No one wants to avoid the dilemma of “a dilemma.”
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Game Grape” (ID: youxiputao), author Fiss.
The numbness in the comfort zone will cause many developers to fall into the pit.
Because, before the last leg fell, many small teams didn’t realize that they would step on the ground on a seemingly safe road.
The cost of falling is extremely high. An indie game producer, describing the fatality of an accidental sinking: “If you step on a pit, you will be involved in a lot of things. You can’t go to work as planned, go to the next game; it even goes Will affect your life.”
No one wants to avoid the dilemma of this “difficult dilemma.” But in fact, in the past few years of domestic independent games, many small teams have stepped on the spot in unexpected places.
In the process of contact with independent gamers, Grape King can always listen to them about the “unconscious” of the small team.
Pit 1: The sense of sight is a problem that needs to be circumvented
Limited by financial and human resources, the small team is not a small number of things. In the first place, I think it is a strange circle of “from the reference to the plagiarism.”
On August 21, Grape King went to Shanghai to participate in the event, during which he met Liu Shuhan. Liu Shuhan is the co-founder of Chengdu Longyou Tianxia Studio. During the event, we leaned against the wall and chatted about the “black history” of this small studio.
In the past few years, Longyou World has spent most of its time developing and optimizing the “Three Kingdoms: Han Dynasty Hegemony”. This is a strategy stand-alone. At present, the Android version sold more than 210,000 copies on the TapTap platform and received 8.6 points. Try to look at the comment area, you can always see the word “conscience” flash. About three years ago, this work was squandered on the steam because of the controversy of the art material and the sense of play.
“Hammer Ending” Mobile Games
“This thing makes us more famous.” Liu Shuhan later used a crying expression to examine the “blessings in disguise” experience. However, according to him, before the word-of-mouth crisis occurred, Longyou did not realize that the material dispute was actually a pit.
This unintentional loss begins with their dependence on art outsourcing. Liu Shuhan said that there are many similarities in the art of mobile games and page games in the three countries, and the art outsourcing companies that have served this kind of games for a long time have “have been used to it.” Longyou Tianxia used this “habit” at the time. , understood as a mature program.
“It doesn’t matter if you stay in the domestic environment, but only we are going to Steam.” Liu Shuhan said that the domestic three-country strategy game, “10 has 9 likes”, but the reason why they are not targeted by the core players is that they did not go International platform. This is the reason why Longyou has felt the peace of mind.
But after being slammed by Steam users, Longyou World quickly rethought and pushed the game’s art to redo. “At that time, I also crossed the river by feeling the stones. There is not much experience in Steam distribution.” The other party told me that the game’s reputation was lost because of insufficient preparation and because of insufficient understanding of the Steam platform.
It is difficult for domestic Steam users to tolerate the problem of “visual perception” in games. Whether it is similar in art or similar in gameplay. At the beginning of this year, shortly after the release of the “Great Immortal Simulator”, it was also caught in a “plagiarism storm.”
The producer of the work, Black (Liao Qiu Key), recently responded to the question of the player’s doubts about the platform, and also talked about the game’s “visual perception” problem. He said that before the game was released, Tencent’s game tasting was overwhelmed by a controversial potential situation.
“After telling me that the line will be smuggled by the player, because it is too strong.” Hearing this evaluation, Black felt angry and listed a bunch of examples to prove that “our world is not at all with the world of rw.” same”. But Tencent told him,”It doesn’t make sense. Players have no reason to be sensible for you. It’s a luxury to have a deeper understanding of re-evaluation.” And the follow-up storm has also made Black deeply understand the prospects of Daxie.
He finally summed up this experience in his informed response: the consequences of “visual perception” are more serious than expected. The gameplay is the most important, but the first impression is very deadly. In particular, the types of games that require in-depth understanding or are very small in themselves can be circumvented early.
Pit 2: Not many players are willing to understand your hardships
After communicating with Liu Shuhan, Grape King met Feiyan Islands (Zeng Xiancheng), the developer of “Light Memory”. And my conversation with the other party did not circumvent the topic of material disputes. For him, the issue of material disputes is also a lesson learned from “unconsciously” – he did not realize that the creative habits of the years will gradually drag themselves into a vicious circle.
At the beginning of this year, “Light Memory” released the EA version on Steam. The FPS game was sold on the next day, and the sales volume reached 20,000. The favorable rate was as high as 96%. Some C-side media, for the eyeball, in the report, rendering this as “a 3A masterpiece developed by one person.” In the process of the game being enlarged by the media, the infringement of its beauty resources has also been exposed to the public.
