Game Development: I Built a Game Empire

Aren't games like"Isaac" excellent? the answer is negative.

But they are more about players slowly understanding the charm as they get deeper into the game.

Taking"Isaac" as an example, it took almost half a year from its release to its popularity.

"Soul Knight" has achieved 4 million users in just one week due to its simplicity and ease of use.

Why is this happening?

Because dungeon-style Roguelike games such as"Isaac" and"Advanced into the Dungeon" have some learning costs and the game mechanics are more complex.

"Soul Knight" is on the lighter side. In terms of diversification,"Soul Knight" is incomparable to roguelikes such as"Isaac", and there are not so many complicated combinations.

Therefore, it is impossible to make a variety of choices like"Isaac".

For fans who have been exposed to many roguelike games,"Soul Knight" may feel that it is not deep enough and will soon become boring.

But"Soul Knight" also has unique advantages, and it is this advantage that allowed it to achieve 4 million users in one week.

That is the light and simple threshold for getting started with"Soul Knight".

This is its greatest feature.

The same feature of being light and easy to use also allows Chen Xu to promote the game as quickly as possible in the early stage.

After all, for current Fengyun games, time is very tight, and enough profit money is also needed.

Even if Chen Xu has various games with advanced design concepts in his mind.

But if there is no funds, it will be difficult to move forward.

Before this, Chen Xu also thought about making some card games for profit.

After all, if you want to know which type of game is the most profitable and the easiest to make.

Then there is no doubt that it is a mobile card game.

But after thinking carefully, Chen Xu gave up.

Card games have also gone through several stages of development, including previous lives.

First,"I Am MT" became famous, and then"Dota Legend" made further breakthroughs in the innovation of card games.

And"The King of Fighters 98 Ultimate Battle OL" directly helped SNK, which was on the verge of death at the time, turn a profit.

This has accelerated the enlightenment of IP cards.

There is also the great success of the follow-up"Onmyoji" developed by Pig Factory, as well as the small broken website agents making a lot of money《FGO》

These two models directly break the limitations of a card, making the two characteristics of high-quality art cards and original two-dimensional cards a hit.

Including"Azur Lane","Honkai Impact 3" and"Arknights" that were later launched, it can be said that they all followed this path.

And they also have a notable feature, apart from the gameplay, which is their excellent performance in art.

In this world, Chen Xu also carefully studied the current mobile card games.

It is between quality and IP.

A stable industrial scale chain has been formed.

Therefore, for the current Fengyun Games, it is better to enter this field than to develop new games on their own.

There are still two reasons, no money and no channels.

The game can be developed, but if there is not enough promotion funds.

We cannot let the game become an instant hit when it is launched, otherwise it will become a wedding dress for other game manufacturers.

After all, card games are completely different from other games.

Putting aside the main core point of IP, maintaining a card game is to create a card value that players can identify with.

Why do players spend so much money just to get a favorite character?

Obviously this is how players recognize the value of cards in the game.

Just like a collection, if the collector thinks the collection is valuable, then the collection is valuable, otherwise it is just a pile of junk.

As for how to make players recognize the value of cards, the simplest point is to apply IP.

By applying an existing IP, players clearly know the role corresponding to the card.

But if it is a bad IP, such as Journey to the West and Three Kingdoms, how can players recognize the value of the cards and stay in the game?

Two simple words: numerical value.

If IP is the skin of a card game, then value is the soul of the card game.

For example, in the previous life of"Young Three Kingdoms", the IP of the Three Kingdoms itself is actually bad. Why can it be revived when there are so many IPs of the Three Kingdoms on the market?

Even achieved stable operation for three years and achieved outstanding results of over 4 billion in revenue?

It is because of the success of its numerical creation, including the welfare concept created for players in the game.

For example, sign-in on the first day, sign-in in the first week, sign-in half a month, and get gold coins for clearing the copy.

Describe it in four simple words: numerical stimulation.

I don’t say whether these benefits are real benefits or illusions, but at least they do numerically stimulate players and make them stay.

Why do so many mobile games give out benefits and have such numerical incentives?

The answer is simple, because no manufacturer dares not to do this.

In fact, with these things, the player will still be stuck at a certain point, but if you give more, it will give the player a feeling of generosity.

It can retain most players as much as possible.

But if you give nothing away, even if the progress is the same, players will feel that your game is dull.

As for these core systems, it is still easy for major manufacturers to take them away if they have a finished game.

So after careful consideration, Chen Xu temporarily decided to shelve this issue.

It’s not just because card games generally have a bad reputation.

In fact, whether any game is good or not is a matter of opinion.

Just like some people like spicy food and some people like sweet food.

I feel bad, I just don’t like this genre, this is everyone’s right.

There is nothing wrong with that.

The real point is that Chen Xu feels that it is easy to make wedding dresses for others by developing this kind of card game.

At least the most appropriate time is to wait until you have a certain amount of promotion capital and can quickly form a Matthew Effect in the game market.

In addition, compared to card games,"Vitality Knight" is more suitable for a user layout model developed by Chen Xu.