Time Travel: 2014

Whether these "followers" who have no idea got into game development or not wake up from their dreams has little to do with Huang Jing.

Even if these "followers" swarm into the game industry and may lead to the emergence of many games that "collide" with Lin Hui's previous games, it doesn't matter.

Huang Jing feels that the entry of these "followers" is not something worth paying too much attention to.

It is difficult for those who enter the industry without a clue or are simply "followers" on a whim to create truly high-quality games by "colliding" with their predecessors.

It’s not that Huang Jing is too derogatory towards these “followers”, that’s the fact.

Video games are recognized as the "ninth art" after the eight major art forms of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, dance, drama, and film.

And what is art?

According to the Da Ying Encyclopedia, art relies on the fusion and balance of comprehensive human factors such as skills, will, imagination, and experience to create implicit aesthetic objects, environments, images, movements, or sound expression modes to refer to and It is a process by which humans who share feelings of beauty or profound emotions and consciousness with others express existing perceptions and precipitate and display personal or group experiences.

It can be seen that when creating art, skill, willingness, imagination and the experience of the creator are all essential.

Although Huang Jing feels that the view of "raising video games to the level of art" still needs time to be proven.

But there is no doubt that skill, willingness, imagination and the experience of game designers are also essential in the process of video game development.

It is precisely because of these factors that Huang Jing feels that video game development is far from being as easy as people outside think.

Especially the development of mobile games.

You know, today in 2014, "mobile Internet" is still a relatively new term.

Mobile Internet has only emerged rapidly in recent years.

With the rise of mobile Internet, the original mobile ecological pattern is also rapidly changing.

With the changes in the mobile ecological landscape, the development of mobile games in recent years can also be said to be changing with each passing day.

In this situation where the future is full of unknown variables, many established companies in the Internet industry cannot be said to have a complete grasp of the future trends of mobile game development.

Not to mention these "followers" who have entered the game without any clue.

As a technology "retail investor", the final outcome is probably the fate of being "harvested".

Perhaps many "followers" of game design also know this.

Even some of the experienced gamers among these "followers" are often more talkative than the technical experts who are less talkative.

However, this kind of rhetoric is of no use. What is the use of just knowing the principles of game development?

Things in reality are often easier said than done.

Even if you have a good idea in your mind, various situations will always occur when you execute it.

For example, consider the design of player emotions in game development:

When it comes to game development, according to most people's understanding, developing games should avoid the generation of negative emotions.

But in fact, this is not necessarily the case. In life, we tend to avoid negative emotions, such as sadness, shame, regret, guilt, etc.;

But in games, we may not be able to experience these negative emotions appropriately.

You must know that whether it is negative emotions such as sadness, shame, regret, or positive emotions such as excitement and happiness, it is important to know that what appears in the game is negative emotions such as sadness, shame, and regret.

They all allow players to experience these in a relatively safe environment.

Because even if some moderate negative emotional elements occur, players can understand that this is an illusion experienced in the game, rather than real sadness. (Of course, this only refers to moderate negative emotions. Excessive ones are ultimately bad. Even positive emotions such as excitement are also bad if they are excessive, in case some players have certain physical defects. , originally just to relax in the game, but ended up experiencing excessive excitement in the game. This situation is undoubtedly very bad for this type of player)

In this case, when designing certain games, not only positive emotions must be present, but moderate negative emotions can also exist.

Sometimes, if the negative emotional factors in the game are designed reasonably enough, players will unconsciously resonate with the game or game characters because of the negative emotional factors in the game, thus enriching the player's gaming experience.

Properly introducing negative emotions into the game will often lead to unexpected results in the game.

This is the truth, but in real game development, when game designers try to manipulate players' emotions in the game, they often overdo the negative emotional elements in the game. These excessive negative emotions often cause psychological disorders for players.

Players are so overwhelmed by negative emotions that they have to stop playing the game or never touch it again.

It may also cause players to still have a huge psychological shadow even after the game is over.

The negative emotions are too weak and have little compatibility with the game, but they still exist for players to be aware of.

Players often think that the designers are deliberately disgusting.

This type of negative emotion is also a failure.

Even professional game developers often fall short when it comes to emotionally driven issues in their games.

What's more, what about the "followers" who jump into the industry as soon as they get excited?

Lin Hui, on the other hand, showed great proficiency in handling the emotional elements in the game.

In the game "FLAPPY BIRD", Lin Hui's design skills in the effect of game difficulty on players' negative emotions can be said to be quite profound, and his understanding of player psychology can be said to be quite good.

According to Huang Jing’s understanding, players who had a bad experience in the game “FLAPPY BIRD” not only did not shrink back due to negative emotions such as “frustration”, but instead became more courageous as they fought, making the game “FLAPPY BIRD” more sticky. Increase.

Well, from this small aspect, Huang Jing felt that Lin Hui's grasp of the effects of negative emotions was excellent.

Anyway, Huang Jing asked herself that although she could watch Lin Hui's game and follow suit and create a similar one, if Huang Jing really wanted to design a similar hit game from scratch, Huang Jing felt that she couldn't do it.

And what Huang Jing thinks she can't do, it may be difficult for some "followers" with varying levels of skills to do it.

