Chapter 135: God's Grace Animation Festival
Qian Xin is very lucky.
He was one of the first UP hosts to transform into producing Shen’en animations and became famous with “The Adventures of Jayne”.
Standing on the wind, even a pig can fly, and he is that pig! With the fame and fans accumulated by "The Adventures of Jayne", he later bought the professional version of Shen'en Continent and produced two new Shen'en animations.
Although these two Shenen animations, "Shenn's Magic Academy" and "I Got Reincarnated as an Elf, the Queen Confessed to Me" did not achieve as brilliant results as "The Adventures of Jayne", they were not bad either, and he successfully made a lot of money.
As the saying goes, when people have money and have met their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and transportation, they will pursue fame and fortune, especially fame! Qian Xin is no exception.
He considers himself to be a member of the animation industry and a qualified animation director.
But unfortunately, the animation industry does not accept him, nor does it recognize animators like him who got their start with "Shen'en Animation", and still excludes them.
Qian Xin took his works and registered for many animation award ceremonies, but always returned with disappointment.
This is just like how it is difficult for online writers to get recognized by traditional publishing writers and integrate into their circle. People look down on you and think you are not up to the standard. What can you do? Of course, you don’t play with them and form your own circle.
Qian Xin wrote a ten-thousand-word letter to Tianba Studio, in which he elaborated in detail the impact and disruption that Shen'en Animation had on traditional animation.
He suggested that Tianba Studio take the lead in establishing the so-called "Shen'en Animation Association" and hold the "Shen'en Animation Festival" to give voice to the vast number of Shen'en animators who have not received much attention and recognition.
In his letter, he introduced: "…Shen'en Animation originated from "Shen'en Continent", and can be regarded as a semi-derivative product of the game. Because of this, Shen'en Animation has never been recognized by the animation industry, and people think that we are just entertaining ourselves."
"As of August this year, the total cumulative output of Shen'en animation worldwide has reached 13.07 million minutes, which is dozens of times higher than traditional animation!"
"The total output value is also tens of billions of yuan. Shen'en Animation is one of the representatives of the new force animation, and it is also a group that has been ignored by the mainstream. We need a channel to express our opinions..."
"If Shen'en Animation is not given fair treatment, then we don't need recognition from others. It's fine to just play our own games!"
"It is urgent to establish the Shen'en Animation Association and hold the Shen'en Animation Festival. I think only Brother Ba has the reputation and appeal to unite all the Shen'en animators..."
Brother Ba is God, Brother Ba is light! Brother Ba is like the sun, shining on every Shen’en animation person. Shen’en Animation Association cannot lose Brother Ba, just like a fish cannot leave water.
After a bunch of flattery, maybe Brother Ba was pleased and he replied to express his support.
So, at Qian Xin's call, Chen Ba stood up and publicly stated that he would establish the so-called Shen'en Animation Association, inviting Shen'en animators from all over the world to come to Jiangning, formulate industry standards and rules, and jointly discuss the future development of the industry.
Yes, worldwide! The Shen’en Animation Association is definitely a global industry association. After all, Shen’en animation is not only produced in China, but also broadcast in other countries and regions.
The president must be Brother Ba.
All Shen'en animations originated from the RPG adventure game "Shenn'en Continent", and Brother Ba is the producer of the game.
To put it bluntly, he is the founder of Shen'en Animation and the one who gave everyone their jobs!
If he is not qualified to be the president, then who has the prestige?
The association’s headquarters is located in Jiangning.
Brother Ba serves as the president, Qian Xin serves as the vice president and secretary general, and the other vice president is from Neon, who has also made many outstanding contributions in the field of Shen'en Animation.
More importantly, this Japanese animator has considerable fame and reputation in the entire animation industry.
In addition to the president, vice president and secretary general, the association also has 17 "directors", who are outstanding and excellent Shen'en animation producers from all over the world.
Brother Ba basically doesn't care about anything.
This is just like the GAL League, Brother Ba is the "rubber stamp" and "spiritual leader" lifted up by everyone.
In ancient times, the prime minister held the emperor hostage to control the princes. Today, the secretary general holds the tyrant brother hostage to control the princes...
To put it bluntly! Chen Ba, the president, holds the power in name, but he really doesn't care about things and doesn't have time to manage the internal affairs of the association. Qian Xin, the vice president and secretary general, is the one who really manages things.
