Chapter 264: A little greed is not greed! (Happy New Year to everyone)
"Star Emperor 2" is not only a sequel, but also more than just a game.
To be precise...
Starting from the previous game, this game has been deeply tied to many PC hardware manufacturers, forming an ambiguous pattern of you in me and me in you.
So, this is not just a game, it is a bond that connects Tianba Studio on one end and many hardware manufacturers on the other end, used to maintain the relationship between the two parties.
Because of this, when Tianba Studio officially announced that it would produce a second-generation sequel to its fighting game "Star Emperor" this year, the first to come to support it were not fans of the previous game, but...
AMD: Looking forward to it! "Love"
NVIDIA: Love you!
Da Ren Shuo: That’s great, I can finally play the super cool “Star Emperor 2”!
That’s right!
As if they had made an appointment, the official accounts of major hardware manufacturers arrived at the comment section almost at the same time, leaving the most sincere blessings.
Netizens were stunned.
no……
Where did you guys come from? Tianba Studio officially announced the sequel, and we old players didn't say anything. Why did you irrelevant official accounts come to join in the fun? "What do you mean irrelevant? I'm the investor of "Star Emperor 2". I spent money to make the game. Can't you come and take a look?"
The various manufacturers who were questioned by netizens in turn showed proof of "transfer" in a very unconvinced manner, saying that they also invested in this game. They spent the money, so what's wrong with coming to the comment section to show their presence? "Wow! There is really investment?"
"Let me see... Why are there so many investors? There must be at least a dozen or twenty companies on the thank you list, right?"
"The number is not the point. The point is, isn't the list of investors for Star Emperor 2 a bit too scary?"
"Queshi! I also saw Microsoft and Sony... How did these two console manufacturers get in?"
"The host manufacturer is at least somewhat related to PC hardware. I didn't expect Sansang Huazi to squeeze in..."
So horrible!
As a sequel game, "Star Emperor 2" was not paid much attention by everyone. After all, those who know about sequels know about them.
But this time, looking at the long list of “thank you companies” listed by Tianba Studio, almost the entire gaming community was shocked.
Brother, what do you do? You said you are making a game, and it is a sequel, is it necessary to invite so many guests to help? And these guests are all heavyweights!
People outside the circle, who don’t understand the game of "Star Emperor" and have never watched the GAL League, are now confused.
This list has spread far and wide!
Almost as soon as Tianba Studio released the announcement, screenshots of the list were quickly taken and spread all over the Internet.
As a result, netizens are curious about what kind of game this is and why the investors have such a luxurious lineup. If you look at this list, it can be said that it is a gathering of well-known technology giants and Internet giants from all over the world. The combined market value is enough to shake the A-share, Hong Kong and US stocks.
It is no exaggeration to say that...
All the companies that thanks "Star Emperor 2" can compete for the top few places in the world if the market value is regarded as GDP.
Why is this happening? Netizens can’t figure out why all these companies are investing in one game? Although the amount of money invested is not much, only a few million dollars per company, the advantage is the large number!
The investment amount is estimated by everyone from the financial reports released by listed companies. After all, these companies are basically listed companies, and the flow of funds exceeding tens of millions of US dollars must be announced to investors and shareholders.
At almost the same time, all technology and Internet listed companies had explanations of funds being “missing whereabouts unknown”.
Whereabouts unknown is a joke.
These companies have all said that this money was a special fund allocated to Tianba Studio for the production of "Star Emperor 2", and there is no problem of the money's whereabouts unknown.
But for many investors and shareholders, this "meaningless" investment is completely incomprehensible to them.
No, just invest in a game. Money lying in the account won’t produce any results anyway, and tens of millions of dollars isn’t a lot of money.
But the question is, why don't you seek returns for the games you invest in, just like doing charity and being selfless?
Players are exclaiming, and shareholders and investors are angrily criticizing the management.
Isn’t tens of millions of dollars money?
You said you could use the money for advertising, donate to charity and buy reputation, or even if the CEO embezzled it, why give it to Tianba Studio for nothing? Is Chen Ba your father?
