Game Development: I Built a Game Empire

Regarding the relevant data of"League of Legends", Chen Xu did not hide it.

Instead, he chose to announce it openly.

Because there is no use in hiding it.

Other game manufacturers can still calculate statistics through third-party channels, but they are not so accurate.

At the same time, it is basically impossible for a promotion of the scale and level of"League of Legends" not to attract the attention of the gaming industry.

So it’s better to just announce it and build momentum for"League of Legends".

You must know that for most games to become popular, in addition to the quality of the game itself, this temporary popularity is also very important.

Whether it's in the gaming field or anything else.

People all have a herd mentality.

For example, if you open a new restaurant and there is no one there, you may be intimidated.

But if it’s crowded, you’ll definitely be a little interested in getting in and trying it out.

If it tastes good, keep coming here; if it doesn’t taste good, stop coming.

The same goes for games.

Under the vigorous promotion of Chen Xu and Fengyun Games,

《League of Legends' daily active players reached 4.3 million on its first day.

For these 4.3 million people, the three-day retention rate reached 70%.

When this number was announced, the entire gaming industry was shocked.

70%?

Is Fengyun Games fake?

All game designers who are paying attention to the situation of"League of Legends" opened their eyes wide when they saw a piece of data published by Chen Xu on the official blog.

What kind of concept is this?

This means that 70% of the 4.3 million players who logged in on the first day continued to log in to"League of Legends" on the third day.

For example, in"Warcraft" and"Minecraft", the three-day retention rate at that time was over 70%.

It looks the same as League of Legends, but there’s one thing you need to know.

That is, the two games"Warcraft" and"Minecraft" are buyout games.

They have no threshold.

"League of Legends" is a free game, and even the paid content of the game is just selling decorative skins.

Back then, the game industry was shocked by the three-day retention rate of 51% for"The Coast of the Land".

Although it is a mobile game, it is still somewhat different from the PC platform game.

But"League of Legends" directly reached the exaggerated 70%?

All game designers feel a little weird.

In fact, not only the game designers in the gaming industry, but also Chen Xu himself were also shocked when they saw the excited Qin Yi and others in the studio handing this data to him.

Although he has confidence in the quality of"League of Legends", Chen Xu still tried his best to underestimate the performance of"League of Legends" in the early stages.

The results on the first day were very good, but Chen Xu said he was very satisfied if the three-day retention rate could remain above 60%.

But now this result is beyond Chen Xu's expectation.

But after a brief moment of surprise, Chen Xu almost understood why there was such a result.

Because compared to the original"League of Legends", Chen Xu can be said to have put a lot of effort into the novice tutorial.

In the eyes of some players, the overly detailed novice guidance may be a bit cumbersome, but it can retain most players who are exposed to this type of game for the first time, instead of being confused after entering and then deleting the game.

The second is an algorithm of the matching mechanism.

The reason why"League of Legends" can already be experienced in the experience store is that it took so long to go online.

In addition to preparing for follow-up promotion and new content.

There is another piece of work, and that is the game’s matching mechanism.

After enough players enter the game, every player who enters the game is forced to complete the novice tutorial and a human-machine game.

During this period, the player's performance will be included in big data.

Allow players to assign teammates.

For example, if you are killed by humans and machines 10 times in a human-machine game, there is a high probability that the opponent you will match will also be killed by humans and machines 10 times.

The same goes for the killing machine 10 times.

Of course, such a mechanism requires a large number of players.

Only with enough volume can we support this set of matching algorithms.

Try to keep players as close to the same level as possible while ensuring a 50% balance for player win rates.

This is quite important.

Because for games like"League of Legends", the retention of bottom-level players determines whether the game will become a popular game or a niche game.

Only if there are enough players at the grassroots level can we maintain active vitality.

At the same time, the fun of this type of game is mostly based on victory.

Because at its core,"League of Legends" is a competitive game.

Killing the opponent, counter-killing the opponent, or achieving the ultimate five-kill, these are the fun of the process in the game, but the real decisive factor is the fun of the final result.

Even if you kill everyone in the game like crazy, you will still feel depressed if you lose.

But you are all killed. It is easier for people to kill you than to kill a cannon truck when they pass by. But in the end, you win by lying down, and you can still feel happy.

Match players with similar levels to ensure that both parties are on the same level.

If you still lose in this situation, your strength in the system will be reduced and you will be matched with better players.

Of course, if you are already at the worst level in the game.

Then you will be matched with players who are stronger than you but who always lose.

This may sound like a very unpleasant and stupid matchmaking system.

But in fact, it is this game mechanism that ensures the experience of most players.

Of course, such a matching mechanism only exists in matching.

The rankings that will be opened later will have another set of mechanisms.

Simply matching based on rank will be more fair.

It is easy to get started, regardless of whether it is a game player with or without previous RTS experience.

They all got a relatively good gaming experience, and there was no one-sided situation during the competition. There was always some back and forth.

Plus the activity benefits of the game itself.

It directly caused the data of"League of Legends" to explode.

At the same time, looking at the data released by Chen Xu, game manufacturers such as Tenghua and Yilong finally couldn't sit still.