Chapter 382 New Plan

the next day

Small days in China.

Soni is a very special company.

Although its company headquarters is in Xiaoli, most of its first-party studios are in the lighthouse country.

The same goes for "Seven Days Later."

On this day, the headquarters and the production team of "Seven Days Later" launched a very important online seminar.

What I used was the plan I just brought back.

All participants signed a confidentiality agreement and read the content in advance.

At the meeting.

Fujimotoshu said with a serious face: "Please express your opinion."

The development team of "Seven Days Later", Guler, the director of Little Devil Studio, thought for two seconds and said: "If it were not definitely written by Lin Mo, I would suspect that it was written by a third-rate designer. This story gave me a It’s a very strange feeling. If it were me, I wouldn’t have the guts to put it on the market.”

The technical director also said: "Some of these gameplays are now impossible to implement, otherwise it would mean redoing the game, which would take a year to a year and a half. However, some of the techniques and details are exquisite, and Naughty Cat has a feeling of."

The screenwriter also nodded and said: "It's a bold story. I don't understand why the plot is designed like this, just like when I first saw the fragmented narrative of Dark Souls. Maybe this is the Naughty Cat team showing off their skills? We need Consider the audience issue playsquare players have.”

Among them, the manager who parachuted in Soni questioned: "It's just. Can such an important thing be easily obtained? Isn't it a trap?"

The technical director shook his head and said: "Probably not. The controversy is only about the story. The core of this plan is also the story, but the gameplay, framework, game system and other aspects are equally amazing. It can be seen that it was made with great effort and is not third-rate. The kind that gamers use to defraud investors.”

Fujimotoshu heard it.

The production team still believes that this plan came from Naughty Cat.

But the problem remains the same.

The only part that can be used for reference is the story.

The main body of the game has been largely developed and will be ready for release after some further optimization.

Currently, only the story portion can be changed at relatively little cost.

The gameplay has been finalized.

But this story is controversial, and I’m not sure whether players will accept it.

"But has Naughty Cat done enough controversial stories?" Fujimotoshu looked at the screenwriters at Little Devil Studio, "If your team of writers could write the fragmented narrative of Dark Souls, they would still be able to write Detroit. A near-future dystopian society in Become Human?”

When asked, no one said a word.

Seeing that no one spoke, Fujimotoshu finally looked at Director Guler.

"I know that your previous works have been well received. But times have changed now. Don't you want to step on the shoulders of giants and take a step further?"

Guler let out a sigh of relief.

Judging from the moving expression, the result is self-evident.

In August, there were two noteworthy news in the gaming circle.

The first one is the highly anticipated official release date of "Seven Days Later".

However, unlike what was expected, the game’s release date was set for January of the following year.

The second piece of news that came out almost at the same time made many older die-hard players sigh.

The split of the Paradise Road IP has taken a crucial step.

It takes about half a year to complete the entire process.

It will also take half a year, by which time Juhard's lawsuits with the FTC and CMA will be resolved.

For now, it seems that nothing can stop this acquisition of the century.

West frowned and thought about something.

He has been thinking about a question recently, why is it that Naughty Cat is obviously the first time to step into this niche game field, but it is not as mature as a novice?

Does genius really exist?

As early as the release of Diablo, Baofeng Entertainment was already full of nervous emotions.

Anyone who knows anything can see it.

Diablo is a game with huge potential.

And terrifyingly mature.

Even if in some aspects, Road to Paradise 4 does not fall behind, but surpasses it, it cannot stop the decline of the game.

The players themselves can't explain what's wrong with Road to Heaven, but they just keep scolding them.

Players don’t know what’s good about Diablo, but they are addicted to playing it.

After the game was released, Baofeng Entertainment was still racking its brains to think about how to save the game and sell more during its life cycle.

Make IP more valuable and sell it at a higher price.

I haven't figured out a way yet, but I'm waiting for Naughty Cat's follow-up update plan for Diablo.

Version 1.0 of Diablo lasts for 45 days.

Then the first season of the game in version 1.1 - Season of Blood will be launched.

