Chapter 100 "Star Emperor" is free
It's August now.
In addition to designing new characters for "Star Emperor", Tianba Studio also recruited two new employees to be responsible for media publicity and channel operations.
This has always been the weak point of Tianba Studio.
The game lacks exposure! Whether it is an old game or a new game, from production to release, there is no professional media promotion and channel operation, and it all depends on word of mouth among players.
Admittedly, word of mouth is good too.
As long as the game is fun enough, it can become popular through word of mouth among players. There is some truth in the saying that good wine needs no bush.
But this kind of thing is full of randomness.
Chen Ba can't rely on players to promote each new game on their own initiative. It might work in the short term, but it won't work over time.
There are more than one fun game! There are actually quite a few good games that are buried or even ignored. Most of them are due to lack of money and exposure.
This can also explain why some games, which originally had less than a thousand downloads a month, have seen monthly sales reach 100,000 levels after being recommended by UP hosts like Wang Laoju...
In the past, Tianba Studio was struggling to make ends meet and was always facing the risk of game failure and team disbanding, so it is understandable that they did not pay attention to this aspect.
But Chen Ba is rich now!
To say that he is very rich, that is not the case. At least now that the studio has moved to Zhonghai, even if Brother Ba’s family assets are emptied, he may not be able to afford a luxury house.
But in a second- or third-tier city like Jiangning, combined with the current number of employees in the studio, it is more than enough to maintain daily expenses.
After initially solving the problem of food and clothing, the next thing to consider is how to make life better?
"Today we will mainly discuss two things."
At the internal meeting of the studio, Chen Ba raised two topics: the transition of "Star Emperor" to a free game, and the subsequent update of "Shennong Continent"! The former was premeditated.
Shortly after the official version of "Star Emperor" was released, the wise and powerful Brother Ba gave instructions to turn "Star Emperor" into a free-to-play game in the future.
"In the past six months, Star Emperor has been frequently discounted, with the lowest price ever being only 8 yuan."
"Based on this premise, I think the current game sales have reached saturation and it is difficult to see any significant improvement."
Chen Ba tapped the table lightly with his index finger and said after a moment of thought, "We won't be able to sell many copies if we continue to sell them. We might as well make the game free to increase its popularity and online users."
The current sales volume of Star Emperor is stuck at around 920,000 copies, and there is not much room or potential for improvement.
Keep selling, you will definitely sell it.
But Chen Bazhen didn't care about the small sales growth every month. Instead of relying on time to slowly grind for a million sales, it would be better to turn the game into a free game and make money from in-game purchases.
"I have no objection..."
Yang Dong was the first to express his opinion: "It's true that sales are not good. It's also good to turn it into a free game. Anyway, Xianyu Digital has a stable business and can support this game."
Xianyu Digital can make money!
With the strong support of many graphics card manufacturers, Brother Ba also solemnly promised that Xianyu Digital would never sell mining cards and refurbished cards.
Game players still believe in Brother Ba’s promise, especially since Xianyu Digital has such a strong background and people don’t think that it will sell mining cards or refurbished cards, so they can buy with confidence.
At first glance, the group of gamers may not seem like a large one, but in fact, there are quite a lot of them.
What's more, Xianyu Digital not only sells graphics cards, but also takes advantage of the popularity of "Divine Grace Continent" to start businesses such as hard drives, CPUs and memory sticks.
Oh, yes! In addition to selling digital hardware, Xianyu Digital also sells some game-related derivatives.
For example, the figures and mobile phone cases of various characters in "Star Emperor", the plush doll of the old ox in "Study Simulator", the posters and T-shirts of "Divine Grace Continent", etc.
With the store Xianyu Digital around, the server pressure faced after "Star Emperor" became free is a piece of cake.
What is a conscientious game? A truly conscientious game should be like "Star Emperor". If you like to spend money to get skins, then go ahead! Anyway, the game has other channels to make money, and the planners don't have the pressure of KPI flow, and there will be no endless krypton gold activities and skins...
So funny!
Brother Ba doesn't care about the money spent on skins at all. It's already a great mercy for him to release a new skin every month. You can buy it if you want or not.
"The players are pretty good..."
Xiao Lu added: "We know that the game doesn't make money from skins, and new skins are released randomly. But they are still not satisfied, criticizing us for being too lazy and saying that we should release more skins!"
How does that sentence go?