When the association was established, the first president, Chen Ba, made a serious suggestion: to hold the Shen’en Animation Festival! As the name suggests, the Shen’en Animation Festival is similar to the Cannes Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and Berlin Film Festival.
Only open to Shen’en animations! As long as it is a Shen’en animation, you can sign up to participate in the Shen’en Animation Festival. In addition to the grand exhibition activities, various “Shen’en Awards” will also be selected.
The awards include Best Animated Short Film, Best Television Animation, Best Animated Film, Best Animated Character, Best Animation Director, Best Animation Screenwriter, Best Animation Music, Best Animation Editing, the Annual Shen'en Award, etc.
This is different from other animation awards.
The awards at the Shen’en Animation Festival focus more on “creativity”, “director” and “screenwriter”, and no recognition is given to the production aspect at all.
This is normal.
After all, how can Shen'en Animation produce this part? At most, there is an editor, and the rest is all left to Shen'en Continent to complete.
The establishment of the award, including the prize money and all expenses of the Shen'en Animation Festival, is mainly funded by membership fees paid by members and sponsorship from Tianba Studio.
The first Shen'en Animation Festival is scheduled to be held at the end of this month.
Qian Xin started busying himself with this early on, looking for a suitable venue and renting it, setting up the stage and venue, and customizing the trophy.
The most important thing is to contact major animation companies and animation producers and submit your works to the jury for review as soon as possible, so that you don’t end up being too late to participate in the selection.
Because this was the first Shen'en Animation Festival, the process was very rushed. It was basically just a formality and the awards had already been decided.
There is no way if it is not decided internally.
After all, time is limited and the judges are very busy, so we can't waste too much time.
However, although they were pre-selected, the winning works were all truly wonderful and beautiful, and it is no exaggeration to say that they are the best of Shen'en Animation.
Interestingly...
The first Shen'en Animation Festival established a Lifetime Achievement Award, which was then presented to Brother Ba.
The award citation said: "He opened up a new track in the animation industry and created the category of Shen'en animation... Although he is not an animator and has no works, he has left a colorful page in the history of animation."
Giving out the Lifetime Achievement Award at the first session has indeed broken many people's perceptions.
But thinking about it carefully, this award should really be given to Brother Ba. If he hadn't developed the game "Shennong Continent", how could we be where we are today? The applause was very enthusiastic.
Everyone was convinced when Brother Ba won the award.
Although he is not in the animation industry, his legend is still circulating in the animation industry. His great achievement of leveraging the entire animation industry with a game is unique in the world! "Brother Ba actually won the award?"
"Yeah! I won a prize!"
After Yang Dong finished clapping, he said with regret, "It's a pity that it's not a gaming award, otherwise we would have an excuse to ask Brother Ba to give us a raise."
Why not a game award? Brother Ba has always dreamed of winning a game-related award, but unfortunately he has not been able to realize his dream until now. On the contrary, in the field of animation, Brother Ba has already achieved success and won many trophies.
Not just in the animation field.
In other fields, Brother Ba has also won many awards, such as Best Dealer and Jiangning's Most Beautiful Matchmaker, and his achievements are equally remarkable.
Why is the main business so difficult?
After much thought, Yang Dong felt that it was still a problem of game selection. Tianba Studio only made small-scale games, not large-scale games.
If you are not a large-scale game, it is difficult to win awards. The main reason is that the size of the game determines the content of the game. If you have less content, you will lack competitiveness.
Unless it is a game like "It Takes Two" which is small in size but is indeed eye-catching and amazing enough, it will be difficult to compete head-on with 3A.
"Please stop it!"
Xiao Lu curled his lips and said, "I'm still raising my salary. If I don't get fired by Brother Ba, I'll be considered a success!"
Fired? Hearing this, Yang Dong couldn't help but ask, "Did you hear something?"
"Do I need to hear this?"
"Brother Ba has already notified the group that the studio will expand to about 25 people, and at the same time, some employees with insufficient professional skills and improper work attitudes will be cleared out."
Xiao Lu sighed and said, "Don't worry, Brother Ba will not abandon us, the founding members of the company, for now."
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
It’s hard to say about others.
