article from “grape game”, author: Thomas skull. The title picture comes from “The Original God”.

In the past two years, “change” and “transformation” have become high-frequency vocabulary in the game industry.

He Yang, vice president of Sanqi Games, said that they want to launch a reform of All in diversified boutiques. “There is no big determination. This is a matter of life and death.” Xishanju CEO Guo Weiwei said that the company was before They can only do martial arts MMO, but in order to change they have set up more than 3 two-dimensional projects, “must be stepped out.” In 2019, Tencent executives once hired several studio group bosses to open a “self The “Research Capability Upgrade” meeting initiated the third reform of the self-research business in 16 years.

Traffic dividends have decreased, and users’ complaints about routines have increased. “Original God” ranks first in the world in revenue… Undercurrents are surging, and the big ships have switched channels in the direction of “industrialization” and “differentiation.” Just to hold the wind and waves, still stand upright.

Who will fall behind in this transformation tide? Who has the chance? Under the tide, hidden the deepest and most urgent hopes and worries of this generation of game companies.

Industrialization

In this era, “industrialization” has almost become a common keyword for large and medium-sized game companies.

How important is industrialization? Ma Xiaoyi, senior vice president of Tencent, gave an example: They once took a scene of a certain 3A game and looked for the best outsourcing company to evaluate it, and found that its cost was 200,000 to 250,000 US dollars; but a mature 3A team might It only costs between 20,000 and 30,000 dollars-which means a huge cost gap.

And this year, “The Original God”, which cost more than 100 million US dollars, has deepened the industry’s understanding of this issue. Xindong.com CEO Huang Yimeng believes that products such as “Shenxian Dao” and “Dota Legend” have made the industry swallow poison pills, making everyone feel that low-cost projects can also succeed; copying the high-cost model of “Yuan Shen” Conducive to the development of the industry. ShunAccording to his logical deduction, industrialization is the premise of high cost.

“The Original God”

In order to achieve industrialization, many companies are restructuring their R&D processes.

Take the three-seven game as an example. Their hit “Eternal Era” almost didn’t use the mid-to-high-end features of Unity 3D, while the recent “Douro Continental 3D” used PBR. In the words of producer Xiaofeng, they were able to make a map in more than a month, but now from the original painting to the model, to the scene objects and lighting tuning, it would take 4-6 months.

Huang Yimeng said that the corporate WeChat signature of Xindong co-founder Dai Yunjie is “Excel is used for 2D game planning, and the engine is used for 3D game planning.” Because they have discovered that the company has been using it in the past few years. Excel is a game, and now I am learning to use the engine.

The heartbeat “Torch Light: Infinite”

Affected by this, engine capabilities have become the pursuit of many companies. Senior headhunter Vivi said that the most in-demand program positions are Engine, UE4, TA and Zhongtai. Newly-emerging leading companies such as Lilith, Folding, Mihayou and Xindong all have UE4 projects, and even IPs like “Miracle for All 2” have also used UE4. The industry’s popularity can be imagined.know.

Even Tencent NetEase, which is already sufficiently industrialized in the eyes of many people, is also creating more complex production pipelines through investment exchanges and self-built teams to catch up with overseas host manufacturers. For example, NetEase established Sakura Studio, which focuses on console game development. Its person in charge is the former Development Director of Bandai Namco Studios; while Tencent’s Photon is using UE4 to develop an open-world shooter game “Code: SYN” , Its goal is the global PC and host.

Photon’s “Code: SYN”

In order to ensure the efficiency of industrialization, game companies need to face endless details. Guo Weiwei introduced that Xishanju needs to ensure the orderly iteration of the production pipeline without reducing production. For this reason, both the engine group and the art group in the middle stage have dedicated teams that are not responsible for production, but specialize in running new processes. “So R&D investment is big.”

What’s more troublesome is that the cycle of industrialization is also difficult to determine. Yao Runhao, CEO of Foldpaper Network, said that the 3D effect of “Shining and Warmth” has been adjusted for a whole year: “Originally, the team said that this thing can be researched in one month, but after one month, they tell you: life has fallen into despair. But it feels like you can give it a try… If you are a person who is particularly concerned about the price/performance ratio, when would you say this? Every day you try is money! But we will try our best to try again. “

In order to pursue industrialization, game companies are bound to pay a huge price. A head company CEO said that they disbanded a team with a cost of more than 50 million and doubled the budget for a new project. In the end, the result of “the research and development strength is not left behind”. Many projects have also introduced