Those who can't get it are always in turmoil, while those who are favored are fearless! Players of other games have complained that the planners are crazy about money. They just released a few skins last week, and this week they put a new batch of skins on the shelves. They have no bottom line for making money. Ugh! When it comes to "Star Emperor", a lot of rich guys complained that Brother Ba is so lazy that he only releases a new skin a month. Who are you looking down on?
I've already bought a 4090 and an RX7900, why do I need this little bit of skin money from you? Hurry up and release new ones! If you can't release new skins, then you are looking down on me. Others release new skins one after another, can't you learn from them?
Chen Ba: “…”
He discovered this, too.
The players of "Star Emperor" are indeed a bit sick. They complain about the small number of skins released and the lack of frequent releases. Who would believe this if others told them?
"Maybe it's because the proportion of wealthy players in Star Emperor is relatively high."
Zhong Shengwei explained with a smile: "For these rich guys, it is really hard to have so few skins and no place to spend their money."
This is also why the anchors of "Star Emperor" are generally well-off, and their gift income directly blew away the anchors of other games with the same popularity.
“That’s right!”
After talking about the arrangements for the free-to-play version of Star Emperor, Chen Ba added: "After the game becomes free, there will probably be a lot of monsters and demons appearing. You should pay more attention."
He is not worried about cheats.
No matter how powerful the plug-in script is, it is just a piece of shit when it comes to becoming an immortal. Strong hardware is the real strength.
And it is highly unlikely that there will be any plug-ins. After all, Chicken Blood Optimization is, in a sense, also an anti-cheating program.
Are you crazy to be cheating in front of the system?
But in addition to plug-ins and scripts, there are also behaviors such as verbal abuse and proxy training that destroy the gaming environment, and these need special attention.
"Power training..."
Yang Dong and Xiao Lu were about to say it was impossible. For the leveling of "Star Emperor", was the graphics card used 4090 or 4080? They used such a level of graphics card. There was nothing wrong with saying that Fu Ge was rich. How could he still be short of the leveling fee?
But they thought again.
In the industry of power leveling, you don't necessarily have to use your own computer. You may also be hired by a rich man and use the equipment provided by him.
For example, a big anchor who claims to have a mermaid line often hires several substitutes to play games, and they eat and live in his own villa.
This kind of thing does exist.
In addition, except for the path to becoming an immortal, "Ultimate Sublimation" is disabled in normal ranking and entertainment modes, and the configuration requirements are not as stringent as those for the path to becoming an immortal.
If a player has really good skills and uses an above-average graphics card, he can basically take orders for leveling.
“It’s impossible to completely eliminate it.”
Yang Dong thought for a moment and said, "No matter what game it is or when, it is impossible to completely eradicate the behavior of power leveling."
"All we can do is create a mechanism to change the matching queue for a player when we detect that the win rate of a certain player suddenly increases."
To put it simply.
The matching system thinks you are a booster, then you will be put into the booster matching pool, and the boosters will be fighting against each other, and finally a super booster will be produced.
Normal players may encounter Xiaodai, but after losing a few times, they will enter a better matching pool and be matched with several opponents with lower win rates to make up for the frustration of encountering Xiaodai.
"Can!"
Chen Ba nodded.
What Dong Ge said makes sense. There is no way to eliminate proxy gaming, even checking the IP address is useless.
For example, a college student living in a school dormitory had to go to the toilet urgently, so he asked his roommate with better skills to help him play a game, and then he would treat him to roast duck later...
Does this count as "power leveling"? If so, how can the game authorities investigate this behavior? The IPs are the same, the computers are the same, and the game is played online the entire time, so it's impossible to detect power leveling.
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
Therefore, the practice of proxy gaming is essentially impossible to eliminate, and can only be curbed and contained to the maximum extent possible.
It is a good idea to divide the game into different matching pools and let the boosters compete with each other. This reminds Chen Ba of "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds".
During the time when PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was at its most popular, plug-ins appeared in an endless stream, and the developer Bluehole was just a small workshop at the time and did not have the ability to deal with the problem of the proliferation of plug-ins.
So, Bluehole made a "magic server".
Let cheats match cheats, and abnormal players match abnormal players, so as to ensure the gaming experience of normal players.
Of course, this is just a rumor.
As for whether the "divine clothes" are real or fake, Chen Ba thinks it is most likely real, otherwise it would not have been so widely circulated.