Light Memory
The game itself and the developer suffered a bit of a slap in the face. After the replacement of the art resources, the dissatisfied voice gradually subsided. The Feiyan Islands told me that the “model material library of the early version of the game belongs to the integration package, and did not figure out the source of the source of each model”, which led to the subsequent potential problems. The controversial material involved in the game is finally resolved through consultation with the copyright party.
The pits in the eyes of Feiyan Islands are more due to the early creation methods. “Because of the time and manpower relationship, I had to use the material library to create.” He mentioned in the communication that developing games in his spare time is of interest and does not seek commercial returns. However, since 2017, feedback from players who “buy it out” and “dare to dare to buy it” has appeared more and more in the trailer of “Huangming Memory”, which makes the Feiyan Islands see commercialization. Possible.
Therefore, “the creation at the time wanted to achieve a certain value in a more sophisticated way.” The value of the other word mentioned by the other party is related to personal interests, expectations and support for fans, and the goal of commercialization. . But for him, “likeIf you really want to do 100% manual creation, it will take 2-3 years to make it; and this four-year project means that the game will never come out again, and it may be outdated.
Left is “God Bless” and on the right is the monster in the early version of “Light Memory”
Under this kind of mentality, Feiyan Islands adopted the method of “reprocessing and deriving some models” to promote the progress of the project. He told the grape priest, “These things that kept talking about cooperation and running the exhibition in 2018 also disrupted my development progress, but in fact no one talked about success.”
In the end, “Light Memory” was put on Steam and sold for sale. The creative method adopted by the Feiyan Islands has been criticized and considered by the players to be an unhealthy trend of “copying first and then changing”.
We can understand the difficulty of creating alone. But a standardized game market, and a game ecology with a growing awareness of copyright, cannot agree with the creators’ refusal to use “difficulty” as a “fake”.
3rd pit: Don’t believe that domestic games have a feeling of blessing
We have discussed that the current domestic players are more and more resentful of the so-called domestic feelings. This group of new generation players, with a strong sense of ownership, they regard the game as an entertainment service; and the so-called creators, sometimes in their eyes, do not have much similarities and differences with the restaurant’s cooking masters, there will be no more advanced recognition . And many start-up small teams do not have the experience of facing new players, and perhaps also use “feelings” as a blessing factor.
Just a few days ago, the master of “Last Wood” told the grape prince, they regretted “promoting the country to issue.”
This is a marine theme survival game created by two developers. On August 23rd, “Last Wood” was launched on Steam and sold as EA. In a few days, the game’s evaluation indicators fell to “inconsistent.” Some of them are more rude comments, and the blunt game is “domestic garbage.”
Last Wood
Being so negated of value, the founders are naturally unwilling. What is harder to understand is that when the game is still in an imperfect state, why is it not enough to be inclusive?
“The EA version BUG is really a lot. But some Youtuber who have broadcasted us (games), will still broadcast our EA version.” The main show showed me a bad comment written by domestic players, this player played 60 After hours, due to a bug change, the red thumb was turned upside down. The other party feels that although the evaluation is the player’s freedom, but this slightly random content may be caused by the user not knowing the difference score.
The bad situation after the game went online, so that the main creation has some regrets. They think that the national zone may not be a wise decision in the morning. The reason is that it has pulled a lot of non-target users; secondly, it is possible that the country (user) will have higher requirements for completion.
The creators of the game creators reminded the grape buddy of a startup team that had been interviewed. This team is currently developing a game that focuses on the physics engine. There is a certain similarity between this work and a certain work on Steam; but the producer has confidence in physical effects and overall quality.
We were worried about the “visual perception” of the game after watching the game, and told the producers that the domestic players have high moral requirements, and the game may be controversial in terms of original innovation. The producer waved his hand and told us that this was not a problem, because he had already thought about the countermeasures.
And his thoughtful plan is to block the country and move to overseas markets. After the game has a good enough reputation and sales as an endorsement, he does not believe the accusation from domestic players, when it will form a storm.
The reason why the producer feels that this logic can be communicated is that he believes that overseas players have higher tolerance than domestic ones.
The fourth pit: the illusion brought by the minority recognition
For small teams, it is unrealistic to make the test magnitude large enough. But if you don’t take into account the sounds of the core users, the balance of the game may have potential problems.
