Hello everyone, this is the positive shock game, I am your positive shock little brother.
Recently, another "fried cold rice" game "Sword Seal Magic" landed on Steam on February 24th! At that time, many players called this game "China's Diablo", which can be said to be the peak of domestic ARPG in 19 years.
"Sword Sealing Magic Record" may not be well understood by new players, but in the impression of many old players, in the domestic stand-alone market in the millennium, this so-called ARPG carrying handle of the "Sword Sealing Magic Record" not only attracted many players and won a lot of honors, but also brought the development company's pixel software to the front of the stage, so that everyone remembered this game company with strong innovation ability and development strength.
However, in the course of pixel software for more than 20 years, although it has developed 4 extremely classic game IP, which is called the most amazing game company in China, it has been pit by the operator and once on the verge of bankruptcy, until now it has not eased up, how magical is such an experience? And listen to the little brother slowly...
Once poor to the point of bankruptcy, but relying on the "Sword seal" to benchmark "Diablo 2"
The beginning of the pixel software can be said to have a lot of similarities with the target software, after all, the initial members are almost all from the target software, but unlike the early stage of the target software, because there are only 11 members in the early stage of the establishment, everything starts from scratch, so the pixel software faces financial problems at the beginning.
Since its inception in March 2002, just a few months after the funding of pixel software has been severely shorted, the dream of game development has been hit hard, and 11 members have had to borrow money from their families to keep the team running.
However, the extremely high quality of "Sword seal magic record" has attracted the attention of foreign game company CENTRIC INTERACTIVE in the semi-finished stage, which not only brings financial support to pixel software, but also provides technical guidance for it in the AI part. The addition of Boyasi from Treasure Island later enhanced the game's storytelling balance.
Kung Fu pays off, and pixel software has brought the pinnacle of ARPG - "Sword Sealing Magic Record" only 9 months after its establishment.
This domestic ARPG, which borrows from "Diablo 2", rushed to the top 10 of the well-known game media Gamespot role-playing game list in the United States for 10 consecutive days after listing, and ranked first for 3 consecutive days, benchmarking the AAA masterpieces such as "Diablo 2" and "Neverwinter Night" in the same list, for a time the limelight was the same, and Pixel also relied on this game, and Xishanju, Zulong, and Fanatics and called the four major game studios in China.
However, such a domestic masterpiece, at the time of piracy, the final genuine sales were only 70,000 sets, for pixel software such achievements can be said to be a failure, under the subsistence, in order to obtain the support of players, pixel software even put a paragraph in the game to "request" players to buy genuine games.
Being miserable by the stand-alone market, but jumping into another bigger pit with "Sword OL"
In view of the overall chaos and downturn of the stand-alone market, Pixel is determined to transform the development of online games, and the excellent quality of the "Sword" series has also attracted the attention of Sohu, and reached a cooperation with it to win the operation right of "Sword 1".
The story seems to be quite smooth here, with the support of the first batch of domestic listed Internet gangsters Sohu, the golden father, coupled with the development ability of pixel software has always been reliable, "Sword 1" inherits the excellent pedigree of the stand-alone version, the classic combo system as the main hit, in the battle setting almost surpassed all online games at that time, obviously it is a strong combination, about to sweep the domestic online game circle.
However, after Sohu gained the dominance, Sohu turned "Sword 1" into a free game, and adopted the model of prop charging to directly push the "Sword 1" that emphasized operability into the abyss. Because most players don't buy it, even if they spend more money to promote the game, they can't change the reality of "don't want to play without kryptonite".
Later, pixel software sold the copyright of "Sword" to Sohu, and the first time it cooperated with the big guy, it lost all the praise of its own game, and even sold this classic IP.
The nightmare has only just begun, and pixels are destined to jump repeatedly in various pits
However, the nightmare of pixel software is not over, although it continues to develop games with its consistent high quality, but the shortcomings in operation make it have to find a relatively reliable operator to help it operate the game, and this time, it found Tencent, which is more powerful than Sohu, and also jumped into a bigger pit.
Pixel's second masterpiece in the online game industry is "Seeking Immortals", which bears the title of "Traditional Chinese Mythological Art Film Online Game", known as the most Chinese style game, at the beginning it did bring great freshness to players, and in early 2012, it achieved 460,000 people online at the same time, making many peers hopeless.
However, like "Sword 1", under the operation of Tencent, the game is constantly revised, and the player level is constantly improving, but it does not bring a better game experience, but more and more kryptonite. In the words of the player, it is "since opening level 70, suddenly it is the same as grabbing money".
If the players who abandoned the pit at that time knew that the game was operated at a level of 100 or above, but they used the first few versions of the skill map, pet settings and map copies, the whole painting style was becoming more and more inclined to cheap page games, I don't know if they would be glad that they abandoned the pit early, or because of the decline of the game and feel hated iron and steel?
Unfortunately, after getting on the same boat, all the games developed next have to be handed over to Tencent to operate, which is also doomed to the tragedy of "Sword 2OL" that pixel software is ready to use as a turnaround.
"Sword 2OL" is the pixel software painstaking work, and is also adhering to the consistent high quality, is the representative of the domestic action martial arts at that time, by many players is considered to be "the peak of the action martial arts", whether it is excellent combat action settings, or a variety of gameplay, and in that period has been launched "night battle wadang" this kind of chicken-eating gameplay, people feel that this game will bring a brilliant pixel software by a brilliant.
However, this game was finally "pressed to death" by Tencent, and some players speculated that the reason was to make way for the "Tianya Mingyue Knife OL" that cost it a huge amount of resources to launch.
The promotion of "Sword 2OL" has been tepid, and the promotion of the game almost relies on the spontaneous promotion of this fan. After painstaking development, it can be said that it is laissez-faire, and the ultra-long test time seems to have no end, which consumes the patience of fans and other players.
The way of not updating for a long time after the launch makes players feel the real attitude of the operator and does not pay attention to this game at all.
So update the content and gameplay is all right? Unfortunately, it is updated with an increasingly crazy kryptonite activity, which can be described as exhausting and fishing, trying to circle the player's last bit of money; after waiting for a lot of time, the new gameplay "Horse War" makes the operability of the game worthless, becoming the last straw that crushes the game, and finally enters the failure.
The younger brother said to you:
Speaking of this, I believe that there is no need to talk about the other two blockbuster IPs in the hands of pixel software, "Delusional Mountains and Seas" and "Brave Adventure", they are also just launched when they were fired, and finally rely on the same pit method to directly send the player's sight.
Pixel software, which started with "Sword", its own strength is not bad company, after being favored by capital, it also entered the capital market, but finally was pit by capital that even his mother did not know, and the performance in the stock market in recent years was also very unsatisfactory, not only the disclosed revenue and net profit declined year after year, the development ability that depended most on survival was gradually exhausted, and no good works could be produced anymore.
A positive question: Do you think pixel software can still turn around with "Sword Seal Magic Record"?