Yang Dong's proposal is actually to create a "power leveling matching pool" based on the "immortal server". In a short period of time, players with abnormal winning rates will enter the matching pool and compete with a group of power leveling players.
"But……"
Xiao Lu raised a question. If this is the case, then the target of punishment by the matching pool will become the "account owner" himself, right?
After all, the booster will quit after playing a few games, and the account will enter the booster matching pool. The one who suffers is not the booster, but the owner of the account who hired the booster.
"That's right!"
Chen Ba smiled and said, "Why did the power leveling industry emerge? Wasn't it created by these vain account owners?"
"Punish the account owners and let them know that hiring a booster will harm themselves. This is the effective way to eliminate game boosters."
The ranking mechanism of "Star Emperor" has very good rewards. Many well-made skins, Originium, and avatar frames are obtained through ranking rewards.
After the game becomes free, there will definitely be people who are vain and look for boosters for rewards.
What Chen Ba wants to punish are those players who are "submissive during the day but strike hard at night", so that they dare not seek boosters to gain points, and the ranking will be clear.
As for the path to immortality...
It doesn't matter, just do it! If you have the spare money to hire a power leveler, why not go to Xianyu Digital and buy a 4090? Isn't that much better than power leveling?
After discussing a series of issues surrounding the free-to-play version of Star Emperor, Chen Ba also explained the criteria for distributing compensation to old players.
The compensation will be distributed uniformly. Anyway, there is no such thing as gold version or deluxe version of "Star Emperor".
All players who have purchased the game can receive limited-edition game titles, limited-edition skins and Originium compensation worth 580 yuan after the game becomes free.
It's an old practice in the industry.
A large number of paid-to-free games, such as Naraka: Bladepoint, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and Fall Guys, have compensation methods similar to that of Star Emperor.
Perhaps the only difference is that Brother Ba is more conscientious than others and feels that this kind of "virtual game items" compensation is not enough.
Therefore, in addition to the compensation for virtual items, Tianba Studio will also give away an additional "Living under Someone Else's Roof Simulator" Cdkey and a coupon for "20 yuan off for purchases over 200 yuan" from Xianyu Digital.
The sincerity can be said to be full.
It can be said that, apart from refunding the original price, this is the most reasonable compensation method Chen Ba can think of.
Refunds are not possible.
After all, I have been playing the game for so long, and you can just refund me like that? How can such a thing be justified in this world?
"fine."
After discussing with Yang Dong, Xiao Lu and others, they also felt that this compensation plan was reasonable.
Everything that should be given has been given.
The free compensation of "Star Emperor" can be said to be more sincere than 99% of friendly competitors. If players are still not satisfied, there is nothing we can do.
It was also thanks to "Divine Grace Continent" that Brother Ba made a fortune, otherwise, the compensation standard might be less than half of what it is now.
"Then let's release it according to this plan!" Chen Ba said with finality.
"Starting this Friday, Star Emperor will be free to play on all platforms, with multiple new servers added..."
Previously, due to lack of money, we did not build the European server, Asian server, etc., but now we can build one.
Chen Ba, who has money in his pocket, even plans to take this opportunity to hold an offline "Star Emperor" competition.
Offline, not online! Online competitions have been held twice before, and the results are very good. But there is no such excitement as offline competitions, and the delay between different regions is also very high.
"If we hold an offline competition, can we ask Lao Huang and Su Ma for sponsorship to lift the ban and reach the highest level?" Xiao Lu said excitedly.
"Unban the extreme sublimation?"
When Chen Ba heard this, he immediately felt that it made sense.
For offline competitions, the equipment is provided by the official, and with the sponsorship of Lao Huang and Su Ma, the configuration is definitely top-notch.
In this way...
The ultimate sublimation can really be used! "When the time comes, rent a venue, set up a large screen projection, and set up a few live broadcast rooms. The visual impact of the showdown between the masters after the ultimate sublimation will definitely be very strong!"
The more Chen Ba thought about it, the cooler it seemed.
We've all heard that the graphics in Star Emperor are awesome, but few have seen how awesome they are.
If an offline competition is held, masters from all over the world will use 4090 or RX7900 to fight on the road to becoming immortals, which will surely make the whole audience excited.
After all, this kind of famous scene where the Supreme Emperor reaches his highest level and fires at full power is not something you can see casually...
(End of this chapter)