Chapter 98 This Hero is Too Steady
The sales sources of "Divine Grace Continent" are very wide, with sales in China accounting for only about 60%.
The rest all come from overseas players.
Among them, the personal version with a permanent buyout price of 68 yuan and the ultimate version with a price of 88 yuan and accompanying DLC accounted for the absolute majority of sales.
As of the end of July, the total cumulative sales of the Personal Edition and Ultimate Edition across all platforms has approached 2 million copies, making it the best-selling game in the history of Tianba Studios.
But it’s almost at the top! According to the data provided by Xiao Lu, when the sales of “Shennong Continent” exceeded 1.8 million copies, the average daily download and installation volume fell off a cliff.
This means that the potential of the game has been almost exhausted, and sales can only be increased through discounts and gradual improvement.
The professional version is stable.
For the professional version priced at 999 yuan per month, sales volume is not the focus. After all, it is not even a fraction of the personal version, so there is no need to mention it specifically.
The key is stability! Apart from some individual players who spend money to try out the new version but cannot make full use of the advantages of the professional version, the professional version is mostly purchased and used by enterprises and studios.
After using the professional version and experiencing its full functionality, these people renewed their subscription for a full year without hesitation.
In the short term, the professional version does not generate as much revenue as the personal version, after all, the personal version has sold too many copies.
But in the long run, the professional version of "Divine Grace Continent" will be the second largest source of sustainable income for Tianba Studio after "Xianyu Digital".
"Unfortunately, personalized customization has not yet opened..."
Chen Ba sighed.
The original intention of launching the personalized customization service was to make a profit from the animation companies, but who knew that everyone was so cunning and didn't fall for it at all.
Some companies have asked about personalized customization services, but they are all tentative inquiries and are not very sincere...
The so-called sincerity is naturally the price.
Chen Ba thinks that an animation can easily cost millions or even tens of millions of dollars, and the final product is likely to be rubbish, so it shouldn't be too much for me to charge a portion of it, right?
But the animation company couldn't accept it.
This is a conflict of concepts. The animation company is not very receptive to the proposal put forward by Tianba Studio, believing that the fees are too expensive.
The service was attentive though.
In the personalized customization plan, they only need to provide unimportant content such as character design, background setting, script and dubbing, and the rest will all be packaged by Tianba Studio.
The biggest selling point of personalized customization service, and what these animation companies value most, is the intelligence and real-time deduction of "NPC".
In traditional animations, apart from the protagonist and a few characters around him, all other passers-by are just background panels.
This also leads to the fact that the world created by animation will be very "fake" and not real enough!
But with the help of the intelligent NPC deduction of "Divine Grace", the world created by the animation suddenly becomes "vivid and lively" and more realistic.
“They need a reason.”
Yang Dong explained: "No one took the lead, and everyone was hesitant, doubting whether "Shennong Continent" could achieve the effect we promised."
"you mean……"
Chen Ba frowned and said, "We need to build a model house so that others can see the finished product. This way, no one will be fooled."
“That’s right!”
Yang Dong nodded affirmatively.
The reason why no one is willing to pay for the personalized customization service of "Divine Grace Continent" and it has not yet been launched is mainly due to the lack of "actual combat cases".
Selling at such a high price, it should give everyone some confidence, right? But on the market, there is no animation produced using the personalized customization service of "Shennong Continent"! There is no precedent, and it involves such a large amount of investment, so it is normal for animation companies to choose to wait and see.
"Then we should do it ourselves?"
Thinking of the industry tradition that real estate developers usually decorate a model house themselves in order to sell houses, Chen Ba suddenly had an idea.
Since everyone is so hesitant, Tianba Studio might as well take the initiative and prove with practical actions that the personalized customization service of "Shennong Continent" is really awesome!
"sure!"
Yang Dong had no objection to this, but he still had a question: "However, we only know how to make games, not animations..."
Oh yes!
Chen Ba’s expression froze.
Although their Tianba Studio is involved in all kinds of business, it has never made animation and no one has relevant experience.
This is different from normal animation.
Ordinary Shen'en animations would be the same no matter who made them, but Chen Ba wanted to build a model house. Since it was a model house, it would definitely be better than ordinary Shen'en animations.
