Game Development Giant

After returning to the United States, Jester needed to deal with a large amount of official business that he had accumulated during his absence in the United States.

We must also take into account the development process of the ‘Era’ project.

After all, this entire game history is also the largest game project of Mars Entertainment. So far, including Mars Entertainment’s investment in this game, including Jester’s own investment, the total investment in this game has been close to 200 million. US dollars, if the subsequent publicity expenses are added, it may approach the US$300 million mark.

Three hundred million dollars!

Jester couldn't help but feel a little lost for a moment. In the internal meeting of Mars Entertainment, the result of the discussion was that the company would only contribute a maximum of 100 million US dollars. In other words, of the 300 million US dollars in development and publicity investment, he would have to get two Billion dollars, Jester doesn't care how much money he spent, he cares about this game - it is still too difficult to make money in this era.

The game "Era" cannot sell 50,200,000 copies like the later GTA5. There is no such sales game in this era.

Even Jester could predict that the maximum sales volume of this game would only be 10 million copies.

But this is nothing to him.

This is also the reason why Mars Entertainment Company did not agree to fully invest in the internal discussion meeting, because it is not profitable, and two hundred million US dollars is really not a small amount. Ask Mars Entertainment to come up with it, they will definitely be able to come up with it, but there is nothing Meaning, occupy working capital.

It is far better to invest this money in game projects that will definitely make a lot of money.

Most Japanese producers. Even in the United States, those Japanese producers who have worked with Jester for a period of time, whether it is the earliest Yuji Naka. Hironobu Sakaguchi and Tomonobu Itagaki, both of them chose to return to Japan to rebuild the development team that was most suitable for them in their minds. However, there was an exception for one person, who chose to stay in the American component development team.

This is Hideo Kojima.

In Jester's eyes, Hideo Kojima does not look like a Japanese. On the contrary, it looks a bit like Americans.

His speech, behavior, and attitude toward work. And the way games are developed, however, there are times when Jester often finds out. He also has some characteristics that many Japanese designers have.

One of the most special. It is the desire to control the entire project.

It is very difficult for American game designers to understand the idea of ​​completely controlling the entire project in the palm of their hands, because in their eyes, the entire project is the result of collective efforts. No matter how great one person's ability is, In a game, it is impossible to take all the credit.

But this is not the case for Japanese designers.

For example. An American designer is in the process of developing a game. From his point of view, transferring him to other project teams to take charge of other projects is just a normal work transfer, but this is not the case for Japanese designers at all.

This actually has a lot to do with the establishment of projects between games.

For an American game development team to dream up a game, the entire development team probably brainstorms several times together, discusses the structure of the entire game, and then writes a development plan.

The Japanese development team is basically a designer or a few main creators. They meet together several times, discuss it, and then complete a game development plan. Taken together, American games generally rely on collective wisdom. The culmination of Japanese games is the hard work of a few people or even one person.

It's like "Metal Gear" that Hideo Kojima is currently developing.

This game can be summarized like this. He is the crystallization of Hideo Kojima’s wisdom. How should the entire game be developed and how should the system be designed, including the structure of the world, the plot text, and even the camera performance in the game? It was all done by Kojima himself.

However, when developing Metal Gear Solid, Kojima did not adopt the Japanese workshop-style team development method, but chose the American brainstorming method.

He doesn't object to his employees expressing dissatisfaction with aspects of the game.

Then, if it can be explained, Kojima will explain it. If it cannot be explained, then Hideo Kojima will continue to think about whether it is better to keep it as it is or make changes. It is actually very tiring to develop such a game. , the efficiency is not high, but Hideo Kojima personally is happy to die. After Jester returned to the United States, he finished handling the matters at hand.

Finding that he still had some free time, he also wanted to know the current development progress of "Metal Gear Solid" and see if it could be arranged as a launch game on Dreambox 3.

Hideo Kojima is in good shape recently, maybe because the development of the game is relatively smooth.

However, Jester doesn't really believe in Kojima's efficiency. Kojima always strives for excellence in a game. If it doesn't, there is really no way to improve. Kojima will not officially release the game.

The only exception may be "Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain."

Jester recalled his memory of playing this game. To be honest, at the beginning, it was amazing. It was indeed a work that was given full marks by the three authoritative game media of IGN, GS, and Famitsu. But after playing it all the way The game continued to receive the same praise, but in the later stages of playing, Jester discovered that this game actually had many problems.

It can be said that this game is ruined.

The degree of completion of the final content of the game cannot be compared with that of the middle and early stages.

In other words, the reason why so many authoritative media gave full marks to "Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain" this time is not because this game really deserves full marks, but because this game is very likely to , or to put it more accurately, this game is basically certain to be the last game in the game series created by Hideo Kojima and directed by Hideo Kojima himself.

In addition, Kojima was fired by Konami when he did not complete the game.

Although Konami said that Hideo Kojima is still completing the game. But the quality and level of the game itself cannot be deceived.

To put it simply, the level of the early and middle stages of "Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain" is indeed the product of Kojima's meticulous craftsmanship. Because this is Kojima's style, which is exactly the same from the previous four generations of "Metal Gear" works.