The first season will bring new skins, skins, mounts and pets for each profession with a vampire-like art style.

At the same time, new blood skills will be updated, all of which are passive, which can give old skills some unexpected effects.

The new monster type, vampire, is a powerful monster that must be summoned before leading to the BOSS room in the dungeon.

New equipment, linked with blood skills, brings new gameplay.

In the new storyline, the vampire army is raging in Sanctuary, and the Nephalem have new challenges.

At the same time, after the season ends, the season content will be out of print. Season characters can continue to play, but everything related to the Blood Season will no longer be available.

Best of all, seasonal content is free to play!

As long as you purchase the main game, you can play all the season content without any pressure.

At the same time, it was also officially announced that each major version has six seasons, lasting one and a half years.

New expansion packs will be updated at that time, unlocking new kingdoms, new professions, new plots, and new gameplay.

In the transitional stage between each season, comics and animations will be released to complete the world view.

This large-scale and well-managed update plan made West feel desperate. Baofeng Entertainment would definitely not be able to defeat it.

Because the expansion packs for the previous game Road to Paradise 3 that required money to purchase were not as updated as in the first season.

And no one within the company thought that Naughty Cat would not regard Diablo as a stand-alone game.

It is a service-oriented game that focuses on stand-alone content.

West opened Naughty Cat’s official website and took a look.

There was a latest piece of news hanging there.

["Diablo" has been on sale for a week, with total sales of 709 million U.S. dollars]

Seeing this number, even though West was used to seeing big winds and waves, he couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief and couldn't believe it.

"Why can't Baofeng Entertainment be more like Naughty Cat?"

This game type is not niche, but it is not as mainstream as shooting games.

The previous game, Road to Paradise 3, was the ceiling of this type of game.

What were the first-week sales for the year?

$160 million.

This is already a good number.

Originally, based on the first day performance of Road to Paradise 4, it was expected to reach $270 million in the first week.

The people inside Baofeng Entertainment are excited to open the champagne to achieve such good results in the face of strong enemies.

Unexpectedly, Naughty Cat reported such a terrifying number.

But it now appears that the estimated figure may be a bit high.

If this trend continues, players who are holding on to the sidelines may have to throw themselves into the arms of their opponents.

The hole that we originally wanted to fill with games now has to be funded by IP splits.

But West doesn't care what method Baofeng Entertainment uses to complete the bet, all he wants is the result.

As long as there are no major problems with the two IPs of Cosmic Rift and War Zone.

But the problem now is that Naughty Cat's arrogance can no longer be suppressed.

The Switch did not die suddenly, and Baofeng Entertainment once again lost in the field it is most familiar with without failing.

West, a little anxious.

Juhard has focused a lot of its energy on games in recent years, but its focus is not limited to games.

strategic goals in the future.

The Metaverse is cool, and the reason why it is cool is because the current technology is not yet up to the point of realizing this concept.

Looking at Naughty Cat's layout in recent years, Juhard Company has a faint sense of crisis.

The young boss seemed to have the same intention, and it seemed to be more far-reaching.

Therefore, Naughty Cat must decline.

China.

Zhou Yun of Yunding Technology is reporting to his boss Lin Mo.

"In the second quarter, Switch shipped 14.9 million units. A large part of the reason is that the main competitors XGame and Playsquare are gradually entering the end of their life cycles, and the appeal of exclusive games is gradually decreasing.

If no new exclusive games are released, shipments are expected to decline significantly in the third quarter, estimated at 9.1 million units.

Annual shipments this year are expected to be 28 million units. "

"32 million units, much better than expected." Lin Mo nodded, "What about game sales?"

This is not Zhou Yun's responsibility. The person responsible for reporting is Naughty Cat.

“In terms of game sales, the total number of game sales in the second quarter was 20.1 million copies, of which 59% were digital versions and 41% were physical cartridges.

The highest-selling first-party game "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", self-developed by Naughty Cat Headquarters, sold 13 million copies, accounting for 64.67% of the total sales.

