After thinking all morning, William still hadn't settled on what this "era-defining" game should be.
He grabbed a quick bite at a fast-food place near the building, then came back to the studio. He stopped obsessing over the big game idea and turned his focus to developing Life Restart Simulator.
The total script had passed 100,000 words, covering life from age 0 to 200. Based on the player's choices, they would gain different stats—six of them in total—which would directly affect the story's direction.
Writing the story was a lot like writing a novel. The hard part was figuring out how to link the different events together to create a real sense of interaction.
He worked on it all afternoon and finished about half the workload. But he just couldn't keep going. Even though the private space helped him stay in a super productive state, it didn't get rid of physical hunger or mental fatigue.
Aunt Lisa and her family wouldn't be back until the evening, so William just grabbed something simple to eat outside.
When he got home, instead of going straight to his room, he sat down at the piano.
He pressed the first key without any plan, then followed his feeling for the second and third notes, slowly closing his eyes. His fingers moved freely, and his mind entered a state beyond himself.
William felt more open-minded and clear-headed than ever before.
Back to the first question.
What is missing in the game market?
Attention.
Games don't get players' interest because there are no good games. No good games means no players, no players means no traffic, no traffic means no capital, and no capital means no good games. It's a complete dead cycle.
What's the key here?
Capital.
As long as there's investment, good games can definitely be made. And even the worst game can get players if enough money is spent on promotion. But bad games can't keep players, so you need both a good game and strong capital to break the current cycle.
But why would capital invest in the game market?
Returns.
Right now, the market doesn't lack good games, and WeChat games, backed by Tencent, are also examples of capital investment. But neither Earth Games nor WeChat games have truly seen returns yet.
One just took advantage of the free software policy, while the other hasn't made any profit at all.
Real returns come from hundreds of millions of players — their wallets are an untapped gold mine.
So what kind of game can really drain players' wallets?
A quick look at Earth's game revenue rankings gives the answer instantly — "Honor of Kings."
If you ask an elementary school student on Earth who Li Bai is, they might not remember he's the "Poet Immortal," but they'll definitely say he's a jungler assassin.
That's the scary power of cultural export.
Of course, doing this kind of "sideways" cultural export on Blue Star might not even pass game approval — William himself might get investigated. But don't forget, "Honor of Kings" also has an international version.
Part of "Honor of Kings'" success comes from its characters — all familiar figures that give players a sense of closeness.
Most people on Earth may not know much about foreign history, but on Blue Star, world history is taught from a young age. Ancient figures from major cultural spheres are familiar to students, and in recent years, with imported movies — DC, Marvel, and the like — players can feel that same closeness in "Honor of Kings International."
Most importantly, weakening the influence of outside cultural spheres matches official policy. If it can get official support, the benefits would be endless.
Superman? Just a top-lane crowd control hero.
Warlord Caesar? Just a tank charging the front line.
…
As for whether this kind of marketing helps with exports — the pan-Chinese cultural sphere has nearly three billion people, about 45% of the world's population. That's the biggest market.
New folder: "Honor of Kings."
William's thoughts switched smoothly between his personal space and reality. He copied some of the game's settings from the internet and saved them for now.
Cocos2dx can't handle developing "Honor of Kings." A more powerful game engine is needed. William's target is Unity, but Unity requires 50 reputation points to download, and he only has 29 — short by 21 points.
Even though he wants "Honor of Kings" to be Earth Games Ltd.'s first self-developed and published game, that doesn't mean he can't work with other companies in the meantime.
With the success of "Jump Jump" as proof, and the five-year strategic cooperation already signed, William is sure WeChat Games won't refuse any partnership offers from Earth Games. With WeChat's resources, reputation points will be easy to earn.
He closed the folder, then before starting work on "Life Restart Simulator," he checked the data of the games already released.
"Piano Tiles" downloads: 47,929,133
Overall rating: 4.1
Media rating: 4.8 (1)
Yesterday's promotion was a big success, sending downloads soaring.
"2048" downloads: 37,014,422
Overall rating: 4.8
Media rating: 4 (1)
Growth is steady. No surprises, but nothing unexpected either.
"Classical Poetry Crossword" downloads: 77,449,941
Overall rating: 4.9
Media rating: 5 (1)
With strong official support, it's almost scary. The greater Chinese cultural circle has around 600 to 700 million primary and secondary school students, so there's still a lot of room for growth. This is also the "learning app" William is most optimistic about. Once "Life Restart Simulator" is done, he'll immediately roll out the new mode.
"Jump Jump" active users online: 102,779,102 / total active users: 2,274,953,100
The growth in total active users has clearly slowed, while average online active users have stayed around 100 million. In stock market terms, it's entered a sideways stage with small price fluctuations—perfect for attracting investment.
This was originally Cynthia's project. Thanks to it, she could've gotten several promotions and at least doubled her salary, but she gave that up to trust William. Thinking about it is a little touching.
Still, knowing she'll get 10% of the profits later, William suddenly didn't feel bad at all.
By midnight, William had finally sorted out all the storylines. Next was coding the logic, which would be easy—since the gameplay was just a single click, the workload was basically zero.
"Your account ending in (xxxx) has received a transfer of 1.145.059 dollar"
Seeing a number even higher than yesterday's gave William quite a scare. He quickly checked the game data and found that "Classical Poetry Crossword" had already reached over 90 million downloads, with 100 million just around the corner.
He was going to rest, but got so excited he couldn't sleep. After all, the milestone reward for Stage Five was pretty tempting. Sure, "Jump Jump" had already unlocked who-knows-how-many milestones, but the two were different types of games, so you couldn't compare them directly.
Late at night.
["Classical Poetry Crossword" downloads surpass 100 million! Milestone unlocked!]
[Milestone reward: "Classical Phrases"]
Classical phrases?
The earlier milestones gave "Classical Poetry" from beginner to master level, but what on earth were "Classical Phrases"?
After receiving the knowledge upload, William realized he had learned an incredible number of ways to say certain words. For example, just the word "I" could now be pronounced dozens of different ways, each with its own written form—though all limited to Chinese.
Hmm… maybe this would be useful one day.
As for switching careers to become an archaeologist, better not scare people like that. Getting caught and studied wouldn't be fun.