Station B acquired the mobile game company Magic Explosion Network, holding 100% of the shares
Recently, Station B has taken another step in mobile games. According to the enterprise investigation data, Guangzhou Magic Explosion Network Technology Co., Ltd. had a change of industry and commerce on March 25 and the original shareholders have withdrawn, and the new shareholder, Shanghai Bilibili Technology Co., Ltd., holds 100% of the shares, which means that Station B is wholly owned by magic explosion network. The legal person was replaced by Zheng Binwei.
In addition, industrial and commercial information shows that Founded in January 2022, Mobang Network Technology is a company whose main business is mobile game development, with a registered capital of 1.074 million yuan, and its business scope includes animation game development; software development; network culture management; Internet information services; and the second type of value-added telecommunications services.
Specifically, the main business of the magic explosion network is the development and operation of comic game mobile games, and the comic works that have been released include "My Hero Academia: The Strongest Hero" and "Baby Bee: Abyss Angel". Among them, the game "Baby Bee: Angel of the Abyss" has a certain technical accumulation at the level of cartoon rendering of 3D models and ARPG action tuning development, which can be seen that the company has a certain sense of market smell for the "two-dimensional" category.
In this way, station B, which regards mobile game agency and operation business as one of the main sources of revenue, is wholly invested in the stock to enhance its own technical reserves, thereby enhancing the development ability of self-developed mobile games.
In fact, the intention of B station to increase the power reserve of two-dimensional mobile games and film and television directions is not a secret, as early as the Q2 financial report released by B station in August 2021, showing that it will enter a new stage in the industrial structure of the game, forming a new structure of distribution, self-research and intermodal transportation, and CEO Chen Rui also said: "Self-research will be the first focus at present, and half of the game revenue will come from self-developed games in the future." ”
In November 2021, Station B took a stake in Beijing Mebinus Technology Co., Ltd. and held 20% of the shares, becoming the company's second largest shareholder in one fell swoop. Founded in 2020, Mebinus is an incubation system company of Kingsoft World Tour, and its founder Fu Tao led Mebinus to devote himself to the research and development of two-dimensional games.
Then, on March 15 this year, Station B also invested 30 million yuan to launch a strategic investment in Beijing Roaming Valley Information Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brilliant Communications.
It can be said that the acquisition of the magic explosion network by station B will promote the research and development process of the two-dimensional game and enhance its own strategic reserves, and the magic explosion network with high-quality content production and research and development capabilities will also help B stand on the road of "self-research" to move forward better, and what kind of spark can collide between them, we still need to wait and see.
Tencent invested in Killsquad developer Novarama
On March 31, according to official sources, Tencent took a stake in Novarama, the developer of Killsquad, but has not yet disclosed the scale of the investment. Notably, the latter is currently working on a new multi-platform MMO product.
"Sir Newton said that if you want to see farther, you must stand on the shoulders of giants." Commenting on the deal, Dani Sanchez-Crespo, CEO of Novarama, said: "Partnering with Tencent, the world's leading online game publisher, opens up a vast world of possibilities for us. Today is a wonderful day not only for us, but also for the entire Spanish development community. Thanks to everyone involved in this journey, I can't wait to share what we're doing. ”
Highly creative development team
Founded in 2003, Novarama is a game development studio based in Barcelona, Spain, and for more than a decade since its inception, it has been developing game products for Sony and has produced and published the Invizimals series of games on PSP, PSVITA and PS3, and its gameplay is a pioneer in augmented reality, digital goods and cross-media.
What is a pioneer? In terms of the first series of works released in 2009, the common card battle games at that time were often played through virtual cards, and the disadvantage of this kind of play was the lack of participation brought by physical card play, but the way of playing "Invisible Monster" was more novel, through the PSP special camera to identify the physical cards that had been placed on the plate - after selection, the card was placed in front of the PSP special camera, and the corresponding monsters would be presented from the PSP screen and fought.
In the game, the player's battle operation will be based on physical cards, which means that the advantages of the physical card game and the advantages of the virtual card game are combined, this intake of physical card images, with the help of 3D drawing software generated by the game characters or special effects combined together displayed in front of the screen, and with the player to cooperate with the monsters represented by the cards to play a vivid 3D battle game is really eye-catching, and moreover, the player can also interact with the monsters with their hands.
The way to win is that in the duel of the monsters, the player places the control of the card duel in order, and the first to take multiple positions in the square is the winning party.
The hits of the original series paved the way for the series' successors: Invisible Monsters 2: Shadowlands to top the charts, and 2013's Invisible Monsters: League has been PSVITA's number one selling game in Spain, Italy, Portugal and France.
According to the team's official data, "Invisible Monster" has won more than a dozen international awards so far, sold more than 2.5 million sets of works and spawned more than 30 product lines, and even based on "Invisible Monster", the content produced by Novarama has also been featured on TV shows in eight countries, which can be described as popular.
The excitement is not over
In 2016, the studio became independent from Sony, and the most recent new work is the above-mentioned "Killing Squad", which has been released on the Steam platform in 2019. This is a dark style MMOTPS that supports up to four players to team up, blending two major game elements of double stick shooting and slashing enemies, and the fusion of elements also presents a fast-paced brushing experience throughout the game.
Killing Squad
There are a total of four classes to choose from, including two ranged and two melee. First is Troy, a famous smuggler, gambler, and gunner who shoots and clones himself with a plasma gun; then Zero, an offensive medical robot that can fire laser cannons and provide healing to his allies; Cosmo, a cargo technician who fights with a giant mallet; and finally a monk warrior named Cass, who uses his sword to engage in melee combat with enemies and can use skills to evade damage based on combat conditions.
Although the development team has combined arPG elements with TPS, behind the refreshing battle, the game still has details such as lack of content, single equipment system and lack of novice guidance, and to some extent, the failure to properly deal with the above problems may be an important reason why the game has not shined.
There is no doubt that Novarama Studio is a very creative and market-insight development team, and Tencent's stake may inject a shot in the arm for the entire team, in turn, Novarama's future development will also feed Tencent and provide more exciting works for global players.
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