Chapter 252 Hidden Problem
Gu Fan explained: "The game "Mission 3" is actually very cost-effective."
Lilith was a little confused: "Why? This game After all, we have a group of players. If we make a sudden change and make these players have a lot of negative emotions, wouldn't it be a good deal?"
Gu Fan shook his head slightly: "Mr. Li, you should do it? Think of it this way.
“This first game has a premium compared to the following two games.
"The game mechanics and gameplay of "Mission 3" are similar to "Xiaoyaowenjing" and not as good as "Clash of the Demon World". But its price is 30 to 40 million higher than the other two games. Why? Of course because Its IP itself has a certain value, and with some players, the game can earn a net income of about one million per month.
“But if you think about it carefully, you will find that these things are not actually worth three or four thousand. million premium.
“Suppose we buy the game and do nothing, and make a net profit of about one million every month, then it will take us seven years to recover the cost of 80 million. Even if Even counting the premium of 30 to 40 million, it will take about three years to recover.
“And this is just an ideal situation. Under real conditions, this old game may die suddenly at any time. This month I can still make a million in profit, next month it will be 300,000, and the next month it will be 100,000.
“The IP of this game is actually not a positive asset. Although many players have heard of the name "Mission", in everyone's impression, they also know that it is a somewhat Boring, outdated shooter mmorpg
"The players we want to inherit this IP will naturally inherit other players' stereotypes about this IP. When we accept these players, it means closing the door to other players.
" There are not many active players of "Mission 3" at present, and even if we make changes to the game and call it a name like "Mission 4", it will be difficult to attract enough players.
"Even if these active players are persuaded to quit, how much negative emotions will be generated? It's hard to say."
Lilith nodded slightly after hearing this: "Well, that makes sense!"
If it is "Mission 4", no matter how much money is spent on promotion, there will not be too many casual players to play it.
And if it is a brand new IP, with the word-of-mouth support and marketing support of Nitiantian Games, it may attract a large number of passerby players. If you persuade them to retreat, you will gain more negative emotions.
So, it is indeed not cost-effective to spend an additional 30 to 40 million to purchase this premium.
Gu Fan continued his analysis: "I don’t think there is much difference between the two games "Xiaoyao Wenjing" and "Disputes in the Demon World".
"But in comparison, "Xiaoyao Wenjing" 》It is a relatively stable framework.
“Although this game has been discontinued and is basically out of date, it has been in operation for three years after all, and the game will definitely not have too many outrageous bugs. The game experience that players can get is also relatively good. Fixed.
"In terms of content, it's quite satisfactory, or it can be said to be old-fashioned.
"Comparatively speaking, "Disputes in the Demon World" is still a semi-finished product. The content is not very stable, and there may be some vicious bugs that affect players' gaming experience.
“But it is the latest game after all, and many of its mechanisms are relatively new. In fact, it is more suitable for packaging some gimmicks to attract players to play.
“In addition, “Disputes in the Demon World” is more suitable for Western-style games. Art materials with fantasy background, which is an advantage for our game Against Heaven.
“You can definitely use exquisite art materials to trick more players into joining.”
Lilith was confused.
Gu Fan just helped her rule out a wrong answer, but Lilith still needed to make her own decision as to which of the two games "Xiaoyao Wenjing" and "Disputes in the Demon Realm" should be chosen.
After thinking for a moment, Lilith finally made a decision: "Then let's "Clash of Demons"! I think this game is the most suitable!"
What prompted her to make the decision was obviously A very important factor is art resources.
"Xiaoyao Wenjing" is, after all, a fairy tale style game, and it would be difficult for Hell to produce similar art resources. Even if it is done, it will still feel weird.
And "The Demon World" is very suitable.
For Lilith, when there are countless pitfalls in the game content, if she wants to attract players as much as possible, she must make the picture beautiful enough.
In this regard, "Clash of Demons" does have an advantage. In terms of game bugs, Lilith also feels that there is not much difference between the two games.
Although "Xiaoyao Wenjing" itself is relatively stable and has no bugs, the problem is that after buying the game, Lilith still needs to make major changes!
If we don’t change it, how can we create enough negative emotions among players?
But once the changes are made, all kinds of wonderful bugs will still appear. The previous negligible advantage of the stability of the game framework will naturally be gone.
In this case, it is better to just buy the semi-finished version of "Disputes in the Demon Realm".
Furthermore, if Lilith wants to change the game, it will cost her time.
If Lilith proposes a brand new mechanism and gameplay, then it is very likely that "Happy World" can only adapt to 30%, while "Disputes in the Demon World" can adapt to 50% or more.
Because the gameplay of "Xiaoyao Wenjing" is relatively old-fashioned, while the gameplay of "Disputes in the Demon World" is relatively new and the mechanism is more complex, so naturally there is more basis for changes.
After repeated consideration, Lilith finally made a decision.
"Okay, then let's buy "Clash of the Devils"!
"At that time, we will change the name of the game and replace all the art resources, and then I will make a plan based on the game content. Certain modifications.
“The modification is expected to take 3 months. After three months, we will start hyping up Nitiantian’s first MMORPG game!”
...
Lilith left happily.
Gu Fan picked up the document on the table again and looked at some details of the game "Disputes in the Demon World" in detail.
This document contains a lot of content, and the investigation is also very detailed. Gu Fan only read it briefly before. Although he has grasped the general framework, he still lacks a deeper understanding of some details. .
He turned the document directly to the middle part, focusing on the changes before and after the game was overhauled.
The reason why "Clash of the Devils" was difficult to produce and ended up being reduced to a half-finished product that was looking for someone to take over was mainly because of the unreliable producer.
In the beginning, the producer was obviously very ambitious.
He wants to make an mmorpg game with a high degree of freedom. Unlike other mmorpg games that have relatively fixed combinations of professions and skills, he hopes to allow players to choose their own skill combinations like some independent games. , create your own build.
It can be said that the idea is very advanced, but when it was actually produced, a lot of problems were found.
Not only are there endless bugs, but there is also a balance that can never be adjusted well, and an elusive construction period...
Finally, under pressure from investors, he had to give up his original idea and returned to his original path.
The skills and talents of each profession are still fixed.
In this way, the balance problem has been solved, and the BUG problem has been greatly alleviated, but the game has become very mediocre. Compared with other MMORPGs on the market, it has no obvious advantages.
What's more, such a major change still slows down the development progress of the game and eventually leads to difficulties in production.
Of course, strictly speaking, at that juncture, no matter whether the producer chose to go his own way or rein in the cliff, this would eventually be the end. It can only be said that from the very beginning, the producer's ability could not match his ideas, so the failure of this game was actually doomed from the very beginning.
It is foreseeable that in the underlying code of this game, there must be a large number of game mechanics that are not visible on the surface but will actually still work under certain conditions.
At this time, "Strife in the Demon Realm" is like a huge iceberg, and all the game content that can be seen is the part exposed on the sea level.
The part under the sea level is even larger.
Gu Fan couldn't help but fall into deep thought: If this point can be made good use of, maybe this game really has the potential to turn around?
(End of this chapter)