Video Game Designer

On Saturday, according to the normal situation, except for some overtime and on-duty employees in the studio, most people will be on vacation, and Chuhe will also sleep in his home and sleep on the sofa while eating potato chips While playing the game.

But today Chuhe is going to lead a group of people to visit Tianhe Network, a small company from Shancheng.

"Is this the headquarters of Tianhe Network?"

Wearing a black and red coat, wearing glasses, about 40-year-old Wu Zifei, and wavy short hair, some baby fat Xu value.

Just as when Chu River visited Capcom in the early years and when visiting EA, they are also the same as Chu River at the moment for Tianhe Network.

"Compared with the gangsters of EA, Capcom and Nintendo, our Tianhe network also has a lot of roads to go, but I believe this road will be closer and closer." Chu He led the two people into Go inside the Tianhe Network, and point to the hand next to the height to do the introduction one by one.

These are all witnesses to the culture of Tianhe Network, from the beginning to the present.

At the beginning, Tianhe Network was prohibited from visiting the outside world, but after some changes, the company also specially decorated and opened a visit area. Any player or tourist media can visit at normal times.

Of course, the kind of visits are only for ordinary players, to see the culture of Tianhe Network, and honors. Some visits that involve a little content still need to be reserved.

Like Wu Zifei and Xu Du, they are not the ones who want to visit the Tianhe network, but most of them are rejected by Chuhe.

Only this time, on the one hand, Yao Daxian took the initiative to introduce him, and when he came back, he also heard about their experience. Then he decided to see him.

This is a game company from Shancheng. It used to make only one ACT game. Of course, it was not a big production of tens of millions, but a small production game. Then it suffered a fiasco.

"Only Chu always has the qualifications to say such things with confidence." The next Xu value said with some emotion.

Like most game producers in the industry, she is not a professional. Before that, she majored in civil engineering at the university. After joining Pas Meow in Shancheng, her professional experience is almost half a rookie.

But the domestic game industry also knows a little bit. How many manufacturers can confidently say that they are getting closer and closer to world-class game manufacturers such as EA, Capcom and Nintendo?

Listening to Xu value's sigh, Chu He just smiled and did not speak, but continued to take two people to visit the various departments of Tianhe Network.

Some of the more important places cannot be visited, so Chuhe takes them to visit the usual art development department, game experience area, and motion capture room belonging to Tianhe Network.

"It is really difficult to achieve such a result in China." Wu Zifei next to him sighed and sighed.

Unlike Yao Daxian and Zhang Ke, who are local Chinese game makers, Wu Zifei, a Chinese American, has also worked in THQ, which has developed Warhammer series and Heroes series.

But compared to ordinary people, he has experience in working with top foreign game companies, and after returning to China, he should understand what the domestic game environment is like.

When it comes to Chinese games, especially single-machine games, I can’t escape some of the stereotyped or accurate evaluations-poor, backward, boring, cottage, etc., not to mention going abroad, facing the world, or not because of feelings, I am afraid that Chinese players will not buy it themselves.

The emergence of the Tianhe network is really an exception. Before the development of Pas Meow, Wu Zifei returned to China with his team for about a year to develop an ACT game, but it was cracked only a few hours after the game was released. On the one hand, it is a factor of piracy, on the one hand, it is also a factor of the game itself.

"Do you want to invest?" As Wu Zifei recalled the past, he felt emotions, and Chu He's heart raised a speculation, hesitantly said.

The scene suddenly became quiet, and Wu Zifei smiled bitterly after two or three seconds.

"I want to visit Tianhe Network to talk to President Chu about the game. On the one hand, on the other hand, I really want to find investment." Wu Zifei said frankly.

Before setting up Pas Meow, Wu Zifei had set up a project, but because of team building and other reasons for the game, it ended in failure.

"Why did you choose us? After all, we are not angel investment." Chu He asked strangely.

Pulling investment, looking for Tianhe.com, it sounds like you want to buy canned oranges, and then ran to the stall selling oranges, which makes people feel very strange.

"Because we don’t want to play games with the original intention of the business, but with the original intention of the independent game, we have no reputation or even experience of failure. There are very few external funds that agree with our requirements. Invested in and bought Longzu Studio." Wu Zifei said towards Chuhe.

Not aiming at the original intention of business, not to say that you do not want to make money, in fact, independent games are also another existence relative to commercial games, and there is no clear distinction in essence. Generally speaking, the most obvious difference between independent games and commercial games is the profit aspect. Commercial games aim at market profitability in the early stages of planning, while independent games mainly focus on gameability and playability.

For example, the various krypton gold settings in the page game are obviously going for commercial purposes at the beginning. The gameplay needs to be considered later. The first consideration is commercial profit.

Finally, the two parties discussed it, and Wu Zifei showed Chu He a preliminary draft of the project book.

In the restaurant, after reading the first draft of about fifty pages, there is already a figure in the heart of Chuhe.

Unlike the IP sentiment of the swordsman biography, Pas Meow has no background and no sentiment can be consumed.

Coupled with deep-rooted thinking, Pas Meow wanted to be a pure stand-alone machine, he couldn’t put all the eggs in the domestic basket, because in their view, although the domestic stand-alone machine has begun to recover, the stand-alone market is still too much. Smaller, especially some unpopular games.

In the budget, this project will exceed 5 million. This is already a big investment project, especially a stand-alone project. The quality of the game in China is one aspect, and on the other hand, it also has blessings, such as starting from the surrounding markets. The peripheral products launched by Swordsman Biography, cheap Demon Hand and plastic umbrella are the best examples.

"We who play games, especially stand-alone players, can't just aim to return to the original goal, because it doesn't make sense to us, because it would be a waste of years of development time, and only three times the profit, even Four times, so that after the team pays the bonus, we have enough funds to invest more in the next project and gradually move towards a larger goal." Wu Zifei said.

Hearing Wu Zifei's words, Chu He nodded in agreement.

For a project with an investment of 5 million, if the final profit is 5 million, then for the entire company, it is actually a loss, because the development time and the team's bonus need to be deducted, the profit reaches twice the cost That is 10 million, which can only be said to be a payback. Only when the profit amount is three times or four times, the team can invest more.

This is why most companies that have no investment and no background have suddenly disbanded inexplicably after the success of the first game and the unfavorable response of the second game.

Because these companies have no room for failure, they must succeed and continue to succeed.

"It's a very interesting game~www.NovelMTL.com~ and it's almost perfect." Chu He turned off the document and looked at Wu Zifei. In fact, Chu He was already willing to invest in his heart, although it was only a reduced version. But with Chu He's eyes, he can naturally see that the other party has a complete set of ideas.

"This idea came very early. As early as when I was at THQ, it was like the person in charge at the time had submitted a plan for this project, but unfortunately the producer was not interested in this plan at the time." Wu Zifei said with a smile.

"Regarding the ratio of investment, there will be people in the company to discuss with you. I am basically irresponsible. The only thing I can promise is that as long as it does not seem to be the kind of deadly decision, I will not hinder game development and operation strategies." Chu He looked at Wu Zifei and said.

Chuhe has already decided to invest, but because Wu Zifei does not agree to a wholly-owned acquisition, he still invests according to the valuation ratio. Of course, these are negotiated by a dedicated person, although millions of investments are not for today’s Chuhe. Whatever it is, but he wasn't in Kaishantang, nor was he just coming to a domestic game company, he had to invest.

The reason for deciding to invest is that in addition to the opponent’s concept of stand-alone games and their own, it is more important that the opponent’s game project looks really interesting.