balotelli series.

Moreover, the Balotelli series has been able to achieve this by relying on a popularity that cannot be compared with other games. Around the world, this character has almost become synonymous with video games.

"As for how much money to invest..."

When he thought of this, Jester hesitated, because he was really not very good at telling his subordinates sitting here the amount of money he was prepared to invest, because this must be a very astonishing number, which these people would never know. Numbers I thought about.

After hesitating for a moment, Jester decided not to mention the number, but instead talked about the size of the team.

"This is a very large project, and it requires a very large number of people, so many that you don't even dare to think about it - the previous development team of thirty or forty people, you think that such a team is too huge, what is it to develop? A game like this requires such a large team, but for the game I want to develop, the team size required is several times larger than what you would consider a large team.”

Saying that, Jester paused slightly.

Then he stretched out three fingers, waved them in front of everyone, and said in a very affirmative tone: "I need at least two hundred to three hundred people to help me complete this dream-level game."

"In other words, the people we currently have are not enough."

Jester finally added that the total number of R\u0026D personnel in Mars Entertainment, plus the people in various directly affiliated studios, must be more than 300 people, but these employees of Mars Entertainment. Not only are they all in the game development department, but not everyone is qualified to develop this kind of game.

Not all of these people like to develop such large projects, so large-scale recruitment is a certainty.

Moreover, because this is Jester's game set in the Spring and Autumn Period of Junior High School, he definitely needs to return to China and find some culture in this area. Experts in history came to help him build this world.

After Jester finished speaking, everyone in the audience burst into exclamation.

It was just like the scene when Jester was describing the game he was going to make.

Because this scale is simply unheard of, and. They all shuddered when they thought of the investment amount for this game that was not mentioned just now, because this must be an incredibly high investment amount, otherwise. It's simply impossible to maintain a development team of this size.

"Let's end today's meeting here. I only have a preliminary concept of this game, but the specific content has not been carefully considered. We will discuss it after a while."

Jester clapped his hands, wanting to end the discussion meeting.

However, someone still asked the question that Jester didn't want to say before.

"Boss, with such a large development team and such a long development time, how much do you think it will cost? Do you really think that the game you want to make can recover your investment?" This question asked After that, everyone's eyes were once again focused on Jester.

"this problem……"

Jester pondered first, then sighed and said: "To be honest, the cost of the game I want to make will be extremely terrifying, and I will not let the company invest all of it by itself, because It's too dangerous, and there's a good chance that if my game doesn't live up to expectations, the company won't be able to afford the loss."

After hearing what Jester said, everyone present took a deep breath.

The company can't afford this loss?

So what kind of investment amount should be? You must know that according to Mars Entertainment's current profit, it is impossible for it to go bankrupt even if it does nothing for ten years!

Then, Jester gave a number and said that this was just his preliminary estimate, and that this investment was made by himself and Mars Entertainment, not just by Mars Entertainment, so yenenggo9u would be better Share the risk.

After hearing the number Jester said, everyone once again took a deep breath.

Because, this number is really terrible.

In fact, it is impossible to complete such a game in this era without such a terrible investment. When Yu Suzuki made the first part of "Shenmue", he spent 70 million US dollars. But to do it now, at least this The figure is double, and this is still a conservative estimate.

The final cost may be three times that amount.

More than $200 million.

Later GTA5, which sold more than 52 million dollars, was only a little more than this investment scale, but that was more than 200 million US dollars more than 20 years later, which is completely different from the more than 200 million US dollars now.

However, Jester is really not sure whether the type of game he wants to create will be successful.

If something like "Shenmue" fails, given the current scale of Mars Entertainment, it will certainly not be as close to bankruptcy as Sega, but it will definitely be severely damaged, and most importantly, it will be its own prestige. , a game with such a huge investment would eventually fail.

The destructive power to the status and prestige that he has established over the years is almost catastrophic.

Moreover, it is very difficult to make money from this game. Even if it is on its own platform, there is no need for royalties or profit sharing. However, this requires sales of at least 15 million units. Not counting losses, this investment can only be considered acceptable if it is 20 million units ago.

And if you want to make a lot of money, it's really difficult.

Even for GTA5, despite the fact that it sold 52 million copies, this game took four years to develop and it took two years after it was released to reach this number.

That's six full years.

In the past six years, COD, which players jokingly call a new year's product, has ushered in their most glorious period. Their six series of games have average sales of more than 20 million units. That is to say, in these six years, In two years, GTA5 spent more than 200 million US dollars in research and development funds, and finally sold 52 million units.

Activision, on the other hand, has no technical content at all and only knows that COD is a hype, but it has sold at least 100 million units. In fact, the development funds for COD, even if all these movies are added together, may not be as much as GTA5.

Therefore, in terms of profit, it is definitely impossible for Jester to make the optimal choice.

But now is not the time to think about that.

What he needs to consider most now is how to avoid a failure like Shenmue - of course, he was much luckier than when Yu Suzuki was developing "Shenmue", because Yu Suzuki was really touching it at the time. There is nothing for him to refer to when crossing a river with stones.

But he is different.

He is a person who has experienced the explosion of sandbox games in later generations. In that era when sandbox game development was extremely mature, some concepts and ideas that were commonplace might become extremely valuable in this era, and even It can bring a game back to life.

Since he wanted to avoid failure, Jester carefully studied "Shenmue".

Because this will be the prototype for his game.

Of course, the comparison is made with another sandbox masterpiece of later generations, the GTA series. Of course, in essence, these two games cannot be regarded as the same game. It can only be said that there are many differences between sandbox games. There are similarities and there are many things worth learning from.

As the pioneer of this type of game, "Shenmue" has many advantages, but it also has many shortcomings.

For example, everyone knows that GTA5 sold 50 million copies. Suppose that GTA5 did not change the graphics, sound and scenes at all, and only modified the core gameplay, making it completely unplayable. In the end, it only sold 1 million copies. This is Shenmue. , in fact, one million copies of "Shenmue" is not too low.

To be precise, Yokosuka, the first chapter of "Shenmue" sold 1.2 million copies, ranking fourth in the entire DC console history, hundreds of thousands more than the famous Veronica. The reason why it is said to be small is because the DC console has only sold 11 million units in total.

By comparison, on average, every nine people who have bought a DC console have bought a Shenmue. This number is really not that small.

The difference between "Shenmue" and GTA is that there is nothing to do except the main plot.

In GTA, you can drive, rob, make money, and experience American life. Although it belongs to bad guys, you can develop the main line when you have time. But "Shenmue" has nothing except the main line. As a sandbox game, its world is not small, and its level of sophistication is far beyond that of GTA. We all know that passers-by in GTA have their own routines and personalities.

But "Shenmue" is much better than that. (To be continued...)