Chapter 13: The leeks still have to watch online games!
The popularity of an independent game, without any external interference, tends to fade away quickly.
The so-called external forces are naturally off-site means such as promotion and marketing.
The same is true for [Study Hard Simulator]. Although it became popular for a while due to various reasons, this kind of popularity is rootless and cannot last long.
Even though Chen Ba specially sought out two big anchors to help with live broadcast promotion in order to maintain the popularity, this method could not change the general trend of the game's popularity declining every day.
Another week passed, and as we entered mid-July, game sales no longer increased.
The daily sales growth of several thousand has become a thing of the past. With the sharp decline in popularity, it is now difficult to maintain a daily download volume of even three digits.
The popularity has declined, resulting in a sharp drop in game downloads...
The sudden drop in game downloads caused a chain reaction in which Chen Ba's income plummeted, and his income gradually became dispensable, from making a fortune every day.
This is what a stand-alone game looks like!
Although his income experienced ups and downs, Chen Ba's mood remained stable, at least he did not feel any pity or regret.
From the moment he chose to make a stand-alone game, he had anticipated the current situation.
Aren’t stand-alone games a one-time deal? Even AAA titles only have a little popularity and sales when they are first released. When the player base becomes saturated, the popularity and sales will plummet.
"It's no wonder that online games are so popular. This kind of one-time business is far inferior to the continuous profit of online games."
Chen Ba sighed.
For manufacturers of stand-alone games, the only money they can make is when the game is just released. Unless they offer promotions at historically low prices afterwards, it is difficult for their revenue flow to improve significantly.
On the other hand, in online games, the operation planners can just think of an activity, create some game values, skins and props to sell, or create a new card pool for players to draw from, and the money will flow into their pockets. It's really profitable.
The key is that the core players who like to play online games are like leeks, coming in batches one after another.
Got a cut this month? No problem! Next month, when your salary is paid, you can cut another one.
What a fine leek!
It’s not like single-player players who have to go to the website to check the “all-time low price” to buy a game. If they don’t offer the lowest price, it means they are not sincere, and if they are not sincere, they won’t buy it.
After buying it, you still have to see if it’s fun. If it’s not fun, poorly optimized, or has bugs, they will give you a bad review and curse you so badly that you can’t even raise your head.
Finally, a refund is initiated, leaving the manufacturer with zero money.
The more Chen Ba thought about it, the more he felt that the saying "Money is hard to earn, shit is hard to eat" was the supreme truth. He secretly decided that when the day came when he was so poor that he could hardly afford to eat, he would also work in online games.
With his technical prowess, keen market sense, and... a system that is not worth mentioning, even if he doesn't make a lot of money, it shouldn't be a problem for him to have a good life.
Speaking of the system, Chen Ba immediately became extremely angry.
Although he did not intend to fix the "herding" bug that appeared in the [Hanchuang Kushu Simulator], he also investigated the specific cause of the bug.
The result left him speechless.
This bug actually originated from the "core code" provided by the system. The key is that this code cannot be moved. If it is moved, the entire game framework will collapse and be unable to respond to user commands.
"It's not that I'm lazy and don't want to fix the bug, but I can't fix it even if you ask me to..." Chen Ba thought, feeling both amused and helpless.
To this day, he still doesn't know where the [Most Hardcore Game Producer System] came from, let alone how to parse the code it provides.
That thing is really a heavenly book, right?
Chen Ba once suspected that the core game code provided by the system should be some extremely special programming language that human programmers would definitely not be able to understand.
It would be strange if he could understand that string of talismans that looked like ghost paintings.
He also checked the information online and was very sure that this was not a language that existed in human history or had ever appeared in history.
Could it be an alien language? It was normal for Chen Ba to not understand the computer program derived from the mysterious language, but what he couldn't understand was that such a sci-fi thing would actually have bugs?
"I don't understand, but I am deeply shocked.jpg"
Sure enough, even in distant alien worlds, or worlds of higher dimensions, programmers are still creating bugs and writing shitty codes that others can't understand!
After lamenting the waste system, Chen Ba thought of another question.
Since the bug was caused by the system, then the new game developed this time, could it also have some malicious bug? "No, absolutely impossible!"
Chen Ba felt that the reason why the last bug was not discovered was mainly because he trusted the system plug-in too much.
As the saying goes, every failure makes you wiser. This time, he will conduct multiple rounds of high-intensity testing before the game is officially released. He doesn't believe that there will be such an outrageous bug!
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
"It's actually okay..."
Seeing that the boss was upset about the bug in the game, Xiao Lu said with a smile: "Isn't it common for games to have bugs? A certain big company even bought bugs and gave away games!"
"Study Hard Simulator has been on sale for so long, and apart from the conflict bug of the cattle-herding incident, there are no other bugs. This performance is already very good."
"really!"
As an old player who has played the game for more than 50 hours and was one of the first to purchase the game, Yang Dong has a say in this regard.
“Although the bug of herding cattle is very abstract and outrageous, I haven’t encountered a second bug other than that bug, and no players have reported new bugs on the forum…”
This is already amazing! You know, for a game of this size, it is impossible to be bug-free. The only difference is the number and severity of the bugs.
【Study Hard Simulator】 is an independent game, and it was completed by Chen Ba alone. Up to now, only one bug has been found, which is already a very poor performance.
Look at other games, where dozens of small bugs pop up at any time, a patch is released every three days, and several major bugs are fixed regularly in a week...
In comparison, Study Simulator is so perfect that it doesn't seem like an independent game.
"If I didn't eat and sleep with you and live under the same roof, I would have suspected that you were an alien!"
Yang Dong joked, "This is so perfect. Can this game really be made by one person?"
"As long as there is time..."
Chen Ba did not tell them how long it took him to develop the "Study Hard Simulator". On the one hand, it was unnecessary, and on the other hand, he was worried about scaring them.
Three and a half months, about a hundred days!
If you tell others that they have made a highly complete independent game in such a short time, I'm afraid no one would believe it.
I'd better not say anything.
When someone asked him about it later, he said it took him two and a half years, which made it not sound so incredible.
(End of this chapter)