Perhaps because they were criticized so badly, many company managers had to come forward to explain why the money seemed like "charity."
"Chen Ba is not my father, and we are not doing charity, but this money is really a gift without any expectation of return..."
"Please take a long-term view. The reason we are willing to invest in "Star Emperor 2" is to expand the influence of the GAL League!"
The management felt so aggrieved that they almost cried.
They really have no selfish motives, nor do they worship Chen Ba as their father. "Star Emperor 2" is not an investment of unknown significance, but a strategic investment with long-term planning.
You can’t just look at the gains and losses in front of you!
Looking only at the present, it is true that they gave a sum of money to Tianba Studio for nothing, which is a complete injustice.
But isn't the GAL League the biggest beneficiary of the game "Star Emperor 2"? And as a participating team in the GAL League, can't they benefit from it?
"I see!"
After the management's painstaking explanation, a group of shareholders and investors finally understood the significance of this investment.
But soon, they had new doubts.
Does the GAL League, which was created by "Star Emperor", really have such an exaggerated influence? Is it worth these giants to invest in it? The management of these listed companies did not answer this question.
nonsense!
What should I explain to these middle-aged people who don't watch e-sports games, don't surf the Internet much, and don't understand the preferences of young people today? Even if I explain it, will they understand? To put it bluntly, the GAL League is also an e-sports event! Since it is e-sports, it is destined that the audience and fan base will be mostly young people under 35 years old, rather than a bunch of middle-aged people who only know how to watch short videos.
Only by entering this circle, putting yourself in their shoes and interacting more with young people can you deeply feel the popularity and influence of the GAL League.
If you are not in this circle, it is completely nonsense to talk about influence or popularity with him...
Chen Ba was deeply touched by this.
Xu Xiaofei, the top "super giant" player in the GAL League, is as popular on the Internet as Dim Stain and Reshai in League of Legends.
As long as one is a young person, no matter whether he has played "Star Emperor" or watched the GAL League or not, he has more or less seen related videos or reports, and he must know Xu Xiaofei.
But for our parents, Xu Xiaofei? Who is he? A well-known e-sports player? What is e-sports? No way! These are two completely unrelated groups, so it is meaningless to explain to them how great Xu Xiaofei is and how popular he is.
The same is true for the GAL League.
This competition is known as the F1 of eSports and is recognized worldwide as a top eSports event. Whether it is the size of the prize money or the unique competition system of the tour, it has attracted extremely high attention all over the world.
But the influence of this event really depends on the scoring situation.
For gamers, the GAL League, known as the F1 of e-sports, is not to be missed. They watch every game on time, and if they can’t make it, they will watch the replay. They know all the star players and top teams...
But for non-gamers, what is e-sports F1? I have only heard of the name of F1, but I have never heard of e-sports F1!
"That's why we want to make Star Emperor 2 to inject new impetus into the GAL League and attract more fresh blood."
At an internal meeting, Chen Ba said: "Star Emperor is still too old and cannot meet the needs of the GAL League in the new era. A new game is needed at this time!"
The picture quality must be better! Not only the game picture quality, but also the combat special effects must be upgraded to the top level. After all, this is the core skill and cannot be abandoned at any time.
at the same time……
Because the investors of "Star Emperor 2" are major teams in the GAL League, and this game is also "born for e-sports", so necessary trade-offs will definitely be made in some aspects.
“What are the necessary trade-offs?”
"Simply put, we need to serve the GAL League, not ordinary players. This priority cannot be mistaken."
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
Chen Ba explained: "The playability and fun of the game can be put aside for now. What is important is to satisfy the viewing and balance of the game."
Is Star Emperor a good fighting game?
no!
As a fighting game, "Star Emperor" is actually quite bad. The character balance is extremely poor, and a large number of "supermodel" characters and "sewer" characters emerge in each version.
This is also related to Chen Ba's original concept for designing this game! When he designed "Star Emperor", he never thought that the game's competition system would be so developed and popular, so he designed the characters more casually.
It didn’t matter if the character was slightly stronger or weaker, and at that time no one thought that game balance was a very important thing.