There are more than a dozen people in Tianba Studio, but not everyone is extremely capable, and not everyone is as diligent in their work as Xiao Lu and Yang Dong.
It is inevitable that Brother Ba will get angry.
There are a few people who really just want to get by. This attitude is not wrong. In a large company, you can really get by a little bit. After all, there is no shortage of people to work for you.
But in a "startup" team like Tianba Studio, Chen Ba definitely couldn't accept the appearance of such slackers that only exist in large companies.
His requirements are already very low.
I don't expect everyone to be a great person, but if you are in a startup team, you should have the right work attitude, right? Why don't you apply for a job in a big company instead of just taking care of your health? Coming to a startup team not only makes life difficult for you, but Chen Ba also feels upset when he sees it.
A group of people will be fired.
But at the same time, Tianba Studio will also welcome a group of new employees, and the team will further grow.
The team size is 25 people, which is the limit of the current studio office space, and it is also the number that Chen Ba has seriously considered.
This team size is sufficient to meet the development needs of some "medium-sized" games.
The so-called medium-sized games are probably games that start at 98 yuan in the domestic market and go towards more than 100 yuan.
Three digits! This is Chen Ba’s next phased goal, and also the work plan of Tianba Studio for next year, a medium-sized game with a price of three digits.
This is not AAA...
Although some 3A games are priced within this range, they are "discounted" prices, not normal prices.
What Chen Ba wants to make is a game that originally costs three figures but can be sold for sixty or seventy yuan after a discount.
Although this type of game has not reached the level of 3A, its overall quality and completion quality are already quite high, which is incomparable to any game developed in the past.
After the closing of the Shen'en Animation Festival, Chen Ba was thinking about a question.
What conditions must a game meet in order to reach a three-digit price? Not to mention the mysterious pricing.
Under normal circumstances, a hundred-dollar game should have top-notch graphics, or particularly outstanding gameplay.
To put it another way, it means making a game better than the 68 yuan game, so that players are willing to pay a few dozen yuan more, rather than thinking that the price is too high and not worth buying at the original price.
PUBG is probably like this.
However, the early price of PUBG was only 98 yuan, and the gameplay was relatively simple and boring. In addition to a basic map, there were no desert and rainforest maps at that time.
in other words……
In the early days of PUBG, the price could not be supported by the basic map alone, and it was only barely reasonable when the desert and rainforest maps were included.
The games produced by Tianba Studio, "Shennonglu" and "Love Staff", are both 68 yuan.
These two games are worth the price.
Without considering the other functions of these two games, selling them for 98 yuan is a pure premium simply from the perspective of gameplay and game size.
"If Star Emperor had a bigger map, richer plot, better combat methods, and a richer world view, it could barely be a 100-dollar game."
Yang Dong explained: "Seriously, if we can really create a Star Emperor with a magnificent journey from obscurity to the top, and combine it with a large open world map, this will be the foundation of a 3A game."
Yes!
Chen Ba nodded.
From a weak child, he made it all the way to become the Star Emperor, and then fought his way to become an immortal. Combined with the open world map, this is a standard 3A masterpiece.
Unfortunately, the process is too long.
From weak to strong, presenting the magnificent life of the Star Emperor to the players, and creating a large open world map, the workload is really huge.
This is also the reason why 3A is difficult to give birth to.
A complete 3A game, if its multiple components are broken down and made into individual games, can be sold for fifty or sixty yuan.
For example, the classic Gwent card game.
That is part of 3A. Can't it be made into a game by itself? The answer is yes! And the driving and vehicle system of Grand Theft Auto. Can't it be made into a racing game by itself?
It is likely feasible!
"If there is a chance in the future, it would be fine to reset the Star Emperor, but he might not be called this name by then."
As Chen Ba was talking, he couldn't help but laugh out loud, "And by then, the remastered "Star Emperor" will most likely become a true 3A masterpiece!"
At that time, 300 yuan was not too much for a game, right? But I was kidding.
The three-digit number that Chen Ba mentioned just barely breaks through the 100 yuan mark. It's not an overnight achievement to sell the game for two or three hundred, or four or five hundred yuan.
Although both are three-digit numbers, the difference is still huge. A game priced at 100+ and a game priced at 200+ are completely different concepts.
(End of this chapter)