In addition to the emotions involved in the game, another example involves the value communication of the game:

Why does something or someone attract someone?

Think about the people around us who attract us. They may be wealthy people from a prominent family, they may be elegant-speaking socialites, they may be members of the opposite sex with a nice figure, or they may be sociable social experts.

These yearnings originating from the heart seem to draw you closer to them.

The core element of this attraction is value.

What attracts us to people is often the value they represent.

By the same token, the games that attract us may be of different categories. They may be cool combat games, card games that challenge wits and courage, or development games...

But there's no doubt that these things attract players.

It's all because these games are valuable or potentially valuable.

Only when the game contains enough value can it attract a player.

Otherwise, today, when games are emerging one after another, they do not have enough value. Why would a player spend energy on them?

Of course, the so-called value here is a broad definition of value. Although visible money is value, there is still a lot of value that games can provide.

For example, a game may provide players with a place for their souls to rest, may provide players with a channel to acquire knowledge, may provide players with social opportunities, or may simply provide players with a sense of accomplishment.

And these can all be classified as values.

Although they know that the value of a game can better attract players, most game developers do not understand the trade-offs when developing games.

The more game developers want to convey as much value to players as possible, the result is unnecessary confusion, which affects the player experience.

When Lin Hui designs games, he is often very clear about the value conveyed by the game.

Take the game "FLAPPY BIRD" as an example. Although the gameplay of this game is nothing to elaborate on.

But the value of the game "FLAPPY BIRD" is worth mentioning.

During the design process of this game, Lin Hui boldly abandoned the aesthetic, ideological and narrative values ​​that general game designers like to convey to players through games.

Instead, focus directly on sharing value.

It can be said that Lin Hui's grasp of the value of sharing is equally wonderful.

The popularity of the game "FLAPPY BIRD" was largely achieved through mutual sharing among game players and their bad friends.

In addition to the above, Huang Jing feels that Lin Hui also has many aspects that are difficult for ordinary developers to achieve.

Anyway, based on the overall design idea of ​​the game, Huang Jing believes that Lin Hui is really not something that a latecomer can just touch upon.

Not to mention that it is difficult for these latecomers to come up with any high-quality games.

To put it another way, what if the "followers" come up with some high-quality games that are comparable to the games previously developed by Lin Hui?

The issue of Lin Hui's income seems to have nothing to do with it.

Huang Jing knows very well that several games such as "Life Restart Simulator", "2048", "FLAPPY BIRD", "HILL CCLIMB RACING" and "T-rex's Journey" have been developed by Lin Hui one after another. In addition to the game "HILL CCLIMB RACING", Lin Hui adopted some slightly different business strategies (and the only game "HILL CCLIMB RACING" that Lin Hui used an alternative business strategy has now been replaced by Lin Hui. It was transferred to SUPERCELL (Super Cell) at a pretty good price.) Lin Hui, without exception, has used the buyout system as the main business strategy for several other games.

Compared with other game business strategies that tend to be long-term in terms of making money, buyout games look more like a one-time deal.

Although players who have purchased buy-out games do not view their purchase as a one-time deal, players of buy-out games are often hopeful and optimistic enough to believe that game developers will also buy out the game throughout its life cycle. They are very passionate about making games and are willing to use their wisdom to further enrich the details of the games.

But in fact, for most game developers, it is enough when players are willing to pay for the games they develop and can be immersed in the games they have developed for longer than the refund time.

Because for developers, buyout games are largely a one-time deal.

In this case, when the market for buyout games is close to saturation, the actual income situation will basically increase to the limit.

The current market situation of the buyout games that Lin Hui has launched in the past is basically a saturated market.

Unless there are some major version iterations or DLC updates with rich content, otherwise, Lin Hui’s buyout-based games in the past will hardly cause fluctuations in Lin Hui’s income.

In other words, Lin Hui’s previous buyout games have already made a lot of money in the market.

In this case, it doesn't matter even if latecomers come up with similar games, even if these games are high-quality.

Because of the time difference, Lin Hui had already earned enough money.

On the contrary, latecomers should worry about how to take money out of gamers' pockets again with homogeneous games after Lin Hui was the first to get there.

This is not a simple matter.

Because Huang Jing knew very well that Lin Hui made the game more than just game development itself.

Although Lin Hui officially entered the field of mobile game development only in the past twenty days.

But Huang Jing knew that although it had only been more than twenty days, Lin Hui had already completed the transformation extremely quickly.

Even though many people are not aware of Lin Hui's transformation, this is the fact.

Generally speaking, if an ordinary independent game developer wants to make his game famous quickly without resorting to external help, there are only two ways:

Either with a unique and eye-catching gameplay;

Or let players realize that the game they develop is a sincere work with rich content and detailed details.

These all depend on the game itself.

Not so with top game developers.

After a certain reputation has been established through the development of a series of games, what it relies on can no longer be said to be the game itself.

Sometimes being a top game developer even produces some not-so-excellent works.

But as long as the work can maintain a level above mid-range.

Then you can still achieve good results despite your past appeal.

In Lin Hui's case, Lin Hui's appeal has played a big role in getting the game's past reputation.

With the help of word-of-mouth, Lin Hui's newly launched games basically become popular quickly without going through a long fermentation period.

These are things that later “followers” ​​cannot match.