But from the rushed ending at the end, it can be seen that this was definitely not the fault of Hideo Kojima.

Kojima didn't spend much time talking to Jester. The topic always revolved around the development of "Metal Gear". Kojima's tone was very excited, but when he said it to Jester. On the contrary, it is a bit mysterious. Sometimes he talks but suddenly stops talking.

Jester asked why. Kojima smiled and told him that he wanted to give everyone some surprises.

After hearing the explanation, Jester didn't force it.

But Jester suddenly remembered something about his investment and layout in China. Because he decided to take advantage of the rise of the Internet industry in China with his sister-in-law. Occupying the commanding heights, especially in the key games that later domestic Internet companies were able to break through and make profits, was actually when Jester analyzed the reason why Legend was successful in the first place.

In addition to some reasons for sales, there is also a more important reason, which is the convenience of their recharge channels.

After all, there was no online card selling platform at that time.

At that time, Shanda used other people's point card sales channels. Jester had read the relevant article about the specific sales channels and forgot which sales channels Shanda used. It's probably either the postal service or something else, and it can easily reach almost all third- and even fourth-tier cities.

But it doesn't matter.

He was not comparable to a small company like Shanda at that time. When Mr. Chen went to talk about Legend, he only had 50 yuan, and the agency rights negotiated were also 500,000 yuan.

The situation faced by Shanda at that time was that they did not even have the money to rent telecommunications servers.

Chen's level of being a white wolf is high enough, but Jester doesn't need it. There are still several years before online games begin to flourish in China, which is enough for him to use this time to set up a sales point across the country. The channel is stuck.

In fact, what Jester wants to do is to open up such an agency channel even if he loses money. Mod games are one of the best ways. Jester can even use methods that make no money at all, or even give money himself. Let the newsstands all over the country buy it. There are still very few of them now. In the future, many Internet cafes will sell it, as long as such a sales channel is established.

When the online gaming boom comes in the future.

He is just looking down upon him.

After thinking about it, Jester called his sister-in-law in China and explained what he meant.

Although his sister-in-law had some doubts, she still chose to believe her nephew.

Jester said it more easily: "With ten million now, we can lay out a nationwide point card sales channel. When we actually use it, we may have one billion or more left over." money."

Although Jester's sister-in-law is not very interested in what Jester said about saving a billion or more in expenses, because she doesn't think Jester's thing can do it, but 10 million is good for her. , for Jester or not, it was really a sum of money that was not worth mentioning. None of them cared about it and just spent it.

Jester has plans to move his company's dark-oriented MMORPG, which is very successful in North America, to China.

After all, Diablo is also a very popular game in China now.

But after thinking about it, I still feel that the domestic Internet speed is too slow. Even if the agent is used now, there are very few people who can play. However, starting from next year, some backbone networks should start communication, although it can still only cover Some places, but finally we can play.

Jester is not afraid of losing money now. All he wants is to be famous. That's what the Internet is like. Once you are famous, when it's time to collect money, the money will naturally come.

The Internet company he opened with his sister-in-law in China is currently busy with a lot of things, and the matter of being a game agent is not urgent. Moreover, Jester also has plans to merge Fu Zan's studio into this network. Within the company, it is not too late to discuss the agency game matters in the future. The end of this year or the beginning of next year should be a better time.

After that, Jester's life was quite ordinary. He had no time to go out and play, so he could only focus on work every day.

Now that he has made a decision for himself to make a few more games before retiring, he also wants to make these last few games as good as possible without leaving any regrets.

There's nothing much to say about the 'Era' project. It's just a sandbox game set against the backdrop of the ancient Chinese Spring and Autumn Period. It's about a time when heroes travel around the world. What's important is the setting in which you can do anything freely, and through this setting The determination reflects the technical excellence that Mars Entertainment can achieve, and of course, the performance of Dreambox 3 that completely surpasses the other two major consoles.

There is also a lot of bad news.

For example, both Sony and Sega have officially announced their next-generation consoles, and both have announced specific release times.

Sony's PS2 is the first to be released, and the time is set at the end of this year, the first Sunday in December, while Sega's Saturn is set at the beginning of next year, the last Sunday in January.

Then, all the major media are waiting to see if Mars Entertainment will announce any specific information about their new console. This is currently a topic that both game media and players are most concerned about.

Because no one except the people from Mars Entertainment knows what the new console called Dreambox 3 is.

I don’t even know what it looks like!

Of course, no one knows what Dreambox 3 will look like yet. After all, the appearance design work has not yet started. Basically, there are several established plans. Which one should be adopted still needs to be discussed, as well as Jester’s final decision. of.

However, neither the media nor players, even the official mouthpiece of Mars Entertainment "Game", have given any specific expression.

I just briefly said that dreambox3 is under intensive development.

This certainly does not satisfy the media or players.

Your opponents have announced the specific release date of their new consoles, but you still haven't expressed anything at all?

Have you really given up on the next era?

As for technical problems, no one thinks that Mars Entertainment has any technical problems, because the development of game consoles is not something too sophisticated. Moreover, the level of Mars Entertainment's hardware team is well known. (To be continued...)