In early July, a dark afternoon, the grape priest sat in the producer MuIn front of the flight, listen to the market reaction of the “hardcore mech” on the line Steam. The word of the game is far from expectations. According to the founder, this situation is because most players have objected to the logic of the single stick operation.
“Hard Core Mech”
“I was absolutely confident in the operation and core gameplay. After all, there are so many people who have verified it.” However, Mu Fei can’t imagine it anyway. The game has been going on for more than three years. R&D and testing, the results received relatively negative feedback in the part that confirmed itself.
He said “so many people”, including members of Rocket Boxing Technology, including related practitioners and enthusiastic players. In addition, in Rocket Boxing, “hardcore mech” can pass the crowdfunding, and they have already seen more optimistic market acceptance. After that, the game has had two time-limited tests. If you count the exhibitions you have participated in before and after, the game has actually faced the players many times. However, each time “does not reflect operational problems.”
The game has been tested by thousands of people during development
Improved, after the game was launched on Steam, there was a lot of calls for “Give me a double joystick operation”? This part of the demand is obviously already existed before the game is released. The reason why the Rocket Boxing team is negligent may not be able to circumvent the larger group of players who are not in contact with the core users when they are testing. .
Fleshy is the business of Rocket Boxing Technology. She told the grape prince that it is difficult for small teams to “out the circle” test; and under limited resources, what they can do is to let the players who have a good impression on the game to participate in the test.
This kind of test may have shielded the voice of non-core players invisibly.
Pit 5: Good feelings are not the same as the market
The Button Brothers also has an experience similar to Hardcore Mech.One of them is similar in that both games have been recognized at the show.
“Button Brothers” is a pixel wind platform jumping game. The Geocentric Game Studio has spent nearly four years on this project. Three times before and after the game, it evolved from the original two-player game to a Party Game with a single-player and multiplayer mode. The game is limited by the lack of financial resources and resources, and has never been able to reach a large number of players.
“Button Brothers”
But the work created by the Geocentric Game Studio has won a lot of recognition in the industry and won various independent game awards. At the same time, it also gave the players a good impression at the show. Producer Li Yuanyang once said that the joyful performance of a family in front of the booth has brought great encouragement to the team and even gave them more confidence in the market prospect of Party Game.
In fact, since the release of the EA version in June 2017, the sales volume has been bleak. Industry peers told Li Yuanyang that the party game that the geocentric game studio is optimistic about is difficult to find market space in China. To some extent, the self-confidence they found from the show was actually somewhat illusory.
Not long ago, in the exchange with Grape King, Li Yuanyang expressed his new opinion on the significance of participating in the exhibition: “Your work is liked at the exhibition and cannot represent it in the market. The level of welcome. Because at the show, any work is very popular. When the player buys a ticket to come in, he has to make himself feel value.”
Li Yuanyang believes that the feedback collected from the exhibition does not have a high reference value: on the one hand, they are not necessarily the target players of the game; on the other hand, it is difficult for players to give negative feedback during the exhibition. Even if there is, it is limited to the scene at the time.
The good feelings of passing passengers are far from the real market recognition. “Hard core mech” has the same experience. Flesh tells the grape prince: “There are quite a lot of people playing our games at the show. But from the results, these people didn’t buy games.”
Treading a pit is perhaps an important part of the growth of a small team
On the solitary road, there is no thoroughfare, and the so-called “pit” is not limited to the ones mentioned in our article. The best way to avoid stepping on the pit is to absorb the lessons of others and to increase your experience.
And many people verifyThe path that is passed is not always feasible. As people may have believed, this is the time to speak with quality; and the grape prince believes that it is now an era for players to speak. The game needs to follow the rules of creation, but it seems that it is even more difficult to avoid the laws of the market.
Li Yuanyang told the grape prince that he had been unable to digest the defeat of the “Button Brothers” and even once he was depressed. But the reason why I didn’t give up this project several times is that they always look forward and hope to adjust the state to cope with the changing market:
“We don’t want to be as silly as we used to be. After we failed, we thought about whether we could make an X-explosive project, do a project that is more in line with the current market, and then let the player Recognize us.”
As it says, stepping on the pit may be an important part of the growth of a small team. Since this is a loop that cannot be easily bypassed, developers are more likely to accept it than to fear it. Perhaps more important for developers than to prevent pits is to learn to quickly climb from the pit, pat the dust, and think about how to step out of your next step.
Treading a pit never means stopping.