But then things changed.
The Supreme Shark, the Supreme Nether Dragon, the Nine Suns Emperor...
Each version has its own god, especially the Dark Dragon Supreme, which really angered the public. As a result, players pay too much attention to the balance between characters, and they cry out when the characters are weakened or strengthened.
Moreover, these version changes also had a great impact on the subsequent competition environment.
It is for these reasons that Chen Ba decided that for the sequel to "Star Emperor 2", he needed to get the balance mechanism right at the beginning of the game design.
Focus on the viewing experience of the game! For the experience of ordinary players, some fine-tuning can be done appropriately under the premise of ensuring that the game is exciting and balanced enough. However, if it affects the game, the gaming experience of ordinary players can be sacrificed.
Again, this game was, after all, funded by the teams in the GAL League, and adhering to the principle that whoever pays is the boss, their opinions must be the main focus.
Ordinary players may indeed have opinions, and even complain that the second generation is not as fun as the first generation...
But there is no way, there are always trade-offs. This is the case with many games, which cannot take into account both player experience and competition environment at the same time.
Take League of Legends as an example.
ADs like Zelie and Aphelios are almost at the bottom of the ranking win rate, but the designers are still trying hard to weaken them. Isn’t the reason because the game is very popular?
From the perspective of ordinary players, this is completely a deliberate act by the designers. These heroes have low win rates to begin with, so why are they being nerfed? However, in order to make the game more balanced and the event more exciting, this is indeed a trade-off that cannot be avoided.
After the weakening, more heroes can be seen on the field, and the audience will not complain about the same few heroes playing solo over and over again.
Without weakening, the experience of ordinary players can certainly be guaranteed, but the game will become extremely boring. Almost every game is the same hero, which makes people drowsy...
It is not difficult to see that the choices made by Riot designers are mainly based on "performance on the field". As for the experience of ordinary players, let them do whatever they want!
What Chen Ba needs to do is to focus on the performance on the field, regardless of the players' feelings for the time being.
"OK!"
After writing this down, Liu Jinfu asked, "Brother Ba, is there anything else I need to pay attention to?"
"Let me think about it..."
"Well, there really is one, I almost forgot about it!" Chen Ba patted his forehead and suddenly thought of something.
Budget!
Damn it, he almost forgot this most crucial point, which is the most important detail of the "Star Emperor 2" project.
I mentioned it before.
"Star Emperor 2" is a game made by Tianba Studio with crowdfunding from multiple companies, with a total funding of more than 400 million US dollars.
This amount of money is definitely more than enough to make a sequel, and it’s not even a 3A game!
But what Chen Ba was thinking about was not that it was more than enough, but that he could take as much as he could. Now that the money was in his hands, he could never get it back.
"A little greed is not greed!"
Chen Ba's eyes sparkled as he said, "One million out of the four hundred million dollars should be enough for us to spend, right?"
Liu Jinfu: “…”
Xiao Lu couldn't stand it anymore and rolled his eyes and said, "Brother Ba, don't go too far! You're not the one who embezzles. What can you do with one million?"
Four hundred million for only one million?
Brother Ba's fantastic idea almost made Xiao Lu's CPU burn out. No matter how hard he thought, he couldn't figure out how to make this game with one million? "Then how much do you think is appropriate?"
"It must be at least 10 million, I'm talking about US dollars!" Xiao Lu said after calculating.
"That's too much..."
Chen Ba still felt a little reluctant.
Ten million US dollars is equivalent to tens of millions of RMB. How can you be so wasteful? He thinks that 10 or 20 million RMB is enough.
“…It’s not impossible!”
Xiao Lu nodded first, then looked at Chen Ba and said meaningfully: "But, are you sure you want to be so greedy?"
Only about 1% of the $400 million budget was used, and the rest was embezzled by Brother Ba.
If this matter gets out, the hardware manufacturers may not object. After all, when they paid the money, they had already expected Brother Ba to "cut corners".
But the shareholders and investors behind these companies are not so magnanimous. Will they let Brother Ba off easily? (End of this chapter)