In this case, it would be impossible for the few people in Tianba Studio to build a good "model house".
"I have an idea..."
"Tell me about it!"
"Didn't some animation companies show interest in our personalized customization service for "The Land of Divine Grace"?"
Yang Dong explained slowly: "We can choose one of these interested animation companies to cooperate with. We won't charge them money, but only share the profits. This will serve as an example for other companies."
Let’s build our reputation first! Once this “model house” is built and everyone has seen the power of the personalized customization service of “Shennong Continent”, business will naturally come to us.
“That makes sense!”
"Then go ask who is willing to cooperate with us and become the first warrior to take the plunge..."
Chen Ba had no objection to this.
Although he didn't know much, he knew that you can't catch a wolf without sacrificing a lamb. People who are involved in pyramid schemes know that they have to give people a little sweet taste before they fall into the trap.
In order to promote the personalized customization service of "Divine Grace Continent", we can indeed make less money in the early stage and not charge too much.
The question is, who will be the first to dare to try the "new technology"? Penguins!
That's right, the first animation company to take the bait was Penguin.
Penguin holds many popular online literature IPs waiting to be developed, including online literature adaptations into animations.
One of the biggest problems in adapting online novels into animations is that they are too long and have too many characters.
The length of the article is the most difficult problem to solve. As we all know, online articles start with several million words, which makes it very difficult and laborious to adapt.
There were too many cuts, and fans of the original novel were dissatisfied.
If we don't make any cuts, the budget won't be able to sustain it. And if we really make the animation according to the rhythm of the original novel, the viewing experience won't be very good to be honest.
After all, there are only one or two episodes updated a week, and the plot content of these two episodes is only one or two chapters of the original novel. Who can stand this? But Shen'en Animation is different! Shen'en Animation focuses on "large quantity and fullness". It uses "Shennen Continent" to produce an online novel adaptation animation. Relying on powerful real-time calculations, the update speed may be faster than the original novel.
The novel is still set in Mikami Yunlan Sect, but the animation has been expanded to the vast world. Didn’t expect it?
But there is a problem with the personal or professional version of "Shennong Continent"...
NPC is so smart!
Because they are too smart, they don't play by the rules, which means there are too many random events, which deviates from the original intention of "adapting the original work".
Therefore, Penguin places its hopes on the personalized customization services provided by "Divine Grace Land".
They hope to solve the problem of NPCs not playing by the rules and not following the original plot line through personalized customization, and adapt one highly famous online literary masterpiece after another.
The solution to this problem was found during the communication stage.
As long as the original online novel is provided, Tianba Studio can let the NPCs of "Divine Grace Continent" change their identities and deduce the plot according to the plot line.
That’s right, it’s still deduction! It’s impossible to follow the plot completely. After all, these NPCs don’t really listen to Brother Ba.
However, the deviation of the plot can be controlled within an acceptable range through time travel, modification tools, etc.
For example.
The protagonist is a hero who saves a beautiful girl. In the original novel, he fights the local hooligans and saves the rich girl. In the Shen'en version, he fights the rich boy and saves the common people...
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
This error or deviation can be covered up by saying "adaptation", so Penguin can accept it.
It was just that the two sides failed to agree on the price.
This time, Tianba Studio proposed a "model house" plan, providing free personalized customization services and only charging a portion of the animation revenue, which made Penguin very interested.
So, the two sides hit it off.
After careful screening, an online novel titled "This Brave Man is Too Steady" finally stood out and became the target of the first personalized customized "Divine Grace Animation".
First of all, although the original novel is classified as a "light novel", the subject matter still belongs to the Western fantasy type that "Divine Grace Continent" is best at.
Secondly, the most essential and biggest highlight of this novel is the stable character of the protagonist "Pas", while the supporting characters and other branching plots are secondary.
In other words…
Even if the NPCs act up and cause the plot of the animation to deviate slightly from the original work, there will be no problem as long as the character of the protagonist can still hold up.
For other animations, it takes a very long time from planning to production to broadcasting.
But this is Shen’en Animation! After discussing the project details on the first day, we made a custom NPC for the protagonist “Pas” on the second day, imported the background of the novel, and started plot deduction in the afternoon.
On the third day, the animation started airing.