The second best-selling game is "Kaitan", an exclusive soul game developed by Tsujimoto Entertainment Co., Ltd., with sales of 3.3 million copies, accounting for 16.41% of the total sales.

The third best-selling one is.”

The reports are completed one by one.

Lin Mo nodded, frowned and said, "The sales volume of this game does not match the sales volume of the game console at all."

The Naughty Cat employee nodded and said: "Mr. Lin, the Ministry of Commerce is actively working hard to discuss cooperation with third-party manufacturers, but our Switch project started late, and it is difficult to rely on third-party games to support game sales."

That's what the words mean.

Still have to rely on first-party games.

This conclusion is not unexpected.

But not enough.

Lin Mo frowned and thought carefully.

Neural connection technology is gradually maturing, and new plans are about to begin.

That's not a small amount of money.

The current Switch sales are not bad, but the cost has not been recovered yet.

In his previous life, Lin Mo read a lot of online game novels and yearned for the game of wearing a helmet and relying on neural connections to enter the game world.

Although the game design level in this world is poor, fortunately, the technology tree is different from the previous world and has a lot of black technology.

If you have the opportunity to realize your dream, you shouldn’t miss it.

“Time is running out”

With a sigh, Lin Mo commanded: "Okay, let's stop here. Notice, meeting."

The work report is complete.

Next, it is the establishment of the new project.

A new group of people in the conference room came in.

Zuo Xuming, Du Rui and others walked in.

Among them, screenwriter Wang Zichen is the only one who knew about the "The Last of Us" project in advance.

The script work is too important and the workload is too large.

Such a delicate story must be revised word by word.

At the same time, translation is also a top priority.

Translation will more or less lose the meaning of many lines that were originally intended to express.

"New project, "The Last of Us."

After saying the name of the game, Lin Mo began to explain the design points one by one.

"The Last of Us" is a highly completed game, and it is difficult to find any major problems.

In all aspects, it is a perfect god of war.

Especially in the shaping of characters and storytelling skills.

"The Last of Us" is a game similar to a road movie.

The definition of a road movie has gradually become looser over time. Simply put, the protagonist embarks on a journey because of something.

There is a difficulty in this type of subject matter. If it is not filmed well, it is easy to be "scattered" and it is very dependent on the narrative rhythm.

It is easy to give the audience (player) a feeling that this movie (game) has no main line, and it goes here today and there tomorrow.

This is the so-called scattered.

Whether it is literature or film and television, it is a taboo to easily change the map, and the biggest feature of the road movie type is that the protagonist is always on the journey until the adventure is completed at the end, or the answer is found, or a complete character arc is formed.

But "The Last of Us" avoids this with a perfect narrative rhythm. How did it do it?

That is two unique characters, Joel and Ellie.

The "scattered" appearance is condensed together by characters and delicate emotions.

At the same time, the game also uses many unconventional narrative methods. For example, at the beginning of the game, on the night when global civilization fell, what happened to Joel made the players who played the first game completely enter this world in less than half an hour.

This is another wonderful feature of "The Last of Us", that is, the sense of substitution.

This is a typical game that relies on characters to advance the plot. The purpose of all plots is to shape the characters.

Therefore, the character's personality must be distinct, and every plot twist that changes the character must be convincing.

Why is the death of Iron Man in Avengers 4 so popular?

It is because the audience has witnessed every mental journey of the character, and the character has become the audience's friend.

The same is true in The Last of Us.

The dialogue and interaction between the characters can clearly understand their personalities. What is even more valuable is that there is no explanatory dialogue in the dialogue, which does not make the character look like a talking human instruction manual.

For example, Ellie's past is rarely mentioned in the game.

But players all know that this little girl should have no one to take care of her and her education level is limited.

Which little girl says "Fuck you" all day long and kills people without hesitation?

A character who was born after the apocalypse, who is strong in heart but eager for recognition, is vividly portrayed.

If no world has ever experienced the apocalypse, one would doubt whether Ellie has a real person prototype.

A game that relies on characters and stories as the main driving force, and achieves this, is almost a perfect existence. (End of this chapter)