In fact, if Penguin had not been very cautious and repeatedly reviewed the quality of the animation, a 25-minute episode of the animation would have been checked no less than ten times, and the animation would have been broadcast the next day.
Updating ten episodes a day is just the limit for the voice actors and editors, not the limit for Divine Grace Continent...
If it weren’t for the voice actor’s poor voice and the editor’s direct shout of “spare me”, Chen Ba would have wanted to update a hundred episodes a day.
"This Brave Man is Too Steady" is an online novel that became popular last year and has a high reputation and fan base across the entire network.
After learning that the novel was being adapted into an animation, many fans were looking forward to the final product, and even had some doubts about whether Penguin could play the protagonist "Pas" well.
As a result, everyone felt relieved once the animation "This Hero is Too Steady" jointly produced by Penguin Animation and Tianba Studio was broadcast.
Not only relieved.
It was a pleasant surprise!
The animated version of "Pas" is even more afraid of death than the one in the original novel. The word "steady" is simply engraved into his bones.
Although the adapted plot is slightly different from the original novel, everyone understands that this is a "Divine Grace animation" after all, and it is already very impressive to restore it to this level.
The most important thing is... the animation version updates ten episodes a day. Do you understand what this means? It's so happy!
The quality of "This Brave Man is Too Steady" is actually not very high. Compared with those top animations, it can only be considered above average.
But the advantage is that the quantity is large and it is filling...
Ten episodes are updated every day. Before the audience has finished watching the previous day’s update, ten more episodes are released the next day.
According to Penguin Video officials, the animation has registered 1,074 episodes and is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
Yes, you heard it right.
A 1,074-episode anime, not divided into seasons 1, 2, and 3, was broadcast all at once, and it only took three months! Wow!
The audience couldn't stop laughing and renewed their video membership until next year. Brother Ba was also smiling happily because now that they had a model house, they would not lack business in the future.
Only those competitors who had new works broadcast at the same time turned green with anger when they saw the update progress of "This Brave Man is Too Steady" with ten episodes a day.
An animation of this quality, shot and broadcast at the same time, can you tell me that ten episodes can be updated in one day? A thousand episodes can be broadcast in three months?
Chen Ba, you deserve to die! Some people were so angry that they felt dizzy and felt that their future was bleak. Some people joined the group because they couldn't beat them, and then they contacted Tianba Studio.
all in all……
The impact of "This Brave Man is Too Steady" is actually more exaggerated than the original "The Adventures of Jayne".
Because whether it is "The Adventures of Jayne" or other Shenn animations, they are all mass-produced works on an assembly line.
This kind of animation has a high lower limit, but a low upper limit, because it lacks a miraculous plot and interesting characters, and the graphics are also crude.
And "This Brave Man is Too Steady" fills this gap.
As long as there is the right character design, background and creativity, combined with the personalized customization service provided by Tianba Studio, an animation with a quality of 80-90 points can be produced.
Moreover, the output is extremely high, and 1,000 minutes of finished feature film can be produced in one day.
Although the picture quality is not up to the top level, it is not much worse than ordinary animations. It just depends on the audience's aesthetic preferences.
How to play this? Ordinary Shenen animations can only cover the theme of "different world". However, Tianba Studio's personalized customization has covered 80% of animation themes.
The good news is…
"Land of Divine Grace" is limited by the turn-based game itself, so the fighting cannot be done well, and animations with gorgeous special effects cannot be made.
Animations that focus on plot and daily life are the areas that "Divine Grace Land" excels at.
But this is also terrifying!
It's impossible that everyone will stop making daily life and story-oriented animations and rush to watch hot-blooded fighting shows like "Dragon Ball", right?
Considering the general trend of future development, many people thought about it and finally decided that if they can't beat them, they should join!
At present, Shenen animation cannot become mainstream. After all, without the other world, other themes are not easy to develop...
But if we continue to develop in this direction, it is definitely a good idea to make more Shenen animations. This is not only to accumulate experience for the future, but also to save costs.
Shen'en animation is too cheap!
Not to mention the 68-yuan personal edition and the 1,000-yuan professional edition, even the most expensive personalized customization is actually very cheap compared to the labor cost...